Britvic CPO: ‘Continuous learning directly supports the goals of the business’

With roots all the way back to the 1800s, global soft drinks giant Britvic has experienced huge success over the past two centuries.

Fast forward to today, the business is now comprised of 39 brands – noteworthy examples include Robinsons, Fruit Shoot, Jimmy’s Iced Coffee and J2O – that are sold in 100 countries worldwide.

In 2023, the UK-headquartered company reported an impressive £1.7 billion-revenue, £124 million profit after tax, and £129.8m in free cash flow.

As an organization, Britvic is very clear that its people are crucial to driving business success; this is because its 4,700 employees across the globe are essential to the company’s competitive edge.

Talking about Britvic’s people and culture, its CPO Elly Tomlins tells UNLEASH: “There is a really deep sense of team, we’re all rooting for the success of the business and for each other.”

Britvic on having a ‘growth-led mindset’

The last few years have brought huge challenges for all businesses – clearly, Britvic has come out the other side stronger, but the drinks giant remains focused on growth despite ongoing challenges.

Tomlins shares: “We have all lived through globally unprecedented events and these show no sign of slowing down – and while change brings huge opportunity it can also bring uncertainty”.

This meant there was a need to ensure “leaders, managers, employees are facing future challenges with an opportunity, growth-led mindset”.

A huge piece of the puzzle here is “refocusing our energies on continuous learning” – this was top of the business’ to-do list post-pandemic, according to Tomlins.

Continuous learning and development directly support the ambition, growth and goals of the business”.

However, upskilling and reskilling is not just good for business, it is also a real positive for employees, particularly in terms of their own resilience and future employability.

The great news is that Britvic’s employees are on board – they have a “real appetite to learn”, and their desire for more development opportunities came through in the latest annual Employee Heartbeat survey.

All this momentum around skills culminated in February this year with Britvic switching up its learning approach and partnering with LinkedIn Learning.

Enter LinkedIn Learning

To get future ready, it is essential that “all our employees have equal access to learning, whether they are office or home-based, manually operating machines in one of our factories, or out doing field work”.

“We want everyone to have the chance to grow their skills and have the same quality user experience while doing so.”

“LinkedIn Learning has allowed us to do at scale”, and in 14 different languages, which essential for a global business like Britvic.

That’s the message from Lois Brown, Britvic’s Digital Learning and Capability Advisor who sits in Tomlin’s HR team and owns the partnership with LinkedIn Learning.

The beauty of LinkedIn as a learning partner is that it has huge “brand association” – “being a household name, practically everyone in the company already had the LinkedIn app downloaded and were regular users”, adds Brown.

All of that made the transition to a new tool easier. It also helps to explain why an impressive 60% of employees are already making use of the platform just six months in.

To date, those workers have watched 32,000 videos – this works out at an average of 10 videos a month per learner.

The most learned skills have been around AI, leadership, customer service and project management.

The beauty of LinkedIn Learning is its use of AI to recommend content to individual employees, so they all receive “a personalized experience” when it comes to both their professional and personal skills.

Democratizing learning at Britvic

Brown is really pleased that “the response has been really positive across all parts of the business”, notes Brown.

The HR team has worked hard to incentivize learning, for instance by providing Amazon vouchers to employees who undertakes in daily learning on LinkedIn, as well as identifying ‘learning influencers’ in the business who can share their journeys and create a buzz.

“When employees see their colleagues actively engaging in learning and development, it has inspired them to do the same” – plus it has created a “sense of community and collaboration” around learning, adds Brown.

Given that democratizing access to learning was such a core reason why Britvic embraced LinkedIn Learning, it is great news that it was the drinks giant’s field workers (who make 12.5% of its 4,700-strong workforce) have led the way in the uptake of the learning tool.

Brown shares: “It was great to see a high uptake across our supply chain (an area that historically was less engaged with digital learning)”, notes Brown.

Credit: Britvic.

“There are no limiting factors with learning this way, as the courses available come in accessible formats, are accessible on both work and personal devices”, and on mobile devices (as well as laptops).

A quarter of all Britvic employee learning was done on mobile devices, and there were evidently real benefits of allowing employees to learn at their pace, and in a way that suits them.

Our old tech was much harder to use, and the catalogue was not as broad or as rich”, concludes Brown.

For Britvic’s CPO, it is clear that LinkedIn Learning has supported a lot with Britvic’s pivot to continuous learning.

Ultimately, the focus for her and the HR team is on ensuring employees are resilient and ready to face any incoming challenges and uncertainties in the future.

Skills and UNLEASH World

Want to hear more about how to overcome skills challenges in your organization?

It’s not too late to join us at UNLEASH World 2024 in Paris on 16 to 17 October.

We’ve got HR leaders from the likes of Rolls-Royce, Radisson, Electrolux, Novo Nordisk and L’Oréal talking about how to level up learning and development strategies.

You can get your pass here!