Citi: Teaching a Large Workforce to Embrace and Succeed in a Virtual Workplace

Challenge

During the economic downturn of the last few years, Citi was struggling with shrinking margins. Meanwhile, employees were seeking a greater work/life balance, and Citi sought to embark on a new initiative to go green.å

This confluence of challenge and opportunity led Citi to embrace a virtual workforce approach, reducing Citis overhead real estate costs and eliminating many employees expensive and long (average of three hours a day) commute.

The challenge was twofold:

  • At minimal cost, teach a huge workforce how to effectively work in a virtual environment.
  • Get all teams and individuals to accept and embrace this very different way of working.

Approach

Global Dynamics Inc. developed and delivered a series of webinars to explain the value of working virtually to all parties, employees, the customers, and the company. The webinars were focused on changing their mindset from a belief that they had to physically be in an office to an understanding that they could work well virtually.

Global Dynamics Inc. also developed a series of webinars to teach both leaders and staff of Citi the skills and competencies necessary to succeed in a virtual organization.

Further, we developed a knowledge transfer process for Citis in-house trainers to deliver the training, thus reducing the overall training cost. I n order to accomplish this, GDI delivered some of the initial programs and then enabled them to take over delivery through a train the trainerå program.

Results

  • With the rollout of these webinars, Global Dynamics helped to transform Citis learning environment from one that relied on face-to-face classroom experiences only, to a blended learning environment that supported interactive webinars, pre-recorded webinars, and distance self-learning courseware.
  • The virtual concept was well received. Our webinars accomplished a comfort level and an appreciation that working virtually had significant benefits and was something to embrace rather than fear.
  • Company expenses reduced following the first year transition, which included setup expenses.
  • Thousands of employees have taken the virtual training programs.