Origin Global

Background 

As a manufacturing company, compliance is key for Origin Global (OG). It needs to ensure that the standards expected of its bespoke aluminum bi-folding doors and window business are met. As such, audits are routinely held every six months to evidence that its employees are correctly completing the necessary health and safety, environmental, and manual handling training. 

Challenge 

However, departments across OG had been operating in silos using a variety of written guides, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and screenshots to inform training for their business area of OG’s workforce. The result was an absence of consistency or training focal point, which had the potential to leave the company open to gaps in employee learning and development and could ultimately harm its manufacturing operations. 

Standardizing training

To improve its business resilience, Origin Global needed to find a way of offering compliance training that:

• Ensured consistent coverage of learning requirements.
• Removed duplication of training delivery.
• Could monitor employees’ learning and development progression.
• Was accessible to all employees.

Solution

Housed on the Learning Pool Platform, Learning Pool offered an online, editable catalog of content that not only met the manufacturing company’s criteria but also removed the need for onsite training delivery which routinely side-lined senior team members from other work commitments.

Furthermore, the streamlined online administration and delivery of training Learning Pool offered would yield time and cost efficiencies for Origin, as:

• Programs could be readily delivered and completed as and when required.
• Online modules have an endless capacity for any number of staff members to engage in training.
• RAG dashboards monitor staff learning and development in real-time, ensuring cross-organizational compliance in performing roles correctly and safely.

To ensure training was equally accessible to staff across each business area, tablets were obtained for those who did not work in an office environment, such as warehouse staff, or who did not have their own PCs or laptops. In addition, Origin Global, which has a diverse employee base in its warehouse, further ensured training was inclusive by translating all content into multiple languages so that all staff members could fully participate.

Outcomes

Since introducing the online compliance courses in 2020 to cover its manufacturing business, Origin Global has seen 1,634 course completions by its colleagues.

Opening the door to further training opportunities 

Origin Global realized there was an opportunity to expand its online training and use Learning Pool systems to make induction experiences for its new staff consistent. Within the company, there are several teams covering different business areas, such as sales, manufacturing, and warehouse. Each business area had been reliant on its manager to provide induction training and share knowledge, but with each manager approaching training delivery differently, and with differing resources, there was once again a lack of continuity when it came to onboarding new staff. 

Since introducing the learning platform, Origin Global has been able to introduce two main induction programs online for staff, with four focus areas:

• Compliance.
• Systems training.
• Product knowledge.
• The business culture. 

The process is now not only consistent but much more simplified. It has drastically reduced the time taken to complete and for staff to begin working effectively within the company: 

• Office staff – From four/four-and-a-half weeks to two/two-and-a-half weeks.
• Production staff – From three/four weeks to one-week maximum.

Response

Furthermore, feedback forms from both induction trainees and managers who have experienced the process before and after the introduction of the LMS have been extremely positive: 

“Recently starting at Origin, I was super impressed with the training provided in my induction process. I really liked that the courses were interactive but also the information was specific to Origin and their processes. It’s a personal touch that makes the information stick and not just generic information that I have been told to just read on my first day in my previous jobs.”  Richard Croxford – Loading Assistant

“Having the Academy makes my life so much easier when hiring new staff as well as training my current staff. New staff as well as temporary employees can join and instantly do all of their mandatory compliance training without the need for me to oversee or explain each section. 

Having the training dashboards also allows me to oversee my whole team’s training standards, update and monitor them for planning shift patterns each week to make sure that we are covered.” Dexter Bowring – Door Production Shift Manager

Upskilling

Learning Pool content could also be adapted to create routine upskilling pathways for existing employees. Designed to allow the company to improve knowledge across its organization in a coherent and structured way, the following modules were created:

• Product Knowledge – For sales and fitters.
• Product 101 – Covering all the essentials for sales. 
• Product Expert – For the fitters who install on-site.  

Product knowledge content was supported by a variety of interactive tools, including videos and quizzes, to supplement and reinforce learning. 

Bi-monthly quizzes were also held to cover the business culture, which Origin Global had identified as an area for focus. ‘Getting to know your business’ quizzes helped to improve knowledge across the organization whilst generating an engaging, competitive element with individual and team leader boards and prizes such as free pizza and gift cards.  

“The online courses and content on the Academy are so handy for my teams as we always have it open to refer to for information when we are speaking to our customers. It gives the team confidence in the information they can provide. We then challenge one another across teams and between people on the company quizzes which have a mixture of company and product questions. Some people take it very seriously as they really want the prizes, and to get one over on over on their colleagues.” Maria Garcia – Partner Services Team Leader

Production gains

As well as meeting the learning and development needs at Origin Global, two wider business outcomes have been generated as a result of partnering with Learning Pool.

Firstly, resource planning; managers have been able to use the system’s training dashboards to quickly identify who is qualified to do various tasks throughout the company, and increased its agility to move employees during periods of sickness or leave. 

This was invaluable during the COVID-19 pandemic, as it allowed the organization to:

• Continue to function and be productive during high absence levels.
• Create split shift patterns, with balanced staff levels and capabilities allocated across all business areas. 

In fact, the division of teams during the pandemic proved so successful, Origin Global continues to use split shift patterns, as it found that it increased daily production capacity.

Secondly, the new learning and development system has helped to reduce production errors/incidents. As a business, Origin records its data against a target of achieving on-time in full delivery (OTIF) and therefore measures any mistakes/incidents recorded across the organization against the number of product deliveries. 

Since the introduction of the Academy Learning Management System and the production induction process, Origin Global has recorded a decrease from 9% OTIF failures to 6%. 

Whilst there have been other process improvements internally, the company firmly believes that the improved consistency of organizational-wide training to record and control processes has been a significant contributing factor to such success.

Resilience

From a starting point of compliance to increase the resilience of the company, Origin’s latest stage on its journey with Learning Pool has led it to consider the resilience of its employees, not to mention how training can support them as individuals. 

During Mental Health Awareness Week, a campaign was launched that was specifically focused on mental health training. Using the same familiar system that was used by employees to complete routine training, courses were produced on topics such as anxiety and depression. The aim was to reduce the stigma around mental health and promote emotional well-being and help-seeking behaviors. In the same way that compliance training was mandatory to ensure standards are met, this mental health training was compulsory, and completions and staff well-being rocketed as a consequence.

“The mental health awareness week that the company ran in 2022 involved online courses on the learning management system, alongside workshop sessions and internal advertising of awareness. This was key in building an understanding of the struggles that individuals can experience, and how we can all show empathy and follow the best practices. The changes and impact following this have come about from increased welfare meetings, initiated by Origin to ‘open the door to talk’. Again it is all about due to our commitment to talking to people about their problems, and going the extra mile to remove stigma and negativity when employees struggle.” Emily Holzer – Head of Human Resources