The Big Lottery Fund funds projects and activities that make communities stronger and more vibrant, and that are led by the people who live in them. They support charities, community groups, and people with great ideas – local or national, large or small. They also bring people and groups together: to share experiences, learn from each other and try new ways of working.
In January 2015 the Big Lottery Fund undertook a full UK wide rollout to Microsoft Office 2013, Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 11 as well as upgrading all hardware for office based and homeworking staff. To ensure this rollout was successful there needed to be a large learning & development project put in place to support it and following a tough tender process TrainingU was appointed to deliver a fully blended training offering to over 900 staff across 13 UK offices.
From the outset the team at TrainingU were flexible and provided the Big Lottery Fund with a fully blended training offering which included: Individual self-assessments to determine what learning and development was required; Face-to-face workshops for internal IT Support team and Mentors; Face-to-face workshops in 13 offices across the UK in how to use the new software; Videos to instruct people on how to use their new hardware – laptops or PCs as well as the new software packages; PDF guides for common tasks; Trainers undertook floor-walking to answer any specific questions or queries following the training.
Feedback from delegates who attended the course was very positive and saw a 6% rise in staff confidence from those who had been part of the training. 84% of attendees were now motivated to use the skills they had learnt and 80% would recommend the training sessions to others. The videos and guides developed by TrainingU were so helpful that they are currently still used for new starters as part of the induction programme to the organisation.
Alongside increasing staff confidence, the training provided by TrainingU has meant that the Big Lottery Fund have been able to improve their efficiency within the organisation which has reduced time and costs across the organisation. All this was achieved with minimal disruption to staff which was an essential part of the brief.
Carolyn Oxley, HR Manager, The Big Lottery Fund
“The TrainingU team were extremely helpful, flexible and accommodating where we needed it. Nothing was too much trouble. The standard of resources provided and face-to-face sessions delivered by TrainingU was excellent. We had never offered a learning & development project that was as fully blended as this before and ‘minimum disruption’ was the key. We did not want any staff to experience disruption to their work and TrainingU, along with our IT Support team, worked hard to ensure this did not happen.”