Old Mutual - Empowering employees at Old Mutual through lifelong learning

Old Mutual Limited provides financial solutions to individuals, small and medium-sized businesses, corporates, and institutions across several market segments and geographies in South Africa, the Rest of Africa, and other emerging markets since 1845. They employ more than 26,500 people across 14 countries.

As a client who recognises that in a changing world we cannot succeed by staying the same, Old Mutual advocates for encouraging a growth mindset and willingness to learn and unlearn. In 2020, the Old Mutual Learning department went through a process of relooking and relaunching its learning culture. This was driven by the idea of creating a culture that empowers all employees with a variety of online content that is easily accessible and enables lifelong learning.

Encouraging Learning through Storytelling

In coming up with the concept, to make it more relatable – Open explored the idea of storytelling and focused on two areas, namely:

1. Old Mutual as a supportive partner in lifelong learning

   Aligned with the Old Mutual business culture drive, which reinforces the values that guide us to ‘Do Great Things Every Day’ – the new Old Mutual learning culture empowers employees to build the skills and capabilities they need to be future fit, engaged, and effective at work.

This can only happen if employees invest in themselves and build the right skills and capabilities.

1. Learning is a way of life that employees are responsible for

This new Old Mutual learning culture makes learning a way of life. It encourages employees to be courageous, embrace new technology, own their experience, and see this journey as an adventure.

Cementing the Story with a Bold Statement

Open conceptualised the tagline ‘Dare to learn – Own your adventure’.

The word ‘dare’ means to take a bold step and relates to the courage employees should have when choosing to learn. It requires thinking differently and challenging oneself to embrace the unknown.

‘Own your adventure’ speaks to the employees taking on challenges enthusiastically and seeing setbacks as experiences to learn and improve on.

‘Dare to learn’ has been successfully integrated into branding and is a foundational element while acting as a guiding principle for all learning at Old Mutual. Driven across the enterprise, from leadership programs to young talent programs, Open’s support helped Old Mutual to embed its learning culture across the organisation.

Dare to Learn - Old Mutual