Acro Aircraft Seating Ltd created a thriving learning culture for the entire organisation

Acro Aircraft Seating Ltd design and manufacture aircraft seats, using ‘extraspatial design’ to maximise the micro spaces often overlooked in traditional aircraft seating design. Their mission since 2007 has been to turn aircraft seating on its head to improve the air travel experience for passengers.

The Challenge

Acro Aircraft Seating Ltd already had a learning platform, but identified several limitations from usability, data and admin perspective. They wanted to take their digital learning experience to the next level and support the creation of a learning culture throughout the organisation, so they decided to look for a new learning management system (LMS).

However, Acro Aircraft Seating Ltd quickly discovered that many platforms do little more than manage e-learning, whereas they wanted more depth and breadth to manage learning, access data, track completion of mandatory learning, house different types of resources and save time and money.

They identified two possible solutions to solve their needs. One of these was Totara Learn, recommended through Engage in Learning. Acro Aircraft Seating Ltd leveraged their relationship with this provider to explore this solution fully and by sharing the full extent of their needs and challenges sealed the deal. The platform was able to give them what they needed for both short-term needs and future aspirations.

The Solution

In summer 2018, Acro Aircraft Seating Ltd signed the contract for their new Totara Learn platform with Engage in Learning.

The platform needed to host a wide range of resources to engage learners from the launch. The LMS was built to house videos, workbooks, documents, videos, links to external sites, e-learning activities and more.  Resource was deployed over just a 4-week period to re-build existing content alongside the development of new materials. A consistent imagery suite was devised for a consistent look and feel that would flow across the entire solution, making it look fresh and different for the initial launch. They called their site ‘Grow’.

Acro Aircraft Seating Ltd’s LMS is predominantly set up to train employees, but temporary staff also have access to mandatory learning via the platform. A benefit of choosing Totara Learn is that Engage in Learning could support the need set up multiple audiences so that learning is tailored to different roles. For example, assembly operators may not need access to data protection training, so they are assigned modules relevant to their role. On initial log in, individuals are assigned only the modules relevant to their job role and level.

Hierarchies have been set up to empower managers with the ability to oversee their teams and individuals. The LMS is also set up with roles and job locations ensuring that different mandatory learning packages can be assigned.

As Acro Aircraft Seating Ltd’s workforce is highly diverse, they needed to design a range of content and techniques to encourage people to keep coming back to the platform. Many employees don’t have English as a first language, so extra content such as language courses were included to support these learners. And the mandatory modules allow for language translation.

Wider content is structured into different topics and new topics can be added easily by Acro Aircraft Seating Ltd. It is also possible to use certifications to track training that may need to be reviewed in the future, making it very easy for learners to know exactly what they need to do.

Acro Aircraft Seating Ltd have implemented numerous topics and continue to build more as the site evolves. It’s diverse in appeal, business focused and offers plenty of development opportunities for employees. Momentum continues to ‘Grow’ and the site has been a key focus in the annual Learning at Work Week events.

The Results

The platform was set up in four weeks, then launched two weeks later, meaning this implementation took just six weeks from start to finish. The key to the success of the platform’s launch was that Acro Aircraft Seating Ltd didn’t just launch with mandatory training, and instead ensured it would offer learners a much wider range of courses and resources to hook them in from the very start.

Acro Aircraft Seating Ltd credits their ability to do launch in this time in part to Engage in Learning’s support. Their expertise helped Acro Aircraft Seating Ltd’s learning team to shape the platform, set the system up correctly and work with their HR software team to ensure that the platforms were integrated properly. Once the Totara Learn platform had been handed over to the customer, Engage in Learning provided an in-house training session to share functionality, answer questions and make additional suggestions.

Learners and managers alike agree that the platform is very straightforward, and managers love that they can now directly manage and monitor their own employees through the system rather than going through the L&D team. Managers appreciate that they have access to reports at the touch of a button. Removal of the manual reporting process has saved L&D a lot of time and hassle. L&D time spend on admin & reporting has reduced by approx. 80% – from 2 days per month to just a few hours a month.

Acro Aircraft Seating Ltd’s learning platform has already been used as part of learning campaigns such as Learning at Work Week, which takes place in May. Constantly using campaigns and launch of new resources  to draw people back into the site has led to a massive improvement in not just the completion of mandatory learning, but also general engagement with learning.

Engagement has increased from 55% at time of launch to 92%.