What was the project?
ECH is one of the largest not-for-profit providers of integrated retirement living accommodation and ageing care services. They have a largely mobile or remote workforce across metropolitan and regional South Australia and relied heavily on face-to-face training with online learning limited to only a small cohort of staff.
ECH tasked us with establishing a user-friendly online learning system for their mobile workforce in an industry with demanding and ever-changing compliance and training needs, so they could carry out their essential work as effectively as possible.
We’d only just started on the project and implementing our learning platform, Birch, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. With heightened compliance and infection control demands in the aged care sector, Birch quickly became essential for delivering and recording ECH’s training and compliance.
Broadly, ECH wanted:
1. A system that reflected compliance, not academia, like most LMSs.
2. The flexibility to support the industry’s ever-changing requirements and high compliance needs – both in content creation and reporting.
3. To specifically target employee groups easily and automatically, reducing manual and paper-based workflows.
4. Management to have a snapshot of their team’s compliance.
5. Local tech support (within Australia)
They were conscious of the impact a new LMS would have on staff so the implementation needed to be smooth, as most LMSs they’d viewed focused on desktop use, with mobile accessibility an afterthought or in a separate application with differing interfaces.
How did Birch Learning Platform solve ECH challenges?
Take a look at some of the specific ways in which Birch solves ECH challenges:
- Birch links staff to relevant learning material and provides a central location to upload and store completion certificates. The responsiveness of Birch’s interface allows both mobile and desktop staff to easily complete these processes.
- Birch’s features including allotted time and renewal cycles, ensure that learning is delivered, completed, and renewed within government timeframes.
- ECH created several core Mandatory Training Goals, using streams to organise and deliver the elements relevant to that area, role, or task. This allows them to reach target audiences and apply the appropriate renewal cycles. By using streams and the element settings, ECH can target and apply the different renewal properties without duplicating the learning element itself, keeping records streamlined.
- The configurations of goals and streams mean reports are easily generated and shared across the business, using real-time data rather than Excel spreadsheets that had to be manually modified.
- On-the-job (OTJ) Assessments reduce paper-based records. Staff member/s can pick up the relevant OTJ Assessment, mark off any tasks, save its progress, complete it later, or pass it on to another staff member.
- The Birch team view which is automatically applied to any delegated manager provides a real-time snapshot of the team’s compliance status. Managers can also autonomously identify and action non-compliance.
- While some face-to-face training is still required, it’s made easier with the event element and the manager approval and waitlist functions. The approval workflow allows managers to plan their staff training attendance while ensuring minimal service disruption to clients. The waitlist allows ECH to forecast training needs and when necessary, book additional sessions.
What were the results?
Using Birch to expand their learning experiences beyond mainly face-to-face has benefited ECH significantly. They’re no longer restricted to only one type of learning format and now have a centralised and streamlined approach with everything located within the Birch platform, both automatically and on a self-serve basis.
Birch’s learning pathways give staff the opportunity to complete training development at any time, in any place, and on any device.
“Birch is easy to use and has allowed ECH to streamline repetitive, manual, clunky processes to focus on producing and supporting meaningful and industry-specific eLearning to reflect the organisation’s strategic outcomes”. Lauren Simpson, Learning & Capability Manager, ECH
In terms of specific results, in only six months, ECH reported that overall compliance with mandatory training increased from 86% to 92% — with this expected to continue to rise as more people become familiar with Birch.
“The increased ability to track progress and performance has been crucial in ensuring that our people have the knowledge they need in a timely manner and therefore the skills to perform their jobs effectively”.
This solution also received a Diamond award in the Best LMS category at the prestigious 2023 LearnX awards.
We are continuing to work with ECH to ensure they are getting the most out of Birch and it’s meeting their changing needs.
“The support provided by B Online has been exceptional from procurement to implementation and ongoing. B Online was incredibly responsive and took the time to understand our unique requirements. They are always available to answer questions and provide guidance. Their commitment to providing great service, innovative solutions, and ongoing support has made them an invaluable partner”.