Laing O’Rourke Australia: Building a culture of self-directed learning for workers from the C-suite to the construction site
A blueprint for curated, customized learning
In the fast-paced construction industry, on-site workers can struggle to fit in traditional training sessions. Laing O’Rourke Australia used the SAP SuccessFactors Learning and SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone solutions to create a single learning platform that offers an engaging experience to a diverse employee base.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Construction and real estate | Sydney, Australia | 12,000 employees |
increase in learning-platform monthly users, from 79 to 700.
custom learning assets across 180 learning pathways.
utilization of LinkedIn Learning, up from 35%.
Director—People, Laing O’Rourke Australia Pty Ltd.
Making the learning experience accessible to all
In the 1960s, an Irish construction worker in England enrolled in engineering classes that ignited in him an abiding belief in the power of knowledge. Today, the company Ray O’Rourke founded, Laing O’Rourke, employs a geographically disparate workforce on diverse projects from highways to hospitals and train stations to nuclear power stations. And the family-owned business still places a huge importance on training its people.
Learning is critical in the construction industry, not least for reasons of safety, but it can also be very difficult to deliver given time pressures and site-access issues. Laing O’Rourke Australia Pty Ltd. had well-established learning and development programs, but with limited resources, they were directed to only a small audience of high performers. Training modules developed for the broader business were often cumbersome, took too much time, and resulted in low knowledge retention, at worst becoming “tick-box” exercises.
Helen Fraser, the company’s Director—People, likens the firm’s old training environment to a house with different types of furniture, all scattered everywhere. Fraser explains: “We had a whole lot of furniture, and we didn’t know where it was. We didn’t know if there was any use for it; it might be damaged; or people couldn’t find it. What’s more, there was designer furniture—and only our top talent were allowed to sit there.”
This was reflected in employee engagement surveys, which revealed people wanted control over learning and opportunities that blended classroom-based learning interactions with online material, peer coaching, and social learning networks. They also wanted bite-sized, bespoke learning opportunities similar to the content found on Instagram and TikTok.
Laing O’Rourke set out to develop a new approach that would better underpin a self-directed learning culture. It wanted to replace inaccurate, manual tasks with automated processes. It also wanted to create a reliable, single source of training data and improve forecasting. And any solution implemented had to be scalable, cost-effective, and high quality.
Head of Learning, Talent, and Leadership Development, Laing O’Rourke Australia Pty Ltd.
Connecting solutions to enable on-demand training
Laing O’Rourke had been automating HR processes for more than a decade using the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central solution. Based on this experience, it decided the best way forward for its learning and development platform was to integrate further solutions from the SAP SuccessFactors HCM suite, including the SAP SuccessFactors Learning and SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone solutions.
Using the low-code approach enabled by SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone, it created “LOR Learn,” a bespoke platform for self-directed, on-demand learning. This platform would empower employees to engage with learning content in bite-sized chunks in a system serving both office-based staff and on-site workers.
The company recruited more than 50 subject-matter experts—and “influencers”—from around the business to become learning ambassadors and create new learning content using AI tools. It integrated the third-party AI solutions Descript, Mindsmith, and Synthesia with the platform to help them produce engaging and effective media, making learning-content creation accessible and more efficient for its people.
Engaging learners with a customized, consumer-grade experience
LOR Learn now hosts 19 learning spaces across scores of learning pathways, empowering employees to lead their own learning journey. Resources created by learning ambassadors cover topics spanning engineering safety, AI, Indigenous affairs, team management, and commercial services. The company constantly delivers new assets, including recently adding a learning space on low-carbon materials.
Whereas 50% of the company’s learning budget was previously consumed by 80 people, now hundreds of employees access the platform each month for its consumer-grade content, peer-to-peer resources, and social learning networks. They receive a tailored experience with role-based content that appeals to a wide cross-section of employees. Having already witnessed a significant increase in the number of employees using LinkedIn Learning, the company expects the platform to enhance staff engagement and retention and help grow its internal promotion rates.
According to Fraser, LOR Learn has provided “a single, big front door for all our learning, which brings everyone to the ‘house.’ They all have a code, and they have a user-friendly floor plan.”
The platform also comes with tracking and reporting metrics, letting HR teams report to management and continuously improve training offerings. Teams also benefit from a single source of learning truth and better forecasts of training needs. And the scalable, integrated platform is not only cost-effective but also able to grow nimbly with the company’s needs.
Fueling a love of learning well into the future
An integrated learning and development platform has opened up new ways to support Laing O’Rourke’s culture of self-directed learning. For instance, the company intends to fuse SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone and talent intelligence hub functionality of SAP SuccessFactors solutions in LOR Learn to digitalize its career tool kits. It also plans to link different career pathways to learning and development opportunities in one intuitive experience.
The LOR Learn platform also will be key in plans to host a national “Drive Your Development” learning day to showcase the different ways in which employees can access and engage in learning.
With limitless possibilities ahead, Fraser says, “We’re excited about what SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone can do for the experience we offer and how it can bring it together for employees.” Wherever these efforts may lead, it’s clear SAP SuccessFactors solutions can continue to feed the passion for engineering and knowledge that has driven Laing O’Rourke for nearly five decades.