When we unified six different companies under the innovative NewRocket name and brand in January2022, we had a priority list a mile long. We had to harmonize hundreds of processes, evaluate the many disparate tools, and ensure clients experienced no disruption- just to name a few. But the leadership team knew that before anything, we wanted to create a culture where our employees (we call them Crew Members) could thrive.  

With so many ways to invest in employee success, our leadership team couldn't determine what our culture would look like in a silo. So, we asked our Crew Members: What do you value in a workplace? How can NewRocket invest in the things that matter to you?

In addition to crowd-sourcing our company core values that we live by to this day (that's another blog post), we found that our Crew Members want more than just competitive pay and benefits - they want opportunities to build on their skillsets, explore new interests, and plan their careers. This made sense to us.NewRocket is the go-to ServiceNow guide - we help global enterprise leaders solve their most challenging business problems. We fulfill our brand promise through our top-tier talent - our Crew. And our Crew was clear - they wanted the opportunity to continuously grow and evolve and keep their knowledge of theServiceNow ecosystem leading edge.

To retain and nurture our expert ServiceNow talent, we built this feedback right into the core of our company. We made an early commitment to provide ongoing, meaningful upskilling opportunities that went beyond just training.

Enter NewRocket University.Designed to cultivate a learning culture and serve as a talent differentiator, our internal learning engine provides tools and resources that help our Crew live their values, shape their careers, and drive extraordinary client results.

What is NewRocket University?

NewRocketUniversity is one way we fuel our Crew – through a training, development, performance, and career growth engine of tools and opportunities.

We are about Going Beyond Workflows for our clients and live that same mission for ourCrew. Our approach to learning and growth goes beyond development opportunities- we care about how our Crew continuously uses their learning to achieve their performance and career goals. NewRocket University embodies this by providing features to record ongoing 1:1 conversations, career visioning and planning, feedback channels, and manager team insights and analytics. This information can readily be pulled in to support performance check-ins and reviews. All in one place,NewRocket University.

To support this growth, our learning library includes 8,000 LinkedIn Learning courses and bespoke content built to support our business. In-house Academies offer study concentrations in engineering and architecture, design thinking, finance, sales, and marketing. We leverage the internal expertise of our Crew to produce unique trainings and guest lectures where leaders, like our CEO, share their insights on the hottest market topics.

A testament to our commitment to innovation, NewRocket University was the first in the ServiceNow ecosystem to connect an internal learning management system with ServiceNow's proprietary API, Now Learning. As part of the RiseUp with ServiceNow goal of skilling one million people on theServiceNow Platform by 2024, NewRocket was selected by ServiceNow as the pilot partner to enable a unified learning experience. Developed in partnership with Bridge, an end-to-end learning management system for performance, the integrated platform empowersNewRocket Crew Members to further cultivate ServiceNow expertise with easy access to course curricula, certifications, and accreditations. 

Since NewRocket University's launch in April 2022, our Crew has embraced the opportunity to learn and hone their skills: 100%of our Crew Members have utilized the platform, averaging 1K visits per week.

Why Does Upskilling Matter? 

At NewRocket, our CrewMembers are looking for experiences, not roles — and clients are looking for partners who can guide them through the evolving tech landscape and face constant change with confidence. NewRocket University helps us stay ahead of trends and develop insights to act as strategic collaborators with our clients. In addition, upskilling helps us optimize our processes and give our Crew fun, fulfilling experiences at work.

TheDigital Transformation Boom Continues

Digital transformation remains a top priority for enterprise leaders across industries. Modernization is the norm, meaning enterprises need ever-more innovative approaches to stay competitive and profitable.

With consistent opportunities for our Crew to learn more about digital workflow design and the user experience, NewRocket University helps us practice continuous improvement and continuous delivery (CI/CD) by immediately incorporating client and Crew feedback into our training.

As we evolve the solutions that simplify Client processes and remove complexity, NewRocket University helps keep our best practices up-to-date and streamlined to incorporate the latest learnings and freshest ideas. It also helps us eliminate technical debt for clients by focusing on the areas that matter most.

Going Beyond Workflows

The role of the enterprise leader is changing. While technical acumen remains critical (see above), workflows alone aren't enough to solve the constant change our clients are experiencing and all the problems that come with it. At NewRocket, we're all about helping clients navigate business and organizational pitfalls.  

NewRocketUniversity continuously develops and evolves a curated curriculum that nourishes the consultative expertise of our Crew. Our learning tracks are customized to specifically help our Crew guide our clients in realizing business value.

GlobalTalent Is the Future

With the growth of remote and hybrid work models, geography no longer limits talent attraction: Companies can hire people from anywhere in the world. But recruiting global talent requires unified learning resources to keep employees on the same page.

At NewRocket, we have CrewMembers across the world. NewRocket University standardizes our training and development to allow everyone the same opportunities to sharpen their skills. This also extends to career planning and the performance process: we offer all CrewMembers, regardless of location, the chance to work with leadership to develop long-term goals and get personalized feedback on their performance.

A Culture of Innovation, Learning, and Growth

Creating one innovative, full-serviceServiceNow powerhouse was not without its challenges. Making the decision to start with a focus on our Crew? Easy. With input from the entire organization, we chose to focus on investing in our people, creating opportunities, and making every experience matter.

NewRocket University brings all of this to life and more. It's become such a foundational element of who we are as a company and Goes Beyond a learning program. It's become a strategic vehicle to enable Crew Members to excel through learning and knowledge sharing.It's become a launch pad for embedding change initiatives, such as ensuring our entire Crew understands our world-class delivery methodology (including those of us NOT in Delivery, like my team and me). It's also become a key factor in our mission to be a destination for talent by being a clear driver in attracting and retaining our Crew.

The depth and breadth of expertise we have is unparalleled and unmatched. And we've only just begun.

Interested in learning more about NewRocket University? Contact us. 

Laura Sue is a business-oriented HR professional who is passionate about helping organizations and individuals reach their full potential. Follow her on LinkedIn.