Hyndburn Council

Background

Named after the River Hyndburn, Hyndburn in Lancashire was formed in 1974 by the amalgamation of the Borough of Accrington with five other districts.

Traditionally, training at Hyndburn Council (HC) has been carried out face-to-face; an activity that in its nature is time-consuming and expensive. HC had an initial flurry into online learning using a system from an alternative supplier, and whilst some success was had, they found it lacked ease of use and some of the content felt old-fashioned or lacked relevance.

With a limited training budget, elearning had always seemed to be an unaffordable alternative however, HC soon came to recognize that time needed to be given to launching a new way of learning if it were to prove to be value for money. As a response to this, the L&D department visited the neighboring council of Burnley which was using Learning Pool Platform and decided that this could be the right time to take the plunge and allow them to deliver the vital training needed for staff to carry out their roles and reduce the amount of time that classroom training took.

Solution

Hyndburn Council decided to implement Learning Pool Platform as it would allow them to easily deliver the learning needed for their wide variety of job roles. Taking on the Public Sector and Foundation Skills collections from Learning Pool Library Content, as well as an add-on cyber-security module, HC was able to easily provide the right training in an accessible and cost-effective way.

Branding the new learning site ‘The Hyve’, the system was fully adapted to HC’s brand and needs and was up and running in under twelve weeks. Many sources, including the Management Suite, were made available to all staff to encourage personal development.

The system is used for the induction of new staff and courses in this area include an introduction to local government, equality in the workplace and introduction to health and safety.

Response

“The Hyve system has been very positively received and is much easier to use than the previous elearning we provided. We have had good engagement from all of the staff that have access to a computer and we love how new courses come on board from Learning Pool regularly so we can keep adding to the library, allowing choice and broadening people’s options for personal development.

We are very happy with the service and support we get from Learning Pool and from an administrative perspective, they are always available at the end of the phone – whether that be a call to our Learning Consultant or to the help desk.”

Shaheen Amaan, Learning and Development Officer

Results

The L&D team has had very positive feedback about the Hyve elearning system and have been regularly adding courses to the portfolio to keep it up-to-date and to encourage engagement. Around 200 members of staff are accessing the system which represents nearly all staff members that have computer access.

Looking forward, Hyndburn Council is looking to develop their induction and onboarding, moving further elements of their face-to-face training onto the Hyve system.