Applying reflective learning to business

Real Journeys is one of New Zealand’s leading tourism operators, and they’ve been sharing the natural heritage and beauty of South Island and Stewart Island for more than 60 years.  The company’s culture of caring for the environment and for visitors extends also to their staff, and led Real Journeys to partner with Otago Polytechnic’s Capable Training team.

Kevin Sharpe, Director of People and Performance at Real Journeys says: “The learning options were relevant to employees in our business and offered learning outcomes that were going to make a difference to the operation. They were developing people’s thinking and learning styles. There’s been an element of unpacking and reflection in all the courses. Those reflective learning skills were never there before and they’re great preparation for when people potentially go on to do higher level learning later."

Otago Polytechnic worked with Real Journeys to develop a series of workshops covering diverse topics such as Business Transformation and Change. The bite-size workshops minimise disruption to daily operations. Now in the second year of the partnership Real Journeys sees the programme as a success.

Asked about the benefits for the company, Kevin says “It’s provided empathy for what others do and how departments interact. Ultimately it’s helped some managers to transition to becoming better leaders. That’s the biggest impact seeing how they handle change, new ideas; there’s a lot of growth around our industry at the moment so we need to be innovating. These are key leaders in the business and it is making a big difference. It is visual leadership that you can see, and it is evident.”