Co-Ownership’s learning and development strategy is built around three key areas:

• Leadership development
• Professional and technical development
• Compliance

Compliance is particularly important. As an organisation operating in a financial services-type environment and using public money, Co-Ownership needs to demonstrate good governance and provide assurance that essential training has been completed.

Previously, compliance training was delivered on a more ad hoc basis, with individual Legal Island courses purchased at different points throughout the year.

While this approach provided the training required, it meant that employees joining at different times did not necessarily receive the same range of courses."

Co-Ownership wanted to take a more structured approach, establishing an annual compliance calendar covering areas such as GDPR, cybersecurity and fraud awareness.

For an HR function of just two people, however, delivering 12–14 areas of training each year would mean considerable time spent sourcing providers, demonstrating value for money through procurement, administering training and reporting completion to the Board – alongside the full range of other HR responsibilities.

With AppLI LMS in place, Co-Ownership has been able to move from managing individual training activities to taking a more streamlined approach to compliance. With training, records and reporting brought together in one platform, the HR team has greater visibility of progress while spending less time on administration.

Easier reporting and greater oversight

One of the biggest benefits for Co-Ownership has been having training records together in one place.

Previously, reporting could involve accessing several individual courses to establish who had completed which training. AppLI LMS now allows HR to quickly identify completions and outstanding training and follow up where necessary.

This is particularly valuable for compliance training, where the organisation needs clear evidence of participation.

The reporting functionality also enables HR to provide assurance to the Board that a compliance training calendar is in place, that scheduled training has been delivered and that completion can be monitored.

Judith said:

“The reporting is always going to be the great thing – we’re able to see staff completion rates very quickly, with thanks to the automated reminders when deadlines are approaching.” 

Saving valuable HR time

For Co-Ownership, the overall benefit of AppLI LMS comes down to simplifying four time-consuming elements of training: sourcing, procuring, administering and reporting.

Bringing these activities together gives the organisation a more structured approach to compliance while reducing the administrative burden on its small HR function.

As Louise explained:

“The thing about doing training is those four elements can eat up HR time – sourcing, procuring, administering and reporting – Legal Island has provided us with a one-stop shop and it removes the time burden for our team.”

The result is a compliance programme that can be planned in advance, completed flexibly by employees and monitored effectively by HR.

Co-Ownership’s relationship with Legal Island stretches back more than a decade, from using individual equality eLearning courses to adopting a full learning management system with an expanding catalogue of training.

Both Judith and Louise said they would recommend AppLI LMS to other HR professionals.

For them, three benefits stand out:

• Ease of sourcing, procuring, administering and reporting on training
• Jurisdiction-specific content that reflects Northern Ireland legislation and workplaces
• New and regularly refreshed courses that support employee engagement and retention of information

Judith added:

“I would definitely recommend Legal Island’s AppLI LMS platform because it’s a tough space to be in and Legal Island are doing it really well – especially with the locally focused content, which is really important for us.”

For Co-Ownership, AppLI LMS has transformed what could be a resource-intensive compliance process into a central, structured and easy-to-manage programme – giving employees flexibility while providing HR and the Board with greater oversight and assurance.