Special Feature: Liz meets Christine Shakespeare, Winner of Learning Pool’s overall Customer of the Year Award 2009

So how did things start off for Basildon District Council? It started off with attending lots of training, had lots of ideas, and did lots of research in the first 10 months. Then in October, Basildon started planning their management development project and decided to integrate e-learning into their face-to-face training and that when it all took off.

When did Basildon District Council start subscribing to Learning Pool?: January 2008

Here is the interview overview

So how did things start off for Basildon District Council…

Started off with attending lots of training, had lots of ideas and did lots of research in the first 10 months. Then in October, Basildon started planning their management development project and decided to integrate e-learning into their face-to-face training and thats when it all took off.

The decision to concentrate on policies…

After much thought and discussions and planning the strategies on how they wanted the courses to look like, Christine explained that Basildon District Council decided to focus on training for policies. This is due to the nature of policy training that could be very time consuming and not a particularly motivating subject.

So by end of October, Basildon had asked Learning Pool to come in and explained their requirements, giving them a target date for 12th of December the same year (Just 6 weeks)!  That included all 6 policies turned into e-learning, with evaluation and assessments!

So what was the key to Basildon District Council’s success?

According to Christine, the key to their success was Learning Pools collaborative approach, teamwork and professionalism was absolutely vital as they themselves did not have alot of resources on the project. They only had a subject matter expert who worked only 2 days in a week and Christine herself but she did not have time project time planned in for this project. So there were very real challenges here for Christine as well as Learning Pool, but they still hit the deadline by 12th of December and was ready to launch in January! Very impressive!!!

The output of success….

Basildon District Council launched their Phase 1 in January 2009 and have had 86 managers who are compliant and was extremely successful achieving 80% or over in every assessment in 6 policies.  Phase 2 of this project has just started in August where they have another 105 managers ready to enrol. Basildon now has 1,632 pieces of e-learning that was completed within 6 weeks.

Other projects with Learning Pool

In June 2009, Basildon District Council launched their ‘Information Security Awareness’ and ‘Equality and Diversity’ training which goes across the entire organization. They are also working on risk awareness which was launched in August, also going across the entire organization, department by department. Phase 2 of the ‘Management Development Programme’ will start in September. They are also hoping transfer their ‘Health and Safety’ training onto Learning Pool in September.

Christine’s experience with Learning Pool’s customer service…

I’ve always been impressed with the feedback I receive on this question from Learning Pool’s customers. Christine’s experience echos the positivity and satisfaction expressed by other customers when it comes to Learning Pool’s customer service. Christine described Learning Pool to be very responsive, very professional and very committed which ensures that they meet their targets and deliver to their own staff. They have also received positive feedback from their staff on the courses and believe it is an overall great experience.

Christine mentions some names…

I did cheekily ask Christine who from Learning Pool that has been particularly helpful to her and she did mention a few names from the top of her head…

1. Ben from IT (huge array of skills, great resource, very contactable and very responsive)
2. Deborah Lim (makes sure things happen on time and pulled together alot of resources in a short amount of time)
3. Mary McKenna and Paul McElvaney (the driving forces behind Learning Pool)
4. The whole of the admin team (whoever that picks up the phone is very responsive and come back to them very quickly)
5. Onya and Michele
6. Everybody! 🙂

Excellent customer service!

How does using Learning Pool help with cost cuttings?

By using Learning Pool as a blended approach, Basildon District Council has saved a huge amount of money on instructors, rooms, materials and refreshments. There is also a significant savings on time on the amount of time a person is on a training course and movement of people around the building. The amount of savings is not just down to money but also the amount of time people are away from their day job sitting in a training environment.  With e-learning, the whole process becomes more flexible and the integration allows people to learn at their own pace and in their own time.

Here’s a little bit more information

Christine Shakespeare is from Basildon District Council and is the recipient of Learning Pool’s overall Customer of the Year Award for 2009. Its not a surprise to me that Christine has won this award after doing some research on her achievements. Take a look at what Christine has accomplished.

• Using e-learning to communicate policy

Christine has successfully changed the way things are done at Basildon District Council by effectively by building a new learning experience for Basildon’s managers with 6 different modules in just 6 weeks.

• Basildon’s Management Devt Programme enhanced with e-learning

To find out more about Learning Pool, visit their website at http://www.learningpool.com and their blog at http://www.learningpool.com/blog where I am a featured blogger.

Also don’t forget to come and join Learning Pool’s Party this month. Here are the details. I’ll be there too, so don’t forget to say hello. I’ll be the one who looks like someone who’s never been on a boat party! LOL

Venue:    HMS President, Victoria Embankment, London, EC4Y 0HJ 
Tel:         0207 583 1918
Date:      Wed 23 September, from 2pm till late (oh yes)
RSVP:     book your places here

Hope you’ve found this useful!

Liz xxx