Our Partnership with The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
How does Learning People help businesses empower their workforces through skills training? We spoke to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea's Head of Digital Inclusion and Behaviours, Timothy Ellis, about their partnership with Learning People.
We interviewed Timothy about the impact our learning platform, Percipio, has had on his teams at the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
He was glad to report a high uptake in terms of platform registrations and engagement, as well as a positive experience for the staff who used it.
88% employee registration
RBKC have seen 88% of their employees actively engage with our Percipio learning platform
Loved by all levels of tech abilities
RBKC have seen team members of all technical abilities use the learning platform to master fundamentals and explore advanced skills in the virtual learning labs
Who are you and where do you work?
Timothy Ellis (TE): I'm Timothy Ellis. I'm the Head of Digital Inclusion and Behaviours for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and my job includes helping residents to get online, but my other responsibilities include learning and development for the IT department.
As a local authority IT department in an increasingly cash-strained environment, our team has a really wide range of learning requirements, particularly technical ones. Some of those quite deep technical learning requirements include improving cybersecurity and software development skills, but they also need to develop competencies in things like project management and undertake general learning and development.
The Percipio platform fits our L&D needs perfectly
Our IT team has a huge range of learning needs, and there's no way our internal corporate learning and development function could meet the requirements of the whole department.
We identified the need to have a really top-class learning portal that's available to all of our staff, and Percipio was the platform that we chose. It fills that need perfectly. We've purchased licenses for every member of the IT team.
What's the value that you've seen from training your staff with Percipio?
TE: Lots of our staff signed up very quickly. I can't remember exactly, but around 88% of staff have already signed up to the portal and started using it, and the feedback that we've had has been very positive; people seem to find it easy to use.
We made sure everyone was aware they could sign up and use it as a mobile app, which is helpful; we know that some people really value learning in that way. We also know from some of our more technical staff that they really value things like the Learning Lab, which allows them to try out their new technology skills in a safe environment.
"88% of staff have already signed up to the portal and started using it, and the feedback that we've had has been very positive."
Why did you choose Percipio and Learning People over other platforms?
TE: We went through a full procurement exercise between July and September. Following the council's procurement policy, we identified three different platforms, including Percipio, and did a structured comparison. We got it down to a final two, of which Percipio was one. We then had interviews where we explored the options in more depth.
The Evaluation Panel
We looked at the quality of the offerings and at the different learning modes that were involved in each platform. We involved senior managers, two members of the IT leadership team, and also two of our more technical colleagues—one a software developer and the other a data scientist. We really put the platforms through their paces.
We looked in detail at the different learning offers that were available in those particular domains and carried out a comparison. It was close, but ultimately it was very clear and unanimous from the panel of the four of us that Percipio was the strongest of the platforms.
Why Percipio Was the Preferred Platform
The reason why Percipio was our preferred platform was the quality of the curation and the quality of the learning offer. While there was a more limited number of courses, we felt confident in the quality of all of them.
Probably the biggest winning factor was the learner experience. With Percipio, there was a whole range of different learning options, from videos to books to courses. The interactive features were key—things like the tests where one could check one's level and see where one's weaknesses and strengths were, and then have learning focused on that.
For our technical colleagues, the "clincher" was the ability to try out new technology skills in a safe learning lab environment. They felt that was a clear winner; I remember one of them saying, "I wish that this had been the platform that we'd had for a long time now."
Relationship Management and Cost
Percipio was also the clear winner on quality regarding the relationship management support. We had been a customer of Percipio and another learning platform for some time, but the quality of the relationship management here was higher. We felt very confident inviting Ryan to talk to managers and to the wider organization. There has been a real sense of continuity and a feeling that Ryan and Percipio understand our requirements as an organization and are able to help us get the most out of the platform.
The final reason was cost. As well as winning on quality and relationship management, Percipio was actually less expensive than the other learning portals.
How has Percipio met your learning and development needs, and would you recommend it to others?
TE: I think I've covered a lot of how it meets our needs. We’re very happy that we’ve made that choice. It is still early days, but we’ve started to work with our managers to introduce them to the functionality that allows them to assign learning and development to their members of staff. We will continue to raise awareness of it and promote it. I would most definitely recommend Percipio and the learning platform to others.
Learn more about our business solutions
We specialise in bespoke learning and development pathways backed by 15-years experience in delivering world-class tech and business skills training. This helps the companies we work with to identify skill gaps, benchmark competency levels, and upskill their workforce with a continual focus on tangible impact and ROI.
Our diverse and accredited portfolio of managed learning services covers training in Senior Leadership Development (SLDP), Cyber Security, IT, Software Development, Cloud, AI, Project Management and Compliance.