Manulife is a leading international financial services group operating primarily as John Hancock in the U.S. and Manulife elsewhere. Manulife, which provides financial advice, insurance, and wealth and asset management for individuals, groups and institutions, managed and administered over C$1.3 trillion (US$1 trillion) at the end of 2022.
In today’s constantly changing digital environment, Manulife sets a successful example for digital transformation powered by modernizing its technology architecture, investing in leading-edge technology capabilities, and championing a culture of ongoing learning.
The need
A key ingredient to digital transformation is the team delivering against it. Manulife recognizes the need to attract and retain highly-skilled IT professionals and software engineers in an increasingly competitive market, and are actively focused on empowering their high-performing team, and investing in upskilling and reskilling talent.
Naveed Zahid, associate vice president, engineering transformation, was brought in to lead that effort in 2018. Where others may have seen challenges, Naveed only saw opportunities.
“From day one, Manulife’s passion for cultivating a culture of continuous learning was very clear.” he said. “Manulife’s global footprint gave me the opportunity to meet colleagues across segments, and develop a stronger understanding of the mandates and needs of each market. This set a great foundation for building an effective upskilling process.”
“The first thing we asked ourselves was: What do we need to prioritize on our journey to becoming a leading digital customer-centric organization?” said Zahid. “We had to adopt a digital-first mindset, modernize, and focus on modern technology stacks.”
“We knew that achieving technological renaissance and modernization goes hand in hand with investing in our employee’s potential to grow, and adapting to the changing technology landscape.”
This led to the launch of Manulife University – an in-house educational and skills development program designed to deliver technical specialization programs tailored specifically to the needs of colleagues, and subsequently the company.
Flexibility
Zahid’s intention for Manulife University was to offer a tailored and flexible learning experience that would be available to colleagues anytime, anywhere, and across all roles within the Global Technology function.
“Learning content must be accessible on any device. We wanted to make sure colleagues, whether they are in or out of office, can utilize and dedicate time to learning at their convenience.”
“Our approach to tailoring content enabled us, for example, to say, ‘Hey, you’re a full stack engineer? Perfect – here’s your learning path. We’ve developed specific courses on the technologies you’re likely to be using.’ It doesn’t matter whether it’s quality engineering or cloud engineering or any other learning sub-discipline – it’s all available.”
“In building trust in the university, there could be no cutting corners, and a critical criterion was offering credible content delivered by experts in each domain.”
Finding the right partner
“Our commitment to learning and upskilling required a strong global partner. Pluralsight ticked all the right boxes to develop and deliver the wide breadth of curriculum and individual learning plans to colleagues globally.”
“We were looking for a partner able to collaborate, demonstrate a high level of flexibility, and be as dedicated to achieving our goals as we are. Pluralsight was the perfect fit.”
Read the Full Report: The Power of Upskilling in the Digital Era – A Tale of Two Companies
Ongoing journey
Zahid said he sees digital transformation not as a one-track journey but as a collection of ongoing journeys.
“While it’s a challenge to keep focus with so many elements at play, having the right partner in Pluralsight helps keep us on track with our progress.”
“Cloud is one of our main pieces, and we are deep into the process of moving away from on-prem, of virtualizing everything, and we want our teams to be able to make these shifts as seamlessly as possible.” said Zahid.
Moving forward
“Our commitment to learning and upskilling, supported by our partnership with Pluralsight, has significantly contributed to accelerating our digital transformation, and [has helped cement] our leading-industry position in the use of cloud computing.”
Zahid’s advice for companies looking to following Manulife’s successful transformation path is this:
“Nurturing a ‘commitment to learning’ culture is [absolutely essential] to transformation. At Manulife we’ve opened many learning avenues as well as technical programs such as Manulife University, and we continue to look for opportunities that will support the upskilling of our colleagues.”
Read the Full Report: The Power of Upskilling in the Digital Era: A Tale of Two Companies
