Constructing The First Collaborative Studying Group For Veterans

100% Course Relevance, 90+ Course Authors, And Extra

Fight Stress, a number one UK charity supporting veterans’ psychological well being, has a wealthy historical past of over 100 years. Their work is life-changing, and their mission to ship specialist therapy for veterans is instrumental in serving to former servicemen and ladies reside full and significant lives.

Because the organisation continues to develop their community of 150 charities and providers, they should evolve their Studying and Improvement technique from purely transactional to a extra impactful, collaborative resolution.

Fight Stress required a sturdy, scalable resolution to handle each inside and exterior coaching wants, together with onboarding, worker improvement, compliance coaching, and help for veterans and their community group.

The Crew

• Andrew Veevers, Partnership Lead for Studying & Improvement
• Dr Jessica Bolton, Head of Maximising Medical Effectiveness & Specialist Exterior Coaching
• Elin Solomon, Studying & Improvement Assistant Coach
• Gill Gallagher, Coaching Programme Co-ordinator

The Problem

Earlier than implementing 360Learning, Fight Stress relied on a transactional Studying Administration System (LMS) that fell in need of their evolving wants. Whereas it coated obligatory programs like GDPR and fireplace security, it lacked the flexibleness and interactivity wanted to foster a tradition of collaborative studying and information sharing. This introduced 5 principal challenges:

1. Issue in creating expert-led coaching. The earlier system didn’t permit Topic Matter Specialists (SMEs) to share their information successfully, resulting in a reliance on the L&D workforce to create content material, which was not scalable. This made it troublesome to foster a tradition of steady studying.
2. Lack of engagement amongst friends and Topic Matter Specialists. The organisation’s earlier transactional studying tradition fostered minimal interplay amongst learners, leading to low engagement and poor information retention. There was a crucial have to transition from passive content material consumption to energetic, collaborative studying that inspired peer engagement and information sharing.
3. Challenges in offering digital coaching to veterans. Fight Stress confronted important challenges in offering coaching to veterans throughout COVID-19. Their face-to-face help stopped in a single day, and shifting their coaching from in-person to on-line turned an pressing precedence.
4. Siloed worker improvement. Coaching was usually performed in silos, with completely different departments managing their very own coaching independently. This led to a scarcity of coherence within the organisation’s total L&D technique as coaching was dispersed and disorganised.
5. Delayed ramp-up for brand new hires. The onboarding course of was not as environment friendly as wanted, with new staff taking as much as 13 weeks to turn into absolutely operational. This extended ramp-up interval was affecting total productiveness and delaying the impression new hires may make.

The Turning Level: Discovering 360Learning

Fight Stress’s journey with 360Learning began when exterior L&D guide Andrew Veevers recognized the necessity for a extra interactive studying platform that might transcend compliance coaching to help each inside onboarding and worker improvement, in addition to exterior coaching for veterans.

As Andrew Veevers, now Partnership Lead for L&D at Fight Stress, notes, “360Learning was integral in reworking our coaching programmes.”

The Answer: 360Learning

Since implementing 360Learning, Fight Stress has seen a big transformation of their L&D processes. This is how the platform has made a distinction.

Empowered SMEs And Course Authors

Fight Stress has empowered over 90 Topic Matter Specialists, over a 3rd of their workforce, to create content material on the 360Learning platform. This has notably decentralised and streamlined the method, releasing up the L&D workforce’s time. A two-stage high quality assurance course of ensures content material accuracy and alignment with organisational targets, involving a deputy SME for factual overview and the L&D workforce for closing checks.

The course authoring performance has been a game-changer, reworking initially reluctant SMEs into proactive content material creators. “It was an actual mild bulb second,” says Andrew. “Prior to now, all the pieces was transactional. Now, SMEs obtain optimistic suggestions from learners and are desirous to discover new methods to share data.”

Elevated Engagement And Collaboration

The introduction of blended studying programmes has boosted engagement throughout the board. Suggestions from each inside staff and exterior customers has been overwhelmingly optimistic, with many appreciating the platform’s user-friendly interface and the number of content material obtainable. As Andrew says, “The platform is intuitive, simple to make use of, and the front-end is clear. This actually helps to interact our multigenerational viewers.”

This shift from a transactional to a collaborative studying tradition straight addressed the problem of low engagement and lack of improvement alternatives for everybody and has led to raised information retention and a stronger sense of group throughout the organisation.

Created Invaluable Studying Communities

One of the crucial transformative outcomes of implementing 360Learning at Fight Stress is the creation of studying communities throughout the UK. “These communities are life-changing,” says Andrew. “They supply real-time peer help and information sharing, vastly bettering our responsiveness to coaching wants. Earlier than 360Learning, getting updates, like a coverage change from the federal government, may take weeks or months—now it occurs in a single afternoon.”

