CUSTOMER CHALLENGE

The induction and onboarding of healthcare staff involves training in first aid, moving and handling skills, as well as training in the expectations of its nurses and care providers.

Newcross also supports staff throughout the employment lifecycle via professional development opportunities, plus ensuring they meet vocational requirements and maintain mandatory skills.

These training initiatives were traditionally delivered through a very formalised learning structure where staff would travel to the location of their nearest course for in-person training.

With operations countrywide, this process became an increasingly cumbersome, expensive and time- consuming undertaking that needed to be refreshed as the company grew.

The training and development programmes for office staff and leadership were also completed with a focus on in-person courses, such as an intensive five-day boot camp for managers at the Newcross head office.

SOLUTION

Newcross recognised the need to shift its learning activities from a reliance on in-person courses to the use of digital learning. After identifying three potential learning platforms, the team organised a demo of the Docebo platform and was impressed with not only the capabilities on offer, but also the learning platform’s straightforward and intuitive user experience for both administrators and learners. This became a key factor during the setup phase, as one of the company’s key objectives was to ensure the shift to a digital learning-led programme within a SaaS environment was as smooth as possible for its learners.

“We worked hard to make sure that when people went on the platform, it was intuitive,” says Mark Story, Head of Learning and Development at Newcross. “The way you’re able to configure the presentation of it and the learner’s options within the interface – you can almost nudge them into a certain activity which, for us, is a real strength of the platform.”

The first initiative put into place using the Docebo Learning Platform was Newcross’ ‘Virtual Shift’. With the help of Docebo UK partner Sponge, Story established an online simulation for care professionals to test their knowledge in specific situations. “They go into the platform, and come across scenarios they would encounter on a typical shift at a typical care home, and they make decisions about the care of the individuals they come across.”

“We assess that to make sure that they’re displaying the right behaviours and the right clinical skills. Plus, it’s an opportunity to communicate to them what our expectations of them are.”

Learning programmes for office roles at Newcross have also started leveraging digital learning with Docebo, but Story says a conscious effort has been made to focus on delivering a combination of learning experiences to ensure the best outcomes.

“It’s not just about throwing digital learning at everybody – we’re really focused on blending all of our activities.”

“Previously, we would get our office staff down for an induction of three days of systems training. New hires would sit in a room together and we would overload them by going through computer systems from nine to five every day.” The process has been streamlined with Docebo, Story adds, by completely deconstructing the previous process and establishing digital learning pathways. Onboarding activities are now completed online to support the activities being done in-person.

RESULTS

Since launching Docebo, more than 2,100 healthcare professionals have completed the Virtual Shift programme, resulting in training time savings of at least four hours per person.

“For each of those people, they would have had to travel in, sit down and watch four and a half hours of DVDs, have a member of staff go in and issue a paper questionnaire, and then that staff member would upload the results into our system.”

The new programme has also reduced travel and accommodation costs for office and management training programmes, especially now that the resource-heavy five-day boot camp has been redesigned to support more continuous learning opportunities through the Docebo Learning Platform.

“If there are eight people on a manager boot camp, and each night in a hotel costs about £120, we’d be spending £600 per person for a week in accomodation costs. With our new digital programme, we’re saving up to £6,000 per programme just on accommodation costs.”

“We haven’t completely done away with the face-to face-stuff, but there’s certainly an 80% saving on that accommodation cost as a result of doing it this way.”

As for the effectiveness of the new learning activities, Story says staff are coming through the programmes just as effectively as they were previously, but now, they have more control over their progress and can better manage their time.

“Before, there was the inconvenience and cost of getting people together for face-to-face activities. Now, we can provide something that’s on-demand that they can do at their own convenience. We’re giving them back an element of their lives by not having to do that anymore.”