Reskill, upskill, but never stay still

In today’s tech-driven world, innovation is the future – and New Zealand’s small business sector is on the cutting edge thanks to a game-changing collaboration with academyEX

THE NEW ZEALAND government had its eye on accelerating the digitalisation of small businesses, but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020 it “put the burning platform underneath that plan”, says Malcolm Luey, director of innovation at the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE). “What I teach in government departments is innovation, and what we know is people learn better when you find a way for them to enjoy the learning,” Luey says. “We went to market with a specific set of requirements and said this is what we’re looking for – come and tell us how you would deliver it. And academyEX ticked all the right boxes.”

With over a decade of expertise, academyEX is a driving force in bespoke e-learning, transforming corporate training for professional development and internal mobility. Our collaboration with government agencies, corporations and institutions has resulted in meticulously crafted modules for impactful training programs. At the core of our mission is fostering professional growth, skill diversification and sustainability, delivering accessible and exciting courses across diverse industries. Acknowledging the distinctive challenges faced by adult learners, our bite-sized, engaging content ensures an enjoyable learning experience. Supported by a dedicated team of 100-plus experts, including academics and UX/UI designers, we are committed to seamless, on-time and on-budget delivery. Join over 80,000 learners in Australasia and embrace the future of corporate education with academyEX and our cutting-edge learning management system.

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“The creativity behind innovation is the willingness to think outside the box, try new things in a complex system and learn from them continuously; academyEX have proven they have that in spades”

Malcolm Luey, Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment

Technology is here, and it’s rapidly changing the way we live and work, making it incredibly important economically and socially. Technology, if used well, can build a more resilient workforce and lead to higher productivity, more efficiency, reduced stress and improved work-life balance, “but you have to lift people’s capability and understanding of digital ways of working in order to do that”, Luey says.

Frances Valintine, CEO and founder of academyEX, frames the issue in a broader context. When you hire someone, you’re hiring them for everything they know up until the day they start working for you. To use an analogy, you buy the best model of mobile phone you can, but it immediately begins devaluing unless you regularly update the software. There’s a spotlight on enhancing internal mobility because many roles will be massively disrupted by the likes of generative AI and automation, and nobody wants to lose good people. Reskilling employees allows them to move into new roles – ideally ones using high cognitive advancement – by shifting within an organisation to where the demand is.

“We are always thinking about how you can invest in your team so they’re continuously bringing the best information to their job: the latest data, the best insight, the new benchmarks,” Valintine says. “People tend to trade on their experience with a view that if it worked once it will always work, but we don’t live in that world any more. Whether you’re a small business owner or a multinational corporation, the single biggest factor in terms of success is how skilled your people are.” And once organisations accept they’re responsible for the investment, they have to learn how to make the required continued learning enjoyable, engaging and relevant to employees, Luey says, adding: “That’s the great innovation and expertise academyEX shared with us.”

academyEX, an Australasian provider of innovative learning solutions that build relevant skills and capabilities to match the requirements of organisations in a constantly changing world, replicated digitally "a very engaging and localised peer-to-peer learning experience". The centrepiece is the Digital Boost Educate platform, which is fully curated and run by academyEX and provides a fully immersive, Netflix-style video learning experience. Small business owners sign up at no cost, give details about their business, and the platform feeds them relevant videos. There are currently over 1,000 videos ranging from real-world stories of local businesses’ digital journeys to Q&A sessions with experts on how to get the most out of tools like Microsoft Office or a Google platform, to three-to-five-minute how-to videos. Though big multinationals put forth excellent, polished videos during the procurement process, “academyEX taught us that imperfection is good”. Luey says.

