Daniel López of Glovo: “Totara has made us a benchmark for learning in the company”.
Equipos y Talento interviewed Mario Planas, managing partner of Actua Solutions, and Daniel López, LO Global Training manager of Glovo, on the occasion of the report published in the April 2022 issue 180 of the magazine.
If there is one thing that characterizes Glovo’s processes, it is agility and speed, and this also applies to learning. In the midst of the pandemic, they saw the need to implement a new, more complex LMS that would allow for greater customization and turned to their partner Actua Solutions for help. The result was the implementation of Totara, a free software platform that can be integrated into any of the most popular ERP systems, and that can grow and adapt to their future needs.
How did the relationship between the two companies begin?
Mario Planas (M.P.): We started collaborating through Articulate 360 software, which is the authoring tool Glovo chose to design its training content. They acquired Vyond, which is the complementary tool that allows them to make scenarios, animation… After a couple of years of collaboration, they got in touch again because they were looking for a different LMS than the one they already had.
What did Glovo need?
Daniel López (D.L.): Our LMS was too short for the pace of work and changes in procedures that we have. Therefore, we needed one that would allow us to automate much of the work that until then had been manual and also make it easier for us to manage the volume of agents we handle. We wanted something that was adaptable to the demands of the business, that could segment audiences, with different content for each one, automate the flows…
And what was Actua Solutions’ response?
M.P.: When we listened to their approach and the requirements for the new LMS, we immediately made a match with all the possibilities that Totara offered in terms of management, since it provided all the functionalities that they could not find in what they already had. In addition, it is free software, which allows the tool to grow in the future by adapting to Glovo’s needs. We thought it was the safest way to create this training ecosystem, because it also gives them the freedom to integrate it with other applications or systems.
Totara is a platform that allows to offer a unique solution to each customer, allowing them to evolve technologically to where they want to go. It gives you the freedom to be the owner of the product, you have total control over it, something that in a cloud environment is not possible or it must be the provider who decides to carry out this evolution.
How was implementation in the midst of the pandemic?
M.P.: The most usual thing is to make a longer and more intense accompaniment; but Glovo has been very autonomous, they have made their own way with the tool, they have made it their own. The initial phase was very fast, just two weeks, in the middle of the pandemic, and in less than two months they had set up the platform for several markets, in eight languages, fully configured to replace the previous one.
D.L.: We had to respond to very specific needs at a very specific moment in the pandemic, which demanded a lot of speed. It was a very empirical process, something you can only do if you have a good team, with proactivity and expertise. Because it was not only to see how to establish the flows at that moment, but also taking into account how our needs could change in the future and designing with this in mind.
We dedicated a lot of time to this part of the process and I think it is one of the keys that has given us a solid structure that has led us to the present moment, when we are starting to rethink and redesign some things. We are very proud of the effort and, in addition, it has been recognized as the “
Best Technology and Media Project
“in Totara’s annual awards given to customers and global partners.
How is the Glovo learning experience with Totara?
D.L.:
Since we started, there have been very important transformations in our trainings. Some are very directly linked to Totara, others less so, but also caused by its use. We went from very simple content to much more complex and interactive content. Totara has allowed us to play with very diverse material formats that have enriched our training. And this impacts the learning experience. Glovo has such high agility requirements that there is no time left to design the learning experience to “look pretty”, you have to meet demanding deadlines and that’s the main thing. So our challenge is how to achieve the business objective, providing lots of content, adapting it and delivering it very quickly to lots and lots of people, combined with achieving an enabling learning experience. Because we don’t want to bore or overwhelm people. And Totara allows us to do just that, to offer a learning experience that is simple and easy, with a flow that leads learners where they need to go naturally. The student can interact and participate, which makes him/her feel that the training is friendlier and closer to him/her.
How has the project been for Actua Solutions?
