Driving self-driven learning at Heathrow

Cambridge Grand Challenges students Esther Anwuzia and Guy Skinner undertook internship projects at Heathrow between September 2019 and May 2020, which resulted in additional impromptu investigations during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Project title was ‘Creating a constant appetite for self-driven learning at Heathrow’

Heathrow is committed to making the airport “a great place to work” and has dedicated programmes of work focused on encouraging colleagues to adopt new methods of learning and helping individuals shift their mindset and perception of learning for their own personal career development.

Heathrow hosted an “Inspire to Grow” learning week in May 2019 to coincide with National Learning week as a first stage of a program to encourage and support self-driven learning.

This project sought to investigate the perception of learning today and identify possible methods and strategies to support self-driven learning. Providing recommendations as to how to create a sustainable pipeline of tools, resources and events to support a positive change in mindset and behavior related to learning at Heathrow.

The deliverables for our students were to:

(a) Determine wide trends and patterns associated with learning in the workplace that exist today.

(b) Identify what shifts & trends have taken place that are affecting perception of learning in the workplace.

(c) Identify what new learning methods are emerging, have become common practice and are yet to be fully exploited.

(d) Identify best & worse practice examples of companies / organizations / industries supporting and encouraging self-driven learning.

(e) Provide recommendations outlining the enablers, barriers and required strategies to facilitate the adoption of self-driven learning at Heathrow.

Keith MacDougall, Head of Learning and Development explains how valuable the student’s work was, and the benefits to Heathrow:

“At Heathrow, we have been working on a campaign to encourage and support self-driven learning. The projects Esther and Guy worked on were a benefit to the L&D team as they investigated the perception of learning today and identified possible methods and strategies to support self-driven learning.  Their recommendations also took into account the impact of the pandemic and how learning will be viewed/ accessed differently.”