“We’re replacing the old and analogue with the new and digital. For any company, learning and development is about consistently making sure information is up to date, relevant and contextualised. That’s the way we approach all our projects”

FRANCES VALINTINE, ACADEMYEX

“The reason we get lost in YouTube videos is because amateur streamers are more authentic to us. Someone talking about how exhausting it is to be a small business owner while looking pristine doesn’t ring true. Frances and her team are the secret sauce because they created relatable, authentic videos.” From academyEX’s perspective, creating a project with longevity built in is important. Both sides shared a mutual understanding that there was a long-term view for the project and that change wouldn’t happen overnight. If the learning is engaging and done well, it becomes part of a person’s routine to refer to a trusted resource – like in the days of the YellowPages being the place to go to find information.

“We’re replacing the old and analogue with the new and digital,” Valintine says. “For any company, learning and development is about consistently making sure information is up to date, relevant and contextualised. That’s the way we approach all our projects.”

The future is tech-friendly

The solution

Published 28 Nov 2023

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For Luey, two stories encapsulate the power of the platform to create fundamentally more resilient careers. One small business owner left his profession in the middle of COVID, relying on his hobby business to feed his family. He started on the Digital Boost platform and within two years was doing about $1 million turnover a year. Luey also met a plumber on the verge of retirement whose newly acquired digital skills enabled him to keep working – not on the frontline but in an advisory capacity via video calls. The results from MBIE’s annual independent evaluation suggest these stories are far from outliers: within the first few months, a large percentage of users had improved their websites, were engaging in e-commerce and had grown their digital presence; anywhere between 20% and 26% of businesses had reported increased revenue, even moving out to 12 months since they started on the platform; and users had reported greater resilience in their businesses and a reduction in barriers to adopting digital. But for Luey, his favourite statistics are that, in 2022, 55% of users reported increased optimism about the future, higher than the national average at that time, and, in 2023, 84% of trainees would recommend the learning platform to others. “The platform has gone down really well with the small business sector in New Zealand,” he says, noting that there are currently 65,000 registered users to date. “Across the board we’re seeing fantastic outcomes. People enjoy the training and are recommending it to their friends and business peers.”

reported increased engagement from potential customers

Positive business impacts of Digital Boost

Luey is already looking to expand the reach of the program to encompass all of New Zealand’s workforce, and he enthusiastically recommends academyEX to any organisation looking to reskill their workforce. In fact, he’s currently referring academyEX to a series of different global governments looking to achieve similar outcomes for their small business sectors. Innovation over the next decade wil be crucial to many things, from economies to social resilience, and “the creativity behind innovation is the willingness to think outside the box, try new things in a complex system and learn from them continuously; academyEX have proven they have that in spades,” Luey says. “academyEX built something remarkable, and the data shows it. People are learning essential skills to make their careers more resilient, and the businesses they work for are seeing returns in productivity and revenue because of it. This is a fantastic platform that’s a big step towards democratising education, and we’re proud to be associated with that.”

Frances Valintine, academyEX

The data speaks for itself

Impacts on businesses 3 months after joining Digital Boost:

35%

more had a website with payment options (engaging in e-commerce)

25%

reported an increase in resilience in their business

29%

more used digital marketing or social media management tools

20%

reduction in reported lack of digital skills

14%

reduction in reported difficulty in choosing the right digital tools for their business

22%

more used cloud services or software

21%

reported an increase in revenue

20%

Reduction of barriers experienced by small businesses in adopting digital ways of working:

reduction in reported lack of knowledge of what digital or tech tools are available for their business

31%

of trainees would recommend the platform to others

84%

Source: Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment’s annual independent evaluation

Source: Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment’s independent research released in August 2022

of Digital Boost trainees reported increased resilience (ie the business’s ability to handle unexpected change)

26%

of trainees would recommend the platform to others

84%

of Digital Boost businesses now have a website, with many engaging in digital commerce

80%

of all businesses reported improved revenue after using Digital Boost, lifting to 39% of businesses that engage weekly with the platform

23%

55%

A Digital Boost to optimism and results

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of Digital Boost trainees reported greater optimism and hope regarding their future (17% above the national average in June 2022)