Ecopetrol's Transformation: Empowering Workforce Learning
As Ecopetrol embarks on the global energy transition toward low-carbon alternatives, the company recognizes the need to equip its workforce with the skills required for the future. Leaders are fostering a culture where learning is driven by employees at all levels, not just management, empowering both office staff and frontline operators to take ownership of their development. This forward-thinking approach redefines workforce learning to keep Ecopetrol competitive in a rapidly changing industry. Discover how they’re reshaping learning for a more sustainable future.
Summary
Ecopetrol Builds Winning Learning Habits from Office to Frontline with Degreed
A Colombian national oil and gas company, Ecopetrol is one of the biggest energy providers in South America, with operations in Colombia, Brazil, Mexico and the United States. The company’s strategic objectives over the next two decades center on embracing new forms of energy production that are socially responsible and more environmentally sustainable. Keeping people’s skills competitive is crucial, and learning will play a huge role. Challenged to support this long-term vision, L&D sought new ways to think about, deliver and achieve new learning and development goals.
COMPANY SNAPSHOT
Industry:
Energy
Headquarters:
Bogota, Colombia
Company Size:
9,500
The solution
Fostering a Self-Driven Learning Culture for a Low-Carbon Future
After evaluating numerous learning tech vendors, Ecopetrol chose Degreed. The functionality and flexibility of the intuitive Degreed LXP complemented the workforce development goals of Ecopetrol, and learning leaders were equally impressed with the Degreed team.
“A game changer for us was the short time it would take to implement,” said Monica Santos, Ecopetrol Schools Leader, adding the entire process wrapped up in seven weeks and, crucially, on deadline before the company’s annual holiday break. “The Degreed team was out of this world. Everyone was so committed. Every single question we had, they solved it for us. I have to say, I’ve never been in a technology project that worked like this. Everything was really, really, really easy to work out.”
Called GEnius (inspired by the “G” and “E” in Grupo Ecopetrol, the company’s name in Spanish), the Degreed-powered platform is available to all employees.
The learning team’s adoption strategy hinged on engaging users and, in particular, identifying learning style archetypes that cut across departments and regions. The effort resulted in four designations — Pragmatic Adaptive (1%), Rational Analytic (43%), Reflective Convergent (50%) and Active Divergent (6%) learners — and L&D referenced these categories to craft dozens of targeted communications promoting access to the new solution. For example, Rational Analytic people needed to know it would work for them otherwise they might not even open a link, so messaging was adjusted accordingly to match their experiences, needs, motivations and pain points.
“We wanted to connect through emotions,” Rojas Aldana said. “We sent a lot of messages about the importance of reskilling and upskilling. The underlying message was ‘If you love your job and you love this company, you can stay here. But don’t be left behind. Do you want to be prepared for the future? Do this.’”
In addition, L&D used mandatory logins and content, informational webinars, Q&A sessions, hashtags including #begenius and #wakeupskills and more to encourage activations. Another key strategy was engaging a majority of the company’s 1,200 people managers one-on-one by phone, to gain their buy-in and boost their enthusiasm for the project.
“The Degreed team was out of this world. Everyone was so committed. Every single question we had, they solved it for us. I have to say, I’ve never been in a technology project that worked like this. Everything was really, really, really easy to work out.” - Monica Santos, Ecopetrol Schools Leader
RESULTS
Learning Habits That Keep People Competitive
An Everyday Learning Platform
An impressive 90% of Ecopetrol workers are active on the Degreed platform, with 45% using it every month. Feedback surveys show people are highly satisfied with the experience; end users have given Degreed an average Net Promoter (NPS) score of 45, which is high for a learning platform.
During a recent six-month stretch, people completed 440,000 learning items using Degreed, only 20% of which came through the company’s LMS. The vast majority originated from people exploring personal areas of interest on their own.
Learning leaders were surprised to find some of the biggest early adopters were people in operations and maintenance roles, not desk jobs. This engagement among frontline workers outpaced anything L&D had expected.
“We said at the beginning of the project, ‘If we don’t get them all, that’s okay.’ But when we checked the figures, we said, ‘Oh!’” Santos said. “They were looking for subjects related to their jobs but not exactly their positions. It was a huge insight. There were some things that were mandatory, and they were doing those. But they were also exploring. Some of them did it during shifts at night because there’s less activity in the plant.”
At the Barrancabermeja Refinery, Luis Giovanny Barbosa Arias accesses videos, documents and short articles to focus his learning.
“In this tool, we can find a great variety of content,” said the head of the Crude Refining Department. “It’s easy to locate and allows us to interact with other people from the organization that will lead us in individual and collective learning.”
Calling the platform intuitive and practical, Lorena Rueda, Leadership School Director, said it inspires conversations among managers. “Leaders have great challenges in managing their schedules and time, and GEnius allows us to be quick to deliver what leaders need while giving them access to an endless world of content.”
The result of all this exploration is clear. People are developing new learning habits, closing the loop on one of the learning team’s key goals: inspiring people to own their own development. And it all ties back to the team’s other goals as well. Because as the company increasingly innovates new technologies and processes, workers will already know how to build the skills they need to support those initiatives and stay competitive.
“Implementing Degreed was about building that learning habit,” Santos said. “We’re putting learning into the minds of everyone.”
“We’ve generated a lot of engagement... A lifelong learning culture has been created.” - Jorge Rojas Aldana, Learning Planning and Management Coordinator
