Stockton Borough Council skyrockets training with brand new LMS

Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council needed one, unified place for its workforce to thrive and grow. An implementation of Totara Learn was the solution.

Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council is as diverse as it is dynamic. With over 3,000 employees, 175 agency workers and 55 council members, it offers a number of diverse services to the people of the borough, and this makes its training needs complex.

The need for change

Supercharging learning and development was always on the council's agenda, but it was the global pandemic that accelerated them to think more about how they were delivering training.

Prior to the implementation of Totara Learn, the council had no learning management system, or any one central record for employee training, meaning data on learning and development was scattered. Departments within the council were administering their own training courses and records, resulting in learning silos.

In fact, administration on the whole was inefficient and time-consuming. While a HR Administrator could book a user onto a course, that user could not reserve a spot themselves, or view how many places were left.

Spreadsheets were being manually updated as and when course numbers changed, while new starters had to be manually contacted to commence training, rather than receiving an automatic online notification.

New beginnings

And so, the council embarked on an implementation project with Learning Nexus, with the aim to transform the administration and delivery of the council's Learning & Development Programme, health and safety training, mandatory compliance training (GDPR) and any specific training.

The plan was simple:

1. Totara Learn would be implemented as the council's brand new LMS.
2. The new LMS would host all course booking, learning and development activity and records in one, unified hub.
3. The new LMS would be integrated with the pre-existing systems at the council thanks to a full HR Integration.
4. The council would acquire several Learning Nexus courses to further their training.

Transformation

Since the completion of the first phase of the project, the council's learning and development service has been completely transformed.

While the administration, documentation and reporting of L&D activity have all become easier and more seamless, centralised learning means that a user can now look at their records and view all their training in one place.

Through Totara Learn's 'Featured Links' block, the council can now promote content to targeted groups: a feature which suits their Adults and Children Workforce team, who host a lot of mandatory training for specific groups of staff and are now able to restrict courses to chosen audiences.

HR operations have become easier too. Corporate compliance training and new starter inductions are now automated, and a manager can view an employee's training record - something they were previously unable to do.

And best of all? The days of keeping a manual spreadsheet of those booked onto a course are well and truly gone, as users can now view course take up and book onto courses themselves.

A bright future

Feedback on the implementation has been positive and encouraging, with staff finding the new system simple and easy in terms of navigation, usability and system administration.

The Council's HR Manager for Corporate Learning and Development and was the Lead Project Manager for the implementation explains how the project has changed the shape of learning at the council:

"I think it offers so much flexibility for us. We've been advertising courses on the homepage, and people have been booking onto them already and we've had so much positive engagement from staff with this new process, which I'm really pleased about. I think it's going to change the way that we learn and evolve over time."

Since the launch of the council's new LMS, 2,007 users have logged in, and there have been 7,840 course completions.

With these positive early signs, it's clear that the implementation project marks only the beginning for the transformation of learning and development at Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council.

If you would like to know more about how we can support your eLearning plans and LMS implementation efforts, contact us at hello@learningnexus.co.uk.