Akin to many councils across the UK, sustaining both efficient and effective learning and development across the many service areas of Northumberland CC has been challenging.
Serving such a large geographical area (from the Scottish border right down to Tyneside and as far West as Haltwhistle) has over time, hindered our desire to hit maximum potential.
With a legacy of separate training databases, management systems and e-learning platforms, unfortunately it has meant that at times, capturing learning and development data has been far too time-consuming, complex and dare, I say it, unreliable.
Northumberland's workforce is diverse with over 6,000 staff. Previous evidence revealed that on average, traditional, in-person training was costing the council £20 an hour for each employee. Lessons were no longer proving to be effective methods of knowledge transfer and a classroom-style approach to learning was no longer considered cost-effective or an effi cient solution.
A totally different culture of learning was required and a new learning architecture developed to ensure a much greater offering of being ‘fit for purpose' for both residents and our delivery partners. We needed to create an excellent virtual learning environment that facilitated and supported both individuals and the council's strategic priorities.
Liaising with staff to develop an ‘organisational development strategy', it soon became clear that we needed a sophisticated single point offer of a talent management system that transformed the way in which we upskilled our staff, motivated them and delivered further improved services.
‘Learning Pool' ticked the right boxes to allow us to offer a tailored solution that met all of Northumberland's future training needs.
Against budget constraints and the requirement to save money across the board, we needed to embed a robust system sustainable for future generations and one that provided a real return on investment.
Learning Pool bought vast experience having delivered tailored online learning solutions to over one million people in the UK. The team has already helped both public and private sector organisations save over £50m.
Benefiting from support with a dedicated learning consultant, site administration and unlimited helpdesk access, we were able to actively manage team development with new individual development plans, ultimately improving our business performance and ensuring our partners were fully onboard and moved with us through transition.
Our resilient staff embraced this new learning opportunity, working flexibly both on their own and with each other to ensure they maximised each course's potential.
The new integrated approach to learning and development has also enabled us to support business process improvement more effectively, helping services to develop and to launch and train staff on new policies and procedures from a single point of access.
This approach was used to support a review of how NCC dealt with the application, assessment and issuing of ‘Blue Badges' to Northumberland residents.
Working with the project manager staff developed content through the Learning Pool authoring tool to help train and support staff on the new process.
Those staff responsible for implementing the new process, worked through the courses at their own pace which has led to a more motivated approach to providing new efficient services and a real ‘can do' culture.
With efficiencies greatly increased and disruption to working patterns greatly reduced, our training costs on average are now only £4 an hour for each member of staff.
Due to our overall 80% reduction in costs, we are now providing even more training than before and have so far saved over 10,000 classroom hours and 1,200 administrative hours – time much better spent out there on the ground working to meet residents' needs.
Over an average three-month period, 3,500 of our workforce complete courses with over 100 a day regularly going online to train and seek support.
Learning lounges have been established to upskill colleagues and share intelligence and advice. We have already won an e-learning award.
Learning Pool tailored the package to meet our vision; ensuring training would be as effective as it could be throughout the council.
We are meeting our challenge to do more for less as well as securing talent. The environment is also benefiting with huge reductions in CO2 omissions, fuel costs and already we have saved over 9,000 sheets of paper.
But it isn't just about efficiencies. Having embraced new technologies and smarter, less time-consuming ways of learning, our staff development programme has improved rapidly, allowing us to move forward with confidence in achieving excellence in our service delivery.
Paul Brooks is learning and organisational development manager at Northumberland CC
