Cheltenham Borough Homes case study: A Totora success story

About

Cheltenham Borough Homes (CBH) is a top performing Arm’s Length Management
rganisation (ALMO) responsible for the management and maintenance of Cheltenham Borough Council’s housing stock.

As a non-profit organisation, they aim to consistently improve and make a difference to the lives of thousands of people living in the homes and communities within which they operate. CBH has been awarded the highest possible rating by government inspectors and consistently delivers high quality services and support.

What did CBH choose?

• Totara Learn LMS implemented and supported by Learning Nexus.
• Off-the-shelf digital eLearning content - ranges including health and safety, legislation and ethics, workplace skills, food safety and management skills.
• Our authoring tool to create and edit their own HTML5 bespoke courses.

What did CBH choose Totara Learn?

CBH were one of many other UK organisations who had never implemented a learning management system. They previously had access to some digital learning courses as part of a shared services scheme across different councils, but the content was fairly basic and didn’t satisfy their full learning and development needs. CBH were able to complete online training and add other training to the system to create ‘learning statements’, but this was the extent of their access to the system.

Classroom based sessions were organised via email and word documents and Liz Garner, Head of HR for CBH, described it as a “hit and miss” whether attendance was recorded and maintained. This caused issues for the business, as they couldn’t report on training records held by individual colleagues, only by groups. Ultimately, their compliance training was managed by a master spreadsheet, which had its limitations and restrictions.

When the opportunity arose for CBH to search for a new training solution, they originally planned to simply replace their current digital learning with something similar. But after looking at alternative learning management systems and seeing
Learning Nexus demonstrate the functionality and features available on the Totara Learn LMS, CBH couldn’t wait to get started on their implementation journey.

Key features

One of the key features for CBH when choosing Totara Learn was compliance management. As an ALMO responsible for managing and maintaining over 5,000 social homes in Cheltenham, they needed to ensure that their colleagues were on top of their regulatory training requirements.

Being able to set up programs, certifications and learning pathways was extremely important. An example of the compliance functionality being a key feature is CBH’s ‘Asbestos Programme’, as they have been able to set up ‘audiences’ to ensure that each colleague has the right training in the right timescales. They have also taken advantage of Learning Nexus’ new ‘Quick Guide to GDPR’ course.

Liz Garner adds: “This was very easy, and we can ensure that all colleagues complete this on an annual basis as a refresher. The reporting on Totara makes it really clear who has and who has not completed the training and where you need to chase. It’s also really helpful that the calendar on the LMS gets populated with the information and that reminders are set, meaning that hopefully less colleagues miss or forget to attend training in the first place.”

Working with Learning Nexus

When CBH were looking for a new provider, it was Learning Nexus that stood out. Liz explains:

“We looked at a number of different providers, but Learning Nexus stood out, they demonstrated the full scope and opportunity for the system (which was very exciting) but also just how simple and straightforward it was”.

CBH allowed lots of time for the implementation and chose a soft launch; building colleagues up slowly to its capability. With the Learning Nexus HQ only 30 minutes from CBH, the working collaboration complimented their ethos of supporting local organisations.

Liz adds: “Duncan Eeles (Head of Implementation) has been fantastic for our training and support. He has helped the implementation go smoothly and is still supporting us with all our questions and queries as he really cares about us and what we are trying to achieve”.

CBH were pleased that they could personalise the Totara Learn LMS to suit their branding and company identity. They were able to use logos, images and colours to fit the brand and link them closely to their Values initiative, which they had launched shortly before the LMS implementation. They decided to name their LMS the ‘CBH Learning Zone’, allowing colleagues to feel familiar with it when they first logged on.

What has the reaction been?

Colleagues are enjoying the better-quality eLearning content and, although the quizzes may be harder than they’ve been used to, they help to test the knowledge and understanding of learning content. CBH managers are starting to contact the HR department to set up more ‘compulsory’ training on a team by team basis; a good sign that staff are buying into the LMS and its capabilities.

The ‘Estate Services’ team, who normally don’t usually access PCs, really enjoyed the launch and want to make sure that they can have regular access to the system to complete more training. CBH were delighted to hear such positive reaction from non-desk workers, as it will go a long way to help and encourage all colleagues to log on and access the system.

Looking to the future

Whilst it’s still early days since the launch of their new system, CBH are looking forward to using the features further including:

• Building and launching their own bespoke eLearning courses with Learning Nexus’ authoring tool.
• Developing a new ‘Welcome & Induction’ programme and pulling it together with the CBH Learning Zone’s appraisal and development features.
• Enabling the organisation to move away from their paper based lengthy forms.

How can Totara support your organisation?

Flexibility: The LMS can manage online learning content and offline activities such as classroom training. Staff in any environment can access and engage with this content through a desktop or mobile device.

Simplicity: The Totara Learn interface is clean and easy to use, and it’s flexible framework allows it to be rebranded to your organisation. Learning Nexus will provide training on the platform as well as ongoing help to support your knowledge and skills.

Affordability: The Totara platform license is based on user bands to reflect the needs of different sized organisations. This pricing model makes Totara much more affordable.

Effectiveness: Totara Learn ensures your learners are on the right track by allowing managers to directly overview and analyse developmental needs and tailor learner pathways.

Early management: Access your platform through a customised dashboard and track compliance with sophisticated assessment and reporting functions, such as automatic reminders.

Social learning: The platform utilises a range of useful tools that help you to engage with users, including chats and forums.

If you would like more information about Totara Learn, simply contact us about a demo.