The Personnel Today judges highlighted The Happy Learning Company’s commitment to innovation in learning, together with proactive and bespoke client partnerships, original thinking and creativity. We outline the company’s achievements and those of the other outstanding shortlisted organisations.
WINNER
The Happy Learning Company
The Happy Learning Company describes its purpose as creating happier places of work. It has created its own methodology that it embeds into areas including leadership, customer experience, onboarding, engagement programmes and consultancy. Every project starts with an exploration of what success looks like and how this will be measured. A community of professionals known as The Happy Alliance ensures clients can access the most talented consultants on their projects.
The company combines intelligent learning, engagement and creative design to create high impact solutions. It has also developed its own F.I.T philosophy which it distributes via magazines and workshops.
Successful client stories include Great Western Rail, which needed a self-directed learning experience for employees delivered over just five weeks. THLC built a ‘Famous Five’ inspired adventure where employees could learn about delivering excellent service, including opportunities to reflect and give feedback to managers. Another was a cultural transformation programme
for Pos Malaysia Berhad, a logistics company, beginning with a 1.5 day immersive experience connecting employees with their part in improving the company’s fortunes.
RUNNERS-UP
Cornerstone OnDemand
Cornerstone’s artificial intelligence driven engines bring together data from 75 million users across its learning content, skills and experiences, using the insights from this data to improve learning experiences. Its learning management system (LSM) software enables learning anywhere through mobile apps, allows organisations to consolidate learning onto a single platform, provides actionable insights, and personalised content.
Cornerstone helped Essex County Council to respond quickly to the Covid pandemic, having built a learning management system in late 2019. The council was able to build a remote working hub within a matter of days and better engage workers across the council through campaigns and an annual ‘LearnFest’, showing that learning has become embedded into its culture.
The NSPCC has also enjoyed success with Cornerstone. It has shortened the timeline for induction training on its crucial ChildLine service, with volunteers completing training at a time that suits them. The charity has increased workforce engagement through a series of tools helping employees to build their resilience.
Since harnessing the cohort functionality of Cornerstone’s learning offering, the NSPCC has seen an 800% increase in the number of apprenticeships started in 2021 compared to previous years. Cornerstone recently acquired learning experience company EdCast and has just completed its acquisition of SumTotal.
Electric Circus
Electric Circus works with HR leaders to create, enhance and amplify employee experiences. It develops user-centric technology that enables learning to be delivered in a more accessible way, as well as tools that can link disparate systems together and consolidate their data. Every solution is tailored to the client, beginning with a discovery session to understand their needs.
Delivery company DHL wanted to plug a gap in the functionality of its existing learning technology, so Electric Circus built a custom tagging tool to create personalised learning pathways that could make recommendations to employees based on previous activity. This meant the client’s LMS became an intuitive library of resources, curated based on employee need.
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The company also worked with Tesco on its sustainability strategy, helping to engage store colleagues with the retailer’s ambition of reducing food waste. It created a memorable learning experience including videos, animations and an interactive game. Electric Circus also built a software training simulator for new employees that replicates Tesco’s live systems so colleagues can feel comfortable learning how to use them without the risk of making mistakes. Another client said that working with Electric Circus had been “a transparent, inclusive and collaborative experience making us all feel like one team”.
LAS
Established in 2005, LAS’s guiding principles are to work with organisations who are making a positive difference to the world and to raise the bar in the learning and development community overall. The company became a B Corp last year. Some of its projects include blended learning programmes for medics who specialise in spinal cell injuries and supporting 11,600 disabled people in Bangladesh and Kenya to enter the job market.
Seventy percent of LAS’ work comes through repeat business or recommendation. Its Becoming Blended project with the BBC was praised for having “created a marked change in mindset within the BBC Academy” and helping staff to adapt their skills for the future. A space-themed learning experience for Sodexo helped the company embed its digital transformation.
LAS prides itself on having a close relationship with customers rather than a transactional one, borne out by regular customer surveys where it scores highly on customer service and project management. The company also offers free online training to digital learning professionals as part of its commitment to upskilling the learning technologies community overall, including in developing countries.
Saville Assessment
Saville Assessment is a supplier of psychometric solutions, including aptitude tests, personality assessments and situational judgement tests. The pandemic brought challenges for many clients, including tighter hiring budgets and the shift to hybrid working. Saville conducted interviews with a group of leaders to gauge the support businesses would require to navigate these changes, discovering that the focus had shifted from hiring to retention.
From this, the company has built four innovations to use with clients: the Building Resilient Agility Report (helping staff deal with new working practices); Dealing With Change (helping them to embrace transformation); Staying Connected (active participation and communication) and Maintaining Drive (capitalising on opportunities presented by change). Another tool is Wave-i, which helps organisations to identify and develop emerging talent. The tool uses over 35,000 data points to drill down on roles someone might be best suited for, and how they can prepare for them.
Other support for clients includes flexible online training and thought leadership through webinars. One client using the Wave-i tool said it has been able to identify someone who was considered low potential by their manager progress through a development programme and add value in a strategically important role. Had they not been identified by the tool, they would likely have left.
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