Passing on valuable knowledge: ‎ How HAI strengthened workforce loyalty using learning technology

Hammerer Aluminium Industries (HAI) offers sustainable solutions along the entire aluminium value chain for the transport, construction, and industrial sectors. They drive innovation in the areas of casting, extrusion and processing, with a high speed of implementation. The topic of sustainability is of key importance to them. HAI plays a pioneering role in the aluminium industry, with a recycling rate of up to 80%.

Although the company was only founded 16 years ago, it has achieved extremely rapid and healthy growth in recent years, while still remaining a down-to-earth family business. To make such growth possible and be prepared for the future, HAI places great emphasis on the values of trust, dynamism, and wealth of opportunities. Mutual trust is the basis for cooperation across the whole HAI workforce. The environment demands dynamism and quick, responsible decisions by the staff. This provides numerous opportunities for professional and personal development for everyone.

The fact that HAI has been awarded the "Top Employer Award Austria" many times shows that it cares about its people.

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Demographic change and changes in the job market played a decisive part in HAI deciding to address the topic of learning. For generations, HAI's workforce has learned on-the-job, at the machine and hasn't documented that knowledge, but instead passed it on orally. When people leave the company after 15 years of service, knowledge that is necessary for smooth operations is lost. This is why the company wanted to develop a hybrid learning model that combines practice — learning on machines — with theory, for example in the form of structured learning videos. In the modern working world, loyalty to companies has changed, resulting in increased turnover of people. As a result, HAI's experienced people have to train new talent much more often and manage a greater workload. The company was looking for a learning format that would support its people in this task and counteract the overload caused by the increasing labour shortage.

HAI became aware of Cornerstone in 2018 when a competitor had to temporarily suspend operations due to cyber attacks. In order to educate their workforce about security risks and teach it how to deal with them correctly, the company needed the right format – a learning platform on which content is documented and accessible to everyone, where quality requirements can be communicated within the company, and where people can actively participate in the learning process. The learning platform must also ensure that the learning sequences are completed and understood. This requirement for modern learning technologies was the trigger for the collaboration with Cornerstone.

HAI employs skilled tradespeople for whom a different, simpler learning approach had to be taken. Another factor was that over time, the way people learn has changed. Lengthy learning content, lasting 30 to 40 minutes, generally no longer corresponds to the attention span of people today. This is why the company wanted to design and provide new learning content to promote the development of its workforce. The flexibility of Cornerstone's learning tools was therefore the right solution for HAI.

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Learning is the future

The topic of learning has become extremely important in HAI's corporate culture, and not just because of the pandemic. Due to rapid developments in the world of work, tasks and requirements in everyday working life are changing. People have to reinvent themselves and learn every two to three years. HAI cares about exploiting the individual development and potential of its entire workforce. Opportunities to learn at work are no longer a "nice to have", but rather immensely important in order to be prepared for the future.

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Mobile access ensures greater flexibility

In the Cornerstone platform, the company was able to provide its people with learning content lasting 5 to 9 minutes, which they can also access on mobile devices. For example, they can access various learning content on how to operate the machines using a QR code on-site, on their smartphones.

Cornerstone was also used as a flexible learning tool during the pandemic. The employees were able to attend online seminars on the learning platform as an alternative, and were able to continue their training despite the challenging situation. They even became more adept at digital learning.

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Multilingual usage makes access to learning content easier

Dealing with different cultures and languages is becoming increasingly important for international companies. HAI is headquartered in Austria and has branches in three other European countries: Germany, Poland, and Romania. They are also pursuing plans to expand into South Korea. Cornerstone's learning platform enables HAI to translate learning content into different languages, making it available to people in different branches in their local language, which is a great advantage, especially for basic and standard training.

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Sustainability

Sustainable production is a high priority for HAI - it is part of the company's DNA - and is something they want to instil in their workforce with the help of learning tools. Aluminium has a reputation for being bad for the environment. HAI can produce aluminium with a low carbon footprint. In contrast to the European standard of 8 to 9 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of aluminium, the company only uses 2 tonnes of CO2. In order to continue to produce efficiently, it is important that the employees keep up with the changes and innovations in production and continually learn.

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Despite the labour shortage, HAI wants to be able to fill positions so that operations run smoothly. The company therefore positions itself as an attractive employer. However, it's even more important to retain the current workforce by strengthening their loyalty. Personal and professional development is particularly important to today’s workers. In order to understand the needs and goals of its people, HAI collects and analyses data with Cornerstone. This helps it to better tailor the learning offered and constantly improve training quality.