Lloyds Banking Group is committed to creating a more inclusive future for its employees and customers. And it’s committed to challenging racism and discrimination. Stats from the UK Stuart Spencer Board showed that Lloyds had to close the gap in its organisation and leadership.
Lloyds had already created a variety of content for its people-facing teams to educate them on the facts around race and racism. This included in-person and virtual workshops, aimed at people-facing teams and line managers. Sharing these data was crucial in creating lightbulb moments for many of the participants. Contributions by ethnic minority attendees brought the training to life.
But Lloyds’s employees wanted to keep learning, and better understand how they could make a difference, and where to go for support.
So, we created a web-based module combining a range of self-reflective activities. These were a confidence checker, interactive videos, and a chance to pledge to make a change.
And as a result of the learning, Lloyds reported that:
75% of employees completed the module within six weeks of its release – despite not being mandatory training.
It achieved a rating of 4.2/5 with 4252 ratings.
And has collected overwhelmingly positive feedback, which highlighted the thought-provoking content and the realism and nuance of the characters.
Lloyds wanted to expand the learning, making it available to 70,000 employees, and accessible 24/7 via a Learning Management System. The goal was for learners to not just better identify racism and discrimination, but to feel confident in taking action against it, and to know where they could raise concerns at the organisation.
The content we created with Lloyds covers four main areas:
The module begins by giving learners context around the importance of diversity and inclusivity, giving them a chance to reflect on their own current attitudes. Following this, learners step into the shows of a colleague and experience a day’s worth of typical microaggressions.
After developing more understanding of what racism and microaggressions look like, learners can practise being an ally – by taking action when they witness incidents, with examples of what they can say suggested throughout.
While earlier training was more about explaining the realities of racism and discrimination in Britain today, this module gave learners a way to understand how they can take action and make a positive difference in their daily working lives.
Before the module’s official release, around 720 employees tried it out. Lloyds reported a hugely positive reception at this stage, with colleagues recognising the authenticity of the scenarios they interacted with.
After the release, the module saw an even greater response:
Tackling racism and discrimination is a challenging, ongoing task, and we’re proud to have worked with Lloyds on a module that resonated with its employees.
By basing the scenarios on the real-life experiences of Lloyds employees, we created characters that learners could easily empathise with, and get them thinking about what they can do in their daily work lives to become better allies.
We’re always happy to talk to you about how immersive technologies can engage your employees and customers. If you have a learning objective in mind, or simply want to know more about emerging technologies like VR, AR, or AI, send us a message and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.