The creation of this one-of-a-kind collaborative studying group has not gone unnoticed. Fight Stress has since received the Healthcare and Rehabilitation Award on the Soldier On Awards, a prestigious award that honours contributions made to the bodily or psychological welfare of present and former service personnel.

Offered Over 450 “Individuals Round The Veteran” With Coaching And Training

The platform has additionally performed a vital position in Fight Stress’s exterior psychological well being training initiatives. The L&D workforce, with the assistance of their SMEs, have created blended studying paths in 360Learning, permitting them to trace classes in a single place. By means of interactive on-line studying, reside occasions and boards, veterans and their help networks have entry to high-quality coaching on matters comparable to suicide prevention and creating trauma-informed organisations.

Fight Stress has even acquired requests from veterans desirous to contribute within the co-authorship of programs, reside occasions and share their private tales.

“It is extremely highly effective to have veterans share their tales and be capable to use these for academic functions, utilising the platform to share this very private journey,” says Andrew. “On common, it takes a veteran 13 years to hunt assist after leaving the navy. If we will scale back that hole by inviting them to share their experiences on the platform, we’re dedicated to doing so.”

Additional funding success means extra folks may have entry to the content material and greatest apply, which is able to see over 3000 folks becoming a member of Fight Stress’s on-line studying communities by the tip of 2025. “An enormous ‘thanks’ to the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Belief (AFCFT) for his or her continued help and shared imaginative and prescient in successfully educating the ‘workforce(s) across the veteran’,” says Andrew.

Centralised Worker Improvement Coaching

Since implementing 360Learning, Fight Stress has centralised and streamlined their coaching efforts. By managing in-person coaching and eLearning initiatives in a single platform, they’ve eradicated the fragmented method that beforehand hindered cohesive improvement.

This centralisation additionally enabled higher monitoring of worker progress and efficiency. By not manually monitoring in-person studying in a separate platform, the L&D workforce can now overview reporting throughout all coaching in a single platform. As well as, Fight Stress has fostered a extra unified and aligned studying tradition, and in consequence, staff throughout all departments now have equal entry to structured improvement alternatives, selling a extra constant and scalable L&D technique.

Improved Onboarding For New Hires

Fight Stress has revamped their onboarding course of, making it extra streamlined and interesting.

New hires now endure a complete induction programme that mixes organisational and role-specific coaching, considerably decreasing the information sharing time that it takes to turn into absolutely operational, from 13 weeks to only 8 weeks—a 40% enchancment!

“The most effective suggestions we have acquired from new hires is their shock at how superior our onboarding is, particularly for a charity. Many have stated that even company corporations have extra outdated programmes than Fight Stress, which is nice to listen to!,” says Andrew.

Enhanced Management Improvement

In addition to a revamped organisational induction, Fight Stress are utilising the platform to share Management and Administration experience and strengthening not simply the statutory and obligatory coaching titles, however the developmental parts of roles, too.

To have particular Management and Administration teams, the place groups can talk brazenly and successfully within the newsfeed, in addition to decide up on one another’s feedback for peer studying makes these titles a lot richer.

The Outcomes

Fight Stress has achieved spectacular outcomes since implementing 360Learning:

• Engaged 90+ SMEs to writer programs, over a 3rd of all the workforce
• 100% course relevance rating
• 97% course completion price
• 1000 hours of on-line studying content material consumed by exterior customers
• Over 600 individuals in reside occasions
• Vital discount in onboarding time, from 13 weeks to eight weeks—a 40% discount
• Shortlisted for the celebrated Soldier On Awards for the creation of their distinctive collaborative studying group

What’s Subsequent For Fight Stress?

Fight Stress’s partnership with 360Learning has been pivotal in reworking its method to L&D. By shifting away from a transactional LMS to a dynamic, collaboration-led platform, Fight Stress has been capable of foster a tradition of steady studying, enhance operational effectivity, and lengthen its impression throughout the veteran group.

As Fight Stress continues to scale its efforts, 360Learning stays on the coronary heart of its technique in how they help veterans and their community. With extra funding on its method, Fight Stress shall be including 3250 new licenses by the tip of 2025, permitting them to achieve and help much more folks across the veterans. Andrew and the workforce may even begin leveraging 360Learning’s AI-powered options extra by introducing the AI course builder and L&D managed prompts throughout their writer inhabitants in addition to utilising present instruments comparable to Studying Wants and the statistical and reporting knowledge.