After some important tweaks, the property developer’s in-house ‘university’ is set to expand. An architect of the program shares lessons learnt.

Mirvac’s HR team faced a dilemma when they decided to design a new flagship learning and development (L&D) initiative: with limited resources, how could they create a scalable program that would secure the buy-in of both leaders and staff?

“We’re a much smaller organisation than people might think,” says learning and leadership development manager Chantelle Tsanidis. “Our HR department is lean – there are only two people in the learning team – so the solution needed to be resource-efficient.”

The program they designed, known as Mirvac Masters, launched in 2024, with the stated aim of being an ‘on-the-job university’ for the organisation’s employees. 

It combines data-driven curriculum design based on capability assessments; lectures and tutorials delivered by senior Mirvac staff; and a formal academic partnership with the University of Sydney. Participants receive a tertiary-level micro-qualification on completion.

In 2025, the program won the AHRI Award for Best Learning & Development Strategy, in part for its demonstrable results. 

“We found that 24 of the 25 capabilities we measured pre-program had improved post-program,” says Tsanidis. 

Of those capabilities, lower-baseline capabilities improved by 8.2 per cent, outperforming the overall average uplift of 6.2 per cent and demonstrating measurable progress in closing priority capability gaps.

“When we took those results to our leaders, they were just so excited, because with learning programs, it’s very difficult to prove ROI,” says Tsanidis.

“What it showed is that Mirvac Masters has transformed learning in our organisation from a support function into a strategic business capability. We are quietly surprised by just how well it’s gone.”

Have you got an HR initiative that’s award-worthy? Or perhaps you’ve got someone in your team who you’d like to nominate for HR Leader, HR Practitioner or Future HR Leader of the year? Applications for the 2026 AHRI Awards are open up until 28 July.

Ironing out the kinks

That’s not to say the program’s rollout has been stress-free.

While Mirvac’s team leaders conveyed in-principle support from the outset, many expressed concern about the demands Mirvac Masters would place on them.

“The senior people we approached to teach the courses barely had time to have lunch, and here we were, asking them to deliver lecture material and run tutorials,” says Tsanidis.

The solution? Start small, then scale.

“We began with a couple of courses tailored to specific cohorts within the business, working with leaders who had agreed to devote some time to this,” says Tsanidis.

“After those had run, we found that word of mouth started to spread. Other senior staff heard good things from their colleagues, saw the impact, and became more willing to be involved.”

The program’s ‘students’ expressed similar capacity concerns, and initial attendance was patchy, says Tsanidis.

“People would not show up and tell us later: ‘I simply cannot attend this training. I’m far too busy.’ That made us think carefully.”

To address this, HR shortened lecture lengths from 90 minutes to 60; allowed people to dial in, rather than attend in person; and made lecture videos available afterwards, so those who were unable to attend could catch up.

“Building in that flexibility helped change attitudes,” says Tsanidis. 

“With a lot of our training – compliance, for example – we still encounter resistance, but once we had shaped Mirvac Masters in response to that early feedback, people didn’t want to get out of it; they actually wanted to get in.”

“Word of mouth started to spread. Other senior staff heard good things from their colleagues, saw the impact, and became more willing to be involved.” – Chantelle Tsanidis,  Learning & Leadership Development Manager, Mirvac

Why Mirvac’s program works

Tsanidis credits the program’s alignment with the three pillars of Mirvac’s People Strategy – Join, Grow, Belong – as a key reason for its viability.

“Mirvac Masters increasingly plays a role in why people choose to join Mirvac: it promises a future-focused learning experience and showcases our deep commitment to their development,” she says.

“It brings the Grow pillar to life by embedding capability development into the flow of everyday work. And, to support Belonging, it engages cohorts in peer learning and cross-functional collaboration, fostering meaningful relationships and building a sense of community.”

Tsanidis points to three other factors that make Mirvac Masters successful:

1. It is delivered by Mirvac staff. Leveraging in-house talent not only significantly reduces the program’s operating costs but also helps engage learners. 

“Using your own people means the case studies and examples in lectures are often drawn from within,” she says. “If we had used property people from outside of Mirvac, we would have lost that sense of connection that really gets participants thinking.”

2. It is supported by the CEO. Mirvac boss Campbell Hanan has championed the Mirvac Masters program and, in the process, helped excite the workforce. 

“Getting his buy-in required us to very clearly make the case for Mirvac Masters as a program attached to broader company strategies, such as enhancing internal collaboration. I think he loves the fact that it’s being delivered by our own people, too.”

3. It has been rolled out gradually. Although HR started the program small so it could be modified on the fly, there was another benefit of the gradual rollout: it helped intrigue staff. 

“We started receiving emails saying: ‘How can I get on this program?’ Generating FOMO [fear of missing out] wasn’t our intention, but it really helped engage our teams.”

Expanding Mirvac Masters

Two years into the program, Tsanidis and her colleagues are about to launch a new iteration. While the courses so far have been tailored to specific business units, the new course, known as Mastering Property, will be open to anyone on staff.

“We’ve taken feedback on board and examined the outcomes of the smaller courses we’ve run so far, and we feel now is the time to open up the program, using the same structure as before but creating a course that is not team-specific,” she says.

Doing so will require the course to be relevant across the org chart, offering something valuable to staff with differing skill sets.

“It poses a new set of challenges,” says Tsanidis, “but it also presents an opportunity to create a sense of inclusivity, which we hope will allow the program to thrive.”

🧰 HR’s career resource toolkit

• AHRI Awards: Celebrate the exceptional achievements in HR practice at the 2026 AHRI Awards. Submissions are open for individual and organisational awards until 28 July. Apply now.
• Learning: Gain the tools to create and apply a customised capability framework that aligns with your organisation’s capabilities with its goals and values with this course from AHRI.
• Learning: Learn to effectively balance the needs of employees and managers, handle pushback and successfully manage conflict with AHRI’s Overcoming Stakeholder Resistance course.