Success story:
Leading Lives

Leading Lives is an employee-owned, not-for-profit social care organisation. And we’re proud they chose Access to help transform their HR and L&D strategies using Access PeopleHR and Access Learning, within our single sign-on Workspace platform.

In the video below, Ian Bolton talks to Leading Lives’ L&D Advisor, Stuart Howell, about our partnership.

Based in Suffolk, Leading Lives provides high quality social care support for people with learning disabilities, autism, and complex needs, both in the home and in the community.

Leading Lives is a not-for-profit enterprise. Any surplus is re-invested into services for customers or in the local community through its Community Benefit Fund.

Leading Lives is committed to supporting its customers and families, being a good employer, and supporting the local community.  

As existing users of Access PeopleHR, Leading Lives was already experiencing the benefits of a cloud-based platform which enabled them to streamline their HR & Payroll processes, improve engagement, and give their employees the ability to self-serve.

Then, when Covid struck, it had to rapidly change its approach to training. Its face to face, classroom-based learning was no longer viable, and its existing eLearning solution wasn’t meeting expectations. “It felt like a tick box exercise,” Stuart told us. So, they reached out to Access to see how we could help overcome their L&D challenges, and integrate the solution with PeopleHR.

“To me, HR and Learning should be joined up. Our HR and L&D teams work closely, so it makes sense for them to fit together. And they fit together so simply,” says Stuart.

Fast forward to today, with our LMS, Access Learning embedded, employees can now make use of learning content accessible anytime, on-the-go. This means they can keep current with vital compliance training alongside their work in the community, while L&D can track, create, deliver, and manage all their training programs on one centralised platform.

“A lot of our staff are really busy. Being able to just grab their phone and complete an eLearning module in 10-15 minutes is so much easier. And you don’t need to make notes. The module is always available for you on your phone or your laptop.”

And with all our products available in our unified, single sign-on platform, Access Workplace, Leading Lives now has one source of truth based on consistent and up-to-date information. 

We asked Stuart about the biggest benefit to the organisation, and he was keen to share how Access has enabled Leading Lives to revolutionise its induction process. Inductions were previously run over a number of months, but now there’s a new system in place, which it calls ‘Rapid Induction’, and which is managed through our Learning Management System (LMS).

“Our previous eLearning courses weren’t smart, and they were not enjoyable, so we had to spread them out. With Access the modules are shorter, sweeter, and interactive. Now we can ask our people to complete 3 or 4 modules in a day. And because they all have the same look and feel, it doesn’t feel like 3 or 4 separate learnings. It works a lot better and that’s how we’ve been able to change the way we run our inductions.”

Introducing more efficient training, coupled with implementing a buddy system, means new staff complete compulsory health & safety training earlier in their employment, so their time-to-competency is reduced. Stuart told us he’s now able to show shorter modules in team meetings too, adding a further new dynamic. “As well as being an efficient way to deliver training, it opens topics up for discussion. It works really well.”

With the transformation of its induction program complete, Stuart is looking forward to maximising the features of their new LMS, with our user-friendly and super-flexible content creation software, Access eCreator.

“The next step for us is to transfer some of our own content over to Access Learning. It looks so easy! So simple! So, we’ll be upskilling our staff to use it. It’s very positive and very exciting!”

And while we’re delighted by Stuart’s confidence in our systems, it’s important to remember that working with Access is always a partnership. We’re there to support and advise when you need it.

“With Access, we’ve been able to make some big changes for 2024,” concludes Stuart.

The Access Group's HCM division, Access People, offer an unrivalled suite of solutions for businesses, including HR and Payroll, Absence Management, Workforce Management, Compliance, Recruitment, Talent, Learning, Employee Benefits and Engagement, Health & Safety, all of which are underpinned by the powerful Access Workspace platform. 

The Access Group is one of the leading providers of business management software to small and mid-sized organisations in the UK, Ireland, and Asia Pacific. We help over 100,000 customers across commercial and not-for-profit sectors become more productive and efficient.