One platform, across the Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth

When Heather Cracknell arrived as HR Manager three months later in December, along with their manager they set about changing that.

That is a significant challenge in any organisation. In a Diocese spanning more than 80 parishes and over 220 employees, it is a particularly complex one. The workforce is genuinely varied: office staff, parish administrators, estates teams, and clergy in line management roles. Many work part-time. Some are based in remote parishes. And some, are not especially comfortable with digital tools.

Physically getting to every parish to deliver training was never realistic. Employee surveys had already made clear that people wanted more learning. The question was how to reach them.

“We physically cannot get around to all of those parishes to train,” says Heather. “Which is why we looked at Access LMS Evo as a way to get the training to our employees.”

There was also a broader ambition at play. The Diocese had begun running face-to-face clergy days, giving line managers their first structured training in line management. But Heather and Amber and their line manager wanted to go further: to build something that would eventually support onboarding, professional development, and skills growth across the whole organisation, not just tick compliance boxes.

The criteria were clear from the start. Sessions needed to be short, because many employees have limited time available. Content needed to cover softer skills alongside the practical, including Microsoft 365 applications that some staff needed to refresh. And the platform needed to work for people who might only log in occasionally, on whatever device they had to hand.

“Adam was really good,” says Heather, “and he let some of our senior leadership team do some of the trials." 

Heather and Amber fed back through a shared spreadsheet alongside colleagues, with each person rating what they experienced. The verdict was positive enough to move forward.

The fact that Access LMS Evo sat within the wider Access People suite also mattered. The Diocese was already implementing Access People HR at the same time, and knowing the two systems would connect gave Heather and Amber confidence before they had even gone live.

“We're probably more confident in it because we use People HR,” Heather explains. “For us, it's a bit of a linked system." 

That connection proved its worth immediately. With employees already set up in People HR, Amber could allocate learning from day one without having to build a user base from scratch. What could have been a significant administrative task simply was not.

The Diocese went live with Access LMS Evo in June 2026, several months after People HR had bedded in. Rather than switching everything on at once, they took a deliberate approach: a monthly schedule, drip-feeding training to employees and recommending what to focus on that month.

It was a considered decision, shaped by the reality of their workforce. With so many part-time employees, the risk of overwhelming people with a full catalogue from day one was real. A slower, more guided rollout gave people time to find their feet without feeling buried.

“A lot of our employees are part-time,” Heather explains. “It's really key that we don't drown them.”

The onboarding process itself set the tone. The Access team, covering both People HR and Access LMS Evo, made the training straightforward and approachable for Heather and Amber throughout.

“All the training we received was really brilliant,” says Heather, “and made the training and the learning really easy for us.”

Early feedback from employees has been encouraging. Some have taken to it quickly and genuinely enjoy it. Others have needed a little more encouragement, most are engaged and enthusiastic, but for those less comfortable with technology, Heather and Amber have found ways to support them through the process.

Amber handles the day-to-day platform management, allocating learning and keeping things running, and the system has delivered exactly what the team needed.

It is still early days. The Diocese only went live in June, and Heather and Amber are clear-eyed about where they are in the journey. But the direction of travel is set.

A live session is planned to help parish administrators and finance staff get comfortable with the platform. Face-to-face employee events in September and October will sit alongside the online learning, covering policy updates and health and safety in a more interactive format. The ambition, steadily, is to keep building.

What excites Heather and Amber most is not just where they are now, but where the platform is heading. The Diocese's COO is actively interested in AI, and Heather has already found the platform's support assistant useful for day-to-day queries. When the team had an early look at Access Navigator, the potential was clear: a single intelligent starting point that could surface the right learning for the right person at the right moment, without anyone having to go looking for it.

For a workforce as varied and dispersed as the Diocese's, that kind of capability feels like a natural next step. The organisation's instinct, Heather says, is simple:

"If we can use AI to make our lives easier and work quicker, then let's just use it."

That attitude, combined with the foundation Heather and Amber have built, points to something bigger than compliance tracking or a content library. It points to a culture where people come to learning on their own terms.

For a Diocese that started with almost nothing in place, that is not just an ambition. It is well within reach.