M.P.: For us it has been an example that important projects can be carried out in a short period of time if the client’s team is prepared. Because, sometimes, the barriers are not set by the learning technologies, but by the maturity level of the organization. We accompany the client in their elearning learning curve, and it varies a lot depending on the experience they have in this area.
D.L.: It is a question of the team, of its ability and motivation, of proactivity, of being willing to explore and learn in order to contribute to offering the best experience to the internal customer. I count on people with a great willingness to explore and learn, we are a team that collaborates very well and that helps us to extract the full potential of a tool as complex and powerful as this one.
Is the project growing internally?
D.L.: No doubt. We start with a team and there are now four internal teams to which we are offering learning as a serviceWe basically create their own project for them, preparing their content and audience flows, doing all the consulting process for them, so that they can have control of their training processes, more similar to the ones we have. They came to us because they liked what we had put in place and wanted to replicate it in their areas.Some of them are quite complex due to their target audience and will force us to work with functionalities that we have not used yet, such as skills mapping, something that we will surely end up incorporating ourselves.
We are a reference within the company and we are proud that people come to us for help and support in their training projects.
You have been working on the project for some time now, what is the challenge now?
D.L.: We are in an interesting moment. We are reviewing what we have done and we see that we have done a good job in some areas and that we need to reformulate others. For example, we are redesigning the entire onboarding for twelve languages, 20 hubs, many markets… it’s a huge job. We also want to review the reporting part in order to automate it better and integrate it well with our internal tools. The idea is to continue in the same direction in which we have already worked, but to go a little further with Totara.
What are the advantages of an open source platform like Totara?
D.L.: For us, the fact that Totara could adapt to our needs was very important. Our volumes and rhythms set us very specific requirements at the time when the trainings are “lowered”, and Totara allows us to make changes that adapt the result to what we want. Also, I believe that the fact that it is based on Moodle allows the team to be prepared to be able to work or interact with any LMS, handling all the basic concepts around this type of technologies, and that means that it serves as upskilling of the team. If the LMS is simple, it may be functional, but it doesn’t give you that extra learning or the ability to experiment and test and ask your team to go a little further.
Totara is a free software, which allows the tool to grow in the future by adapting to Glovo’s needs.
In addition, Totara can be integrated with other people management platforms. What does this mean for organizations?
M.P.: Companies that mature and understand what they want to achieve through hybrid or online learning are beginning to encounter barriers in their corporate systems that affect all areas of Human Resources, not just Learning&Development. They have to do a very important job to find out and define what they want, and to rely on other areas of the company if necessary, or on partners if they have no previous experience in e-learning. Sometimes, even the IT area does not have adequate knowledge of learning platforms and end up implementing a system that does not fit the real needs of the organization. Many times, the platform or PR they have does not cover their learning needs and in those cases it is very easy to integrate an LMS such as Totara, which is already designed so that the training experience and processes can be carried out in an easy and structured way.
What would you recommend to companies that have proprietary HR systems to improve the learning experience?
M.P.: These types of systems can be improved with the integration of platforms such as Totara. It is an open source elearning platform that offers the freedom to innovate and adapt to the specific needs of organizations. It allows to offer tailor-made training to provide a unique learning experience. Totara opens its code to integrate with any Human Resources system and complement it, which exponentially multiplies the possibilities for Learning areas.
After your experience, what would you advise a company that is looking for an LMS?
D.L.:
There is a historical trend in companies still in place that starts from the idea that training was something very simple to do. As a result, managers generally wonder why they should invest so much money in training, and the consequence is that they often apply solutions to get out of the way. In my opinion,the key is to know your needs and the use that will be made of these training processes. If you have very general needs and it is not necessary to customize, you have at your disposal many solutions on the Internet and what your company’s general people management platform offers may be enough for you. But if your needs are more complex, if you need learning paths, to know where they are going, where they have gone, that will determine professional growth flows, you need a more complete tool, such as Totara.
This LMS has allowed us to play with very diverse material formats that have enriched our trainings.
Author: Sonia Mejuto of Teams and Talent
