More for less with an LMS

Member fact file:

The Church of Scotland has been a member of the Charity Learning Consortium since 2017 and uses both the learning management system and eLearning that we provide.

Planning and pilot

Developing a leadership and management course took Eleanor MacKenzie, Learning and Development Officer at The Church of Scotland, around six months. She then trialled it with eight people, with a cross section of staff from across the organisation. Delegates included an aspiring manager, a new manager and a deputy head of department, along with someone who had been at the organisation for a long time. 

Along with the Chief Officer at the Church of Scotland, Eleanor popped in regularly to speak to delegates to assess how things were going as the course was in progress. She combined what she heard with feedback from the tutor and evaluation data from attendees. Overall, the programme has been a great success, as this sample feedback shows:

‘I intend to start using what I’ve learned on the course frequently with my staff. Particularly because it means stating all the good aspects of the work they have done, and there is a lot of that! It is only too easy not to say anything because there is no problem to deal with. I feel lucky and privileged to be their manager and I want to be supportive of their development.’

“L&D can be infectious if you’re enthusiastic about it!” says Eleanor.

• A welcome message and overview of the new course
• A flyer describing course content and learning outcomes
• Information about the tutor, with a link to their LinkedIn profile
• Dates of upcoming courses with online booking – Eleanor has customised automated confirmation emails
• Links to supporting eLearning provided by the Charity Learning Consortium, such as  Leadership, People Management and Operational Management 
• A link to the Clear Lessons video learning library
• A managers’ toolbox, which includes links to CIPD resources
• eBooks, created by Eleanor within the LMS as a more user-friendly resource than PDFs. These are useful for displaying information on policies
• Links to further organisational policies and procedures
• Details of follow-up line manager surgeries/focus groups 
• Course evaluation, with five multiple choice sections as well as boxes for personalised answers. Results are analysed by Eleanor within the LMS.
• Shortcuts to individual learning plans are also in the pipeline

Line manager surgeries

The idea for using action learning sets to continue leadership and management development was sparked by a presentation and discussion at a Charity Learning Consortium members’ meeting that Eleanor attended. The plan is to get delegates together in a hybrid way, to focus on topics such as appraisals. 

She’ll be encouraging delegates to share what’s working – and what isn’t – as well as finding out what extra resources might help them. This responsive support is backed up by resources on the LMS, such as eLearning, eBooks and videos. Eleanor is also now planning on creating specific topic-focused learning pathways as well. 

“The LMS is a great tool for creating holistic courses. When you start understanding its potential – even if you’re a one man band like I am – it’s a ‘Eureka’ moment. Despite the fact that I’m limited in what I can do, I can offer far more using the LMS. I’ve astonished myself with what I have achieved.”