“The learning paths were designed so that the connection of each theme to the strategy was clearly highlighted. This ensured that the learned skills directly support the realization of the organization’s goals in everyday work.”
– Heidi Karhu, Group HRD Manager, LocalTapiola-ryhmä
Sharepoint Enables Accessible Everyday Learning
The LocalTapiola Group actively uses its SharePoint-based Work-Life Skills Learning Library to present offerings and deliver training. The programs are easily accessible to everyone in a familiar environment and integrated into everyday tools.
Bringing the learning paths onto the platform was seamless, as Academy of Brain’s tutorials could be conveniently embedded into the Work-Life Skills Learning Library, which is part of the entire group’s Academy development offering.
Since strategy is everyone’s business, LocalTapiola’s key goal was to ensure that no one is left without information. The learning library makes communication effortless—its videos and themes can be easily linked to various channels, news, and highlighted regularly. For example, the “Autumn of Employee Promises” theme supports organization-wide learning by offering teams monthly videos and joint reflections. This way, individual insights connect to a broader whole and strengthen systemic learning.
“We feel that bringing the training programs into the SharePoint environment—alongside other current Capability Development themes—lowers the threshold to participate. The content is accessible without separate logins or new systems. It’s simply the most natural way to reach the entire staff easily and quickly.” – Heidi Karhu
At LocalTapiola, the Work-Life Skills Learning Library is seen as an effective tool for engagement and continuous learning. A key strength of the SharePoint platform is the ability to revisit tutorials flexibly at one’s own time or agreed working time. This has increased participation activity.
“By bringing learning into everyday work, the Learning Library has strengthened both engagement and the culture of continuous learning. Since all materials are in SharePoint, employees can easily spend just a few minutes weekly learning a new skill—‘a quarter-hour a week is enough’ has been our message to encourage microlearning. According to reports, the diverse content has often enticed people to stay longer and deepen their skills.” – Heidi
Engagement and continuous learning are actively supported. Teams are encouraged to watch videos together and then use provided instructions to discuss their insights. This shared reflection has increased commitment—people feel the organization invests in their development, and learning becomes a natural part of the workday rather than an isolated effort.
“The Learning Library has made learning visible, everyday, and interactive, which motivates employees to participate.” – Heidi
How Have Employees Received the Trainings?
All roughly 3,400 LocalTapiola employees have had free access to the soft skills content, and many have completed multiple modules.
The reception has been very positive. Employees have been excited about having short new micro-trainings to support personal and team development. They have especially praised ease of use and concreteness—the videos are short (around 5 minutes), and the tips can be immediately applied. The content resonates also because it is produced in Finnish by top experts such as Ville Ojanen, which has increased trust in its relevance.
“The general feedback has been: ‘finally, proper tools for soft skills,’ which shows how much employees appreciate this investment.” – Heidi
What Have Employees Gained?
The trainings have provided practical tools for everyday challenges, personal development, and team growth. Concrete benefits include:
- Self-leadership improvements: recovery and time-management techniques have helped structure workdays and improve well-being.
- Employees have learned to recognize their emotions and workload better—and, importantly, gained ways to manage them (e.g., break techniques, prioritization tools).
- Improved interaction skills: micro-trainings on psychological safety and feedback have helped teams create new practices like regular appreciation rounds or “insight moments” in meetings, improving openness and collaboration.
What Benefits Has HR Gained?
“We have received significant value from Academy of Brain in delivering training and developing strategy-aligned skills.” – Heidi
The solution has saved HRD resources—ready-made, high-quality content could be used without designing everything from scratch. The videos have been widely used across internal programs as pre-tasks, mid-tasks, or discussion triggers, freeing time for other development work.
HR also appreciates the reporting tools, which allow tracking participation and progress.
“Collaboration with Academy of Brain has enabled HR to deliver a strategy-supporting training portfolio easily, cost-effectively, and with excellent results.”
— Heidi
“Particularly memorable for me have been the discussions and feedback in my own training groups, networks, and team around the videos. Participants have appreciated that key topics are introduced concisely by an expert, and afterward, in-depth conversations have naturally emerged, with different perspectives being listened to and valued. These discussions have directly led to updating or creating structures around thinking, along with corresponding ways of working (‘ground rules’).” – Heidi
Strategy Brough to Life: Learning Drives Organizational Direction
“We have clearly seen that learning soft skills directly moves us toward our strategic goals. Every training theme is linked to a strategic area, and the skills improve employees’ readiness to implement the strategy.” – Heidi
The trainings have strengthened the culture of collaboration—evident in improved emotional intelligence and interaction skills, which build trust and support an open collaboration culture.
Resilience and adaptability trainings address a strategic cornerstone: change capability. These have helped staff adapt better to change, enabling smoother strategic transformations.
“A stronger feedback and learning culture is already visible in bolder grassroots improvement suggestions, pushing the strategy forward. The training content, together with internal programs, has acted as a kind of engine—turning strategy into action by developing the skills needed for success.” – Heidi
The Learning Library Connects Strategy to Daily Work
The Work-Life Skills Learning Library acts as a bridge between strategy and practice. Strategy is brought “from the clouds” into everyday work in several ways. For example, the library links each training to employee and leadership promises to explain why a given skill matters for strategic goals.
“One could say that microlearning in the Learning Library humanizes the strategy: it becomes concrete actions and insights in everyday work. I strongly believe in Paula Kilpinen’s idea of a ‘human strategy’—strategy lives only when people internalize it emotionally and behaviorally in their own work.” – Heidi
The Growing Role of SharePoint
LocalTapiola will continue to use SharePoint as a learning hub and expand its role. Given the positive experiences from 2025, maintaining the Work-Life Skills Learning Library will continue.
“We update the content regularly and introduce new training themes through the Learning Library. We also plan to integrate the micro-trainings more tightly into other development programs; for example, managers’ and specialists’ learning paths can use these videos as kick-offs before deep-dive workshops.” – Heidi
SharePoint also allows curated content for different target groups. Plans include creating more tailored pages for various business units.
Increasing social learning is also on HR’s agenda: ideas include introducing discussion areas or “learning journals” where employees can share insights with colleagues.
On the technical side, HR is exploring deeper integration between the Learning Library and the learning management system so that data can flow directly into HR systems.
“SharePoint and the Learning Library will remain the backbone of learning, and we will continue developing both content and functionality so that continuous learning is a natural part of the employee experience.” – Heidi
