Keeping SeaLink team members engaged and learning through COVID-19

The company

Carrying more than 350 million passengers a year in different locations around the world, the SeaLink Travel Group has over 8,000 employees operating more than 3,200 buses and 78 ferries in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory, Western Australia, London and Singapore.

With many of their teams geographically dispersed and at home due to the current COVID crisis situation, SeaLink Travel Group has utilised the Go1 platform to ensure continued engagement, motivation and the feeling of productivity regardless of circumstances or their locations. 

SeaLink’s Training and Development team, along with Go1’s Customer Success Manager, wanted to build out a program that would be beneficial and cater for the various teams within the regions. Together, they worked with the Go1 Content Team to source and mould learning pathways for each of their dispersed and very different teams. 

We recently talked to Mia Maglieri, SeaLink’s National Training and Development Manager, about how using GO1 has helped to keep team members engaged and learning through COVID-19.

The challenge

COVID-19 presented a new, undiscovered world of work for employers that has not been explored before, and this was especially relevant for those in the hospitality and tourism sector. 

Therefore the learning solutions for SeaLink Travel Group needed to be implemented quickly and match the solutions that were required in learners who were at home instead of the very social world of travel and tourism. 

Without knowing their personal circumstances, the SeaLink Travel team wanted to make sure courses were simple enough to take and did not need extra resources such as printers. 

The solution

‘The extensive range of courses available within the Go1 Premium library provided the training solution we were looking for,’ said Mia Maglieri, National Training and Development Manager.

As an example, the Kingfisher Bay Resort Group located on heritage listed Fraser Island, utilised hospitality, guest services, customer service, catering and housekeeping courses on the platform. In contrast, for the Captain Cook Cruises Sydney Marine team, courses on compliance and health and safety that met the Australian Compliance Standards were sourced.  

The utilisation of the ‘Awards’ functionality on the Go1 platform allowed for SeaLink’s nine business units across Australia to have access to similar content without having to rebuild for each one. 

Assigning courses to teams is easy on the Go1 platform with the Groups functionality, which allows administrators to push out multiple courses with the click of a button.

To ensure compliance and engagement, the live reporting functionality gives administrators multiple viewing options and filters. These reports can be downloaded and utilised throughout the business.

The results

As a result of the consultation between Training and Development and Business Unit Leaders, a selection of course topics with a mixture of microlearning and longer courses ensured the best learning experience for each individual. 

The SeaLink team were also happy with the high level of customer support provided by Go1.

‘We needed to know that our admin team had strong technical support and guidance. Knowing that Go1’s support team was there as well as our Customer Success Manager and the Course Content team, was reassuring and contributed to a positive outcome,’ Mia said. 

Team members of SeaLink Travel group now have the opportunity at any point to develop their personal and career skills with access to the library of Go1 courses and are able to revisit them anytime in the future. With the implementation of the Traffic Light Action Plan (enabling the reflection of learning by summarising what you will start doing, continue doing and stop doing), there is trust that the knowledge is retained and utilised once SeaLink members are back in the workplace. 

‘The future of learning at SeaLink Travel Group is looking bright as we further embed a learning culture and continue to ‘Develop Our People’. They are the most important asset and that will continue to ring true long after this pandemic is over,’ Mia says. 

As team members engage in self directed as well as assigned learning, their experience with SeaLink Travel Group becomes more valuable and more engaging. 

We look forward to hearing more positive results from the SeaLink team as their learning and development program continues to grow with Go1!

Keen to learn how Go1 can help you improve the way employee training is managed across your organization? Reach out to our friendly 24/7 support team anytime for a chat.