uStudio and N.F. Smith & Associates Deep Dive Into the Power of a Continuous Learning Culture

Ever wondered how a family business can become a global leader in semiconductor and electronic-component distribution? N.F. Smith & Associates has achieved exactly that. Today, it’s a global powerhouse with 900 employees across 20+ cities on four continents. But what’s the secret behind the company’s success? A commitment to keeping its team on the cutting edge, equipped with the skills and knowledge to adapt to a rapidly changing industry landscape.

Recently, we hosted an exclusive livecast that explored how Smith approaches its organizational IQ and learning and development initiatives. If you missed it, don’t worry—you can catch all the insights in the recorded session.

Rachael Winfrey, Director of Learning and Development at Smith, shared her team’s ‘continuous learning’ strategies. Together with our CEO, Jen Grogono, they discussed how Smith not only keeps its people engaged but also future-proofs the business against industry challenges.

You can stream the discussion in its entirety here

Or you can scan a few of Rachael’s excerpts below (all edited for readability):

(03:34) “If you think about continuous learning as a strategic initiative out of an L&D department for a company, it’s really about creating a culture of growth and a culture of continuous up-skilling and future-skilling. It lends itself to having a workforce and individual employees – the mindset of the group and the mindset of individuals -- geared toward adaptability, and agility, and continuous development, which really supports innovation.”

(11:28) “So in our industry, in tech that’s rapidly changing. If you sit on that information for days, sometimes, even two days, it can be out of date. So it’s really important to transmit it rapidly. And those people who are traders can leverage that to their customers. That gap needs to be as closed as possible. And what better way to do that? What better modality to do that than a podcast? It was very much a natural fit. So we partnered up with the market intelligence team and started getting to work.” 

(30:06) “In terms of mission / vision, there’s a phrase that my boss coined called democratized learning. You’re dealing with adults, and there’s an element of autonomy that you want your workforce to demonstrate. You want somebody to be able to execute business processes with little to no questions and potentially be able to train others. You want them to become a knowledge resource. That’s the ideal. At least that’s our ideal.”

(38:08) Answering an audience question: Does internal podcasting reduce time to revenue for new hires? “What we've seen so far is, yes. You can transmit information and knowledge to a new hire that is contextualizing around their role and their function, their purpose, and the business, and the culture, and the mission vision… The faster you can close that gap, the better. We think about the concept of mastery internally. We think about creating masters, like knowledge masters. Knowledge area masters. And finessing certain areas. In order to get to a high level of business execution, you have to learn well.”

(47:02) “The demand for podcasting has shot up in the air. There is definitely a high adoption rate of specifically our podcasts. And we do see a ton of value added across all business areas. So far we've seen really positive ROI.

Here’s a small sneak peek:

Don’t miss out on an opportunity to glean actionable strategies for your own organization. Watch the recorded Livecast now and learn how to keep your workforce ahead of the curve, just like N.F. Smith & Associates.

Your path to a smarter, more agile team starts here.