How Linnk trained about twice as many people on the same admin effort

Discovering 5Mins

Interviewer: How did you first discover 5Mins?

Lucy Connor: The first time Linnk came across 5Mins was at the recruitment expo last year. We saw the skills graphs, and we were like, "That sounds great. That's what we need." So, that's where the conversation started.

Just being able to visualize how an individual's skills are set up and being able to see where their strengths are and where their weaknesses might be and being able to then adjust their learning patterns to fit their weaknesses was just exactly what we wanted.

Why Linnk switched

Interviewer: Were you actively searching for a training solution that did that?

Lucy Connor: We were looking for a new L&D partner. We had a previous one, which was very much sales team focused. So it kind of suited most of those needs. But we were looking for something that suited all of the needs across the business. So every single role that we had, covering finance, marketing, technology skills. Our previous solution didn't offer that. So we were looking for something that offered something to every single person across the business and to be able to upskill everybody rather than just a niche team.

Skills tracking and content

Interviewer: Were there any further challenges you were looking to solve, and how did we address them?

Lucy Connor: The skills tracking is definitely a key point. Being able to see the reporting on the back end of 5Mins has been an absolute game changer. My admin has reduced significantly since having that and just being able to screenshot the skills graphs so that managers could then look at that during a weekly performance catchup.

Also just being able to have more engaging content. That was one of the biggest pieces of feedback that we had about our previous provider, that it was sort of old school, that the training videos were really cringe and awkward, whereas all the 5Mins videos are taken from podcasts that are modern. It's someone who knows what they're talking about. It's not someone stood in a studio trying to pretend that they're doing a pitch call or that they're having a rapport building moment.

So, it's actually like you're learning from the experts rather than someone who's sort of doing a role play, which I think everyone finds reasonably cringe most of the time.

Fitting into the L&D strategy

Interviewer: How do you integrate 5Mins into your overall training and development strategy?

Lucy Connor: I think we're still learning how to do it better. One of the things that we introduced most recently is we built our own review app. One of the questions we've got is L&D requirements from the review and the reviewer. So we put all the 5Mins skills into that. So they can self-select areas the individual wants to develop in and the manager can also select for them. So we think you should develop in this area.

So we can send them specific courses to do with the learning needs that they've self-selected, or they can search for their own skills that they want to develop in and that's not just role-specific skills. So they've got the full 5Mins complement of skills in their app to be able to select from. So if they wanted to move to a different area of the business, they can start training themselves to be able to do that transition later or even develop further than Linnk Group.

Key outcomes

Interviewer: What were the key outcomes or achievements of implementing 5Mins across the organization so far?

Lucy Connor: Key outcomes have definitely been being able to provide learning and skills training for everybody across the business. Having not had that from our previous provider, it's definitely been something that our teams have widely been grateful for. Some of our teams have been our highest learners despite not being the sales team. So, they quite clearly are keen to get engaged with it and are really enjoying using the platform. We're able to have significantly more users on the platform than we were previously.

Admin wise, I would say it is a reduction because the ability to self-add team members to it and be able to just remove them ourselves is something that's really, really easy to do. The learner is able to self-select their own additional skills that they want to learn as well, which I think they quite enjoy being able to do. We're also able to hide lessons that we don't want them to learn and hide specific instructors if we think that they're pants for what we need.

So yeah, I think overall it's just been a massive improvement. It's hard to quantify just exactly how much benefit we've gained out of it so far, but it's been received really well across the business and we're definitely happy with it as a HR team.

Training before 5Mins

Interviewer: What did you do for wider training before 5Mins?

Lucy Connor: I think we kind of still do the same stuff that we used to do. So we did weekly classroom stuff for our sales team. Again, we didn't have a lot of stuff for our operational teams. So our sales team continued to have classroom sessions but those are reasonably well complemented by the lessons that they can do on 5Mins. So they can do their self-learning ahead of a lesson to then complement the in-classroom learning and then complement it again by reminding themselves with 5Mins videos.

Benefits of flipped learning

Interviewer: What are the key benefits of including 5Mins alongside your existing training?

Lucy Connor: I think just for an individual to be able to show their own ambition by self-leading their learning, because otherwise it's just a classroom session. Being able to learn so that they can go into the session with some learning in advance is really beneficial because it means that they can answer questions that are thrown out to the classroom. It shows that they are engaged in a session as well.

If they're like, "I've come out of the session with a couple of questions," they can follow up with a couple of videos and hopefully that reinforces the bits that they potentially missed during the session.

Impact on operational teams

Interviewer: Has wider access boosted engagement, performance or interest for operational teams?

Lucy Connor: Again, I think it's hard to quantify with operational teams because it's harder in terms of a KPI metric to work out whether there's that return on investment. But I've definitely noticed that people are able to do learning on even just tools. So Microsoft Office tools, I get a few less questions than I used to get because we've got Microsoft Office learning on 5Mins, which is amazing because I used to get Excel questions all the time. Not that I mind answering them, but it's nice to be able to say there's a video on that on 5Mins.

I think overall it's definitely demonstrating that there are ways of additional learning rather than just googling something. It's engaging. You're able to just take away what you need from it. And the little quiz at the end also helps them reinforce what they've learned from it. Even if they don't answer it correctly, there's a little explanation as to why it wasn't the one that they thought it was, which is good as well.

Time saved on admin

Interviewer: Roughly how much admin time have you saved each month?

Lucy Connor: It's difficult. I would say it's actually probably similar, but we've increased the admin on the operations teams. So, it's a similar amount of time, but we're able to provide for significantly more team members. So, it's a saving in one way, but it's been able to be spent on a wider number of team members.

I'd say our sales team is probably around about 50% of our headcount. So it is doubleish the amount of people. That's a guesstimate, circa double.

Would you recommend 5Mins?

Interviewer: Would you recommend 5Mins to others?

Lucy Connor: I absolutely would. I have nothing but good things to say about 5Mins. I think it's an excellent platform to be able to use and to be able to roll out in amongst classroom lessons and classroom learning and on desk support. It enables managers to say, "Right, you're struggling with pitch calls. Here's a micro course on that."

Or to be able to just say you could potentially do a developing your communication skills and the individual can go into their pathways and select that skill and either find a relevant video that they're interested in or just keep working through the levels.