Balance Learning's partnership with Lincolnshire County Council
Lincolnshire County Council has been going through a period of change – organisational, cultural and technical –in their drive to be an “excellent” rated council by 2009. The Organisational Development team decided to use some technology based training to reach as many of its employees as quickly as possible with the added benefit of reducing their environmental impact.
E-induction
Getting the right message across to new starts is a priority in times of change. We worked with Lincolnshire to ensure that not only did their e-Induction communicate the right content, it was also an attractive and interactive welcoming message in itself. New employees can conveniently access detailed information about working for the council as well as comprehensive training in Health and Safety, ICT, Data Protection, Freedom of Information, Confidentiality and Security, Equality and Diversity and Customer Service.
Putting the Customer First
Another part of the initiative to achieve an excellent rating by 2009 involved improving customer service across the council. Balance created a short online module that integrated purpose built video focusing on the Council’s key service areas with best practice techniques in customer service delivery including equality and diversity.
Email Migration
One of the technical challenges Lincolnshire County Council faced in 2007 was the transition from one email system to another. Because we had already worked with the council to provide an interactive, online version of a best practice email seminar, we offered to create a low cost CD and online learning package to assist the migration. The high quality, easy to use course included the interactive Email best practice training, as well as MS Outlook and specific migration training. 5,000 CDs and headphones were sent out to council staff at the start of the initiative.
Info2work
The Organisational Development team saw an opportunity to maintain positive communication with employees while keeping on top of changes to council policies and procedures. We worked with Lincolnshire to create a user friendly, portal based policy management system designed to improve internal communication, improve everyone’s understanding of key policies, audit that understanding and compliance, and maintain the drive for excellence while saving everyone’s time and money.
And here's what they said:
“Lincolnshire County Council has been working alongside Balance Learning since August 2005 and we have mainly implemented their Induction system and more recently we have designed a new information policy system in conjunction with Balance Learning's development team.
The Balance Learning product is of an excellent quality in terms of the look and feel to the user as well as its ease of use and overall implementation. The Induction system complements and supports our Corporate Induction programme and provides our new starters with a wealth of knowledge at their fingertips. Without the system we would have to take new starters out of the workplace for at least 2 days to induct them on all the key areas. Now they only need to attend a half day event to meet the key people in the organisation and the rest they can learn through accessing the system in their own time at their own place of work!
As an organisation to work with - They are a small organisation geared towards a personalised customer approach which makes working with them a good experience. They always striving to find a suitable flexible solution that suits the customer and at good price. They will provide you with good advice but also take on board your ideas. They work hard to meet your deadlines and their after sales customer service is of a high standard. Whenever we have made some suggested enhancements to the Balance Learning system or process, the team have always been willing to take these on board. Their existing solutions are innovative and forward thinking yet they are always striving to develop new solutions with their customers needs in mind."
Wendy Henry - Organisational Development Officer
