Clarion Housing Group case study: growing together

Learning Nexus and Clarion Housing Group have nurtured a long-standing, supportive working relationship – and the result is a bank of unique courses expertly suited to staff needs.

With 125,000 homes and more than 350,000 residents, Clarion Housing Group is the largest housing association in the country – and they’re on a mission to provide homes to those that need them most.

Clarion Housing Group formed in 2017 after the merging of Affinity Sutton and Circle Housing Group. Prior to this, Learning Nexus had worked with Affinity Sutton since 2014. With a relationship spanning almost a decade, Learning Nexus have created nearly 100 bespoke courses across the two brands, each designed to train staff in an informative yet entertaining manner reflecting Learning Nexus’ signature approach to course building.

Clarion’s base of staff extends further than the usual core business departments to include on-the-ground roles like surveyors, trade operatives and cleaners, so it makes sense that they’d need a comprehensive library of diverse digital learning courses – and that’s something that Clarion’s Learning and Development Manager Claire Andrews is passionate about:

“Being a housing association, the topics that we cover when it comes to training needs are so vast. It could be something about customer service, or something very job specific, like condensation, damp, and mould. All the courses that Learning Nexus have created over the years have been quite varied in their format and style. I speak to lots of people across our organisation of 4,000 learners and the one that gets mentioned the most is the Data Protection course, which features the superheroes – and I think it’s because it sticks in people’s minds!”

 

“People like the fact that we’ve taken a very dry subject and created something that’s engaging. This was the first time that we stepped away from the traditional ‘reading-off-a-screen’ type of learning."

A relationship rooted in understanding

When it comes to collaboration, Learning Nexus has taken the time to understand how Clarion work, which has nurtured a health and effective relationship.

"Learning Nexus has a feel for how I like to work, which means that we're able to collaborate well," says Claire.

 

"We're a small team, and for a long time, I was the only person looking after digital learning, and I still am to an extent. The fact that we have a relationship with Learning Nexus, and that we work very well together just makes it easy for me. I know that if I contact Learning Nexus, we're going to work well on projects."

 

“Recently, we’ve jumped on calls with subject matter experts, and I do that with the confidence that Learning Nexus are going to understand the brief, be creative in their thinking, understand the way that I work and what I want, and that’s always pretty straight forward. It just makes my job easier, which in turn means that our learners end up with a product that is good and fulfils their learning requirements,” she explains.

This opinion goes both ways too, with our Digital Learning Manager, Kim Eade, feeling closely aligned with the Clarion brand.

“Claire and her team at Clarion are a delight to work with. They are very clear with their briefs and trust us to create great work for them. Our working relationship is something which has grown over the last 4 years that I’ve been working with them, so we know how each other works, which has helped with project workflow.”

Meeting business needs

Using their HR system, Workday, Clarion makes a host of courses available to their staff for ongoing learning and development.

“We mainly rely on digital courses to tick the boxes in terms of things like governance and compliance. We have a suite of courses that we ask new joiners to do, and that we ask our colleagues to take annually as a refresher. It’s important that people do that learning because the business is at risk if they’re not doing those courses.”

 

“We break down the courses that are available to our learners into topics, and then we just leave them to it. Apart from the stuff that we’re telling them to do, some people will do every single course because they’re really keen to learn, while some people will never look at what’s available – it just depends on the individual.”

The course building process

Learning Nexus use Storyline 360 and the Adapt authoring tool to build courses for Clarion. The process is usually that Clarion comes to Learning Nexus with an initial idea, and then we go full steam ahead with making a lesson plan and designing a great course for them. Over time, we have refreshed and rebranded many courses for Clarion, as their needs and goals shift. Two of those courses are explained below:

Lone working

In June 2019, we created a Lone Working course for Clarion, aiming to help staff understand Clarion’s principles for safe lone working by the identification, prevention, and management of potential risks. Made using Articulate Storyline, this was the first course in our brand refresh collection, for which we analysed Clarion courses, and began thinking about how we could elevate the user experience.

View our IOSH approved Health and Safety eLearning collection to find out more about our Lone Working course, Lone Ranger: Lone Working Hazards and Risks, and other essential topics to keep your people safe at work.

Customer solutions

A month later, in July 2019, we created a Customer Solutions course for Clarion. Made using Articulate Storyline, this course build involved working with Clarion’s tone of voice and new brand guidelines to craft an engaging gamified and user-focused learning experience.

View our Specialist collection for our eLearning course, Customer Service Skills for Local Authorities, and other key topics for the housing sector.

Looking ahead

Putting learning and development at the forefront, Clarion has a host of Learning and Development activities planned for the coming year.

“The team at Clarion have some interesting looking projects ahead of them, and as always, I am super excited to see how LN can support them. Their move away from conventional ‘click-next’ digital learning fits fantastically with my teams’ growing desires and passions, and I envision some great stuff on the horizon,” Kim concludes.

You can find out more about our bespoke course building services here, or contact us to start your bespoke eLearning journey at hello@learningnexus.co.uk.