Building The First Collaborative Learning Community 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 remedy 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 companies, they should evolve their Studying and Growth technique from purely transactional to a extra impactful, collaborative resolution.

Fight Stress required a strong, scalable resolution to handle each inner and exterior coaching wants, together with onboarding, worker growth, compliance coaching, and assist for veterans and their community group.

The Workforce

• Andrew Veevers, Partnership Lead for Studying & Growth
• Dr Jessica Bolton, Head of Maximising Scientific Effectiveness & Specialist Exterior Coaching
• Elin Solomon, Studying & Growth 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 wanting their evolving wants. Whereas it coated necessary programs like GDPR and hearth security, it lacked the flexibleness and interactivity wanted to foster a tradition of collaborative studying and data sharing. This offered 5 major challenges:

1. Problem in creating expert-led coaching. The earlier system didn’t permit Topic Matter Specialists (SMEs) to share their data successfully, resulting in a reliance on the L&D crew 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 data retention. There was a important have to transition from passive content material consumption to lively, collaborative studying that inspired peer engagement and data sharing.
3. Challenges in offering digital coaching to veterans. Fight Stress confronted vital challenges in offering coaching to veterans throughout COVID-19. Their face-to-face assist stopped in a single day, and transferring their coaching from in-person to on-line turned an pressing precedence.
4. Siloed worker growth. Coaching was usually performed in silos, with totally different departments managing their very own coaching independently. This led to an absence of coherence within the organisation’s total L&D technique as coaching was dispersed and disorganised.
5. Delayed ramp-up for brand spanking new hires. The onboarding course of was not as environment friendly as wanted, with new staff taking as much as 13 weeks to change into totally operational. This extended ramp-up interval was affecting total productiveness and delaying the affect new hires might 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 assist each inner onboarding and worker growth, in addition to exterior coaching for veterans.

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

The Answer: 360Learning

Since implementing 360Learning, Fight Stress has seen a major 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 crew’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 assessment and the L&D crew for last checks.

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

Elevated Engagement And Collaboration

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

This shift from a transactional to a collaborative studying tradition immediately addressed the problem of low engagement and lack of growth alternatives for everybody and has led to higher data retention and a stronger sense of group inside 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 assist and data sharing, significantly bettering our responsiveness to coaching wants. Earlier than 360Learning, getting updates, like a coverage change from the federal government, might 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 “Folks Round The Veteran” With Coaching And Schooling

The platform has additionally performed an important function in Fight Stress’s exterior psychological well being schooling initiatives. The L&D crew, with the assistance of their SMEs, have created blended studying paths in 360Learning, permitting them to trace classes in a single place. By interactive on-line studying, reside occasions and boards, veterans and their assist networks have entry to high-quality coaching on subjects corresponding to suicide prevention and creating trauma-informed organisations.

Fight Stress has even acquired requests from veterans desperate 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 of 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 cut back that hole by inviting them to share their experiences on the platform, we’re dedicated to doing so.”

Additional funding success means extra individuals could have entry to the content material and greatest observe, which is able to see over 3000 individuals 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 assist and shared imaginative and prescient in successfully educating the ‘crew(s) across the veteran’,” says Andrew.

Centralised Worker Growth 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 growth.

This centralisation additionally enabled higher monitoring of worker progress and efficiency. By now not manually monitoring in-person studying in a separate platform, the L&D crew can now assessment reporting throughout all coaching in a single platform. As well as, Fight Stress has fostered a extra unified and aligned studying tradition, and consequently, staff throughout all departments now have equal entry to structured growth 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 bear a complete induction programme that mixes organisational and role-specific coaching, considerably decreasing the data sharing time that it takes to change into totally operational, from 13 weeks to simply 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 Growth

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 necessary coaching titles, however the developmental parts of roles, too.

To have particular Management and Administration teams, the place groups can talk overtly 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 the whole workforce
• 100% course relevance rating
• 97% course completion price
• 1000 hours of on-line studying content material consumed by exterior customers
• Over 600 contributors in reside occasions
• Important 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 remodeling its method to L&D. By transferring 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 affect throughout the veteran group.

As Fight Stress continues to scale its efforts, 360Learning stays on the coronary heart of its technique in how they assist 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 assist much more individuals across the veterans. Andrew and the crew may also 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 corresponding to Studying Wants and the statistical and reporting information.