Real success in a highly regulated sector
Business impact – case studies
Accessible, personalised blended programmes of learning, including e-learning is at the heart of what we do. Examples of our recent success is shown below
Care Management Group
Mainstay Solutions helped Care Management Group save more than £300,000 a year by developing a new Learning & Development platform and putting some of their learning online.
(Taken from e’learning age article 2009)
Care Management Group supports around 600 people with learning disabilities, spread across over 100 care homes in England and Wales. CMG's 1500 staff were expected to have a wide range of skills, and training was usually carried out face to face in classroom and through observation. But with the organisation growing, training was often inefficient, inconsistent, inaccessible and beset by risk.
Following consultation and audit by Mainstay Solutions Ltd, we identified the need for a bespoke approach through modular, structured e-learning that aligned with the working environment. CMG appointed Information Transfer as its learning partners who drove the enthusiastic engagement by all staff, who gave high approval ratings to the new system. And ROI? From a total cost of training per course of over £64,000, CMG is now paying just £6500 – that's a cost saving of 90%.
Fulfilling Potential has shown how e-learning can be enthusiastically adopted within a people-focussed working environment, and can rapidly deliver significant business impact. Very significant barriers to adoption have been overcome and e-learning is now embedded at the heart of CMG operations. Key success factors have been:
- a thorough understanding of the needs of the business, and how learning and development can support them
- Strong independent project management to drive the project and deal with issues as they arose, without the complication of the daily operation to manage.
- Proven and experienced Learning Partners, with knowledge of the healthcare sector.
- involvement of stakeholders from across the business in every aspect of development and launch
- using effective communication, promotion and support
The extent to which e-learning has been adopted is demonstrated by the remarkable usage figures, high approval ratings and very positive feedback from learners. Crucially this adoption of e-learning is delivering business benefits by improving efficiency, reducing costs, reducing risk and improving service quality.
CMG is a care-based business. Fulfilling Potential, their bespoke Learning programme, has demonstrated how their people-focussed services have been enhanced by creative and sympathetic use of technology. Staff at all levels have adopted that technology and used it to make a difference for the organisation. The impact of Fulfilling Potential is summed up in a comment from the leader of the business:
"Fulfilling Potential has had a huge impact for CMG. And beyond learning and development, that impact goes right to the core of our values."
David Spruzen, Chief Executive Officer, Care Management Group
Download - Implementing e’learning to business success
Download - Case Study figures
Priory Group
Priory Group, Europe’s leading provider of expert mental health care offering acute; complex and secure services and specialist educational services to young people. Operates over 60 hospitals; schools and care homes nationwide. 6,500+ staff work for Priory and communication channels and the IT infrastructure was challenging to say the least. Priory also had outsourced all it’s training to a sister company and outcomes and cost were in question.
However, there were major barriers in implementing new learning techniques in a working environment focused on people, with perceived low levels of PC literacy and with limited technical infrastructure.
Through consultation with stakeholders right across the business and by appointing a working party to guide the development, Alison Innes-Farquhar helped understand business and learner needs. Creating a fully blended learning programme for it’s 6,500 staff, including a bespoke Learning Management System and over 40 e’learning modules with online assessments took three years to complete. A NVQ centre, Management and leadership programmes and very specialist clinical and educational workshops were developed and rolled out in a phased process from 2006 - 2009.
From day one Foundations for Growth has been a major success, scooping the 2006 E-Learning Award for the best e-learning project securing widespread adoption, the IT Best E’learning programme award nationwide and a National Training Award (NTA) for content in 2007. Foundations for Growth is saving the group nearly £2m a year in associated costs since its launch.
Alison Innes-Farquhar also designed, developed and rolled-out an appraisal programme, based on competency profiles, key accountabilities and objectives. Ways We Work has now been adopted by all staff and was been designed to be used on or off-line through their bespoke LMS.
On the success of Foundations for Growth, Alison left Priory Group to found Mainstay Solutions Ltd in 2008 to head up similar projects for groups nationwide.
