A decade of support to a leading UK housing association
Established 2003
Trusted Worldwide
Flexible and Friendly
Established 2003
Trusted Worldwide
Flexible and Friendly
The background
Derby Homes is a 100% owned subsidiary of Derby City Council created in 2002 to manage and maintain the Council’s housing stock.
With a turnover of almost £60M a year, Derby Homes looks after more than 12,000 properties and has a wide range of training needs for its 700 staff.
The challenge
From the start, Derby Homes required an easy-to-use learning platform enabling them to assign online courses to staff based on their job roles.
Over time, additional requirements emerged, including the ability to record appraisals and 1-2-1 meetings between staff and line managers.
The delivery
The initial e-learning platform we offered to Derby Homes was based on a system developed while Marked Improvement was still part of the University of Derby. This was replaced in 2019 by the first version of our Coursebeam LMS, with Derby Homes being one of the earliest adopters.
In 2021, Derby Homes became our very first client to use the new Coursebeam course catalogue. This gave their Employee Development team the ability to search through more than 3,000 off-the-shelf courses, preview them, get an immediate quote within the platform, and then deploy selected courses seamlessly to a specific group of staff.
The results
Alongside our bespoke solutions, our catalogue of 3,000 courses has proved invaluable to the team, giving them access to a wide choice of courses on any given topic without the need to contact each publisher individually for a demo and quote.
The platform has enabled Derby Homes to source, distribute and track use of courses on diverse topics, from Asbestos Awareness to Unconscious Bias. As many of the association’s staff are tradespeople involved in the maintenance of housing stock, it was essential they could complete our courses on the go via their mobile devices. Our platform easily facilitates this.
Flexibility across devices has been a major benefit for Derby Homes, who were keen to ensure that their tradespeople enjoyed the same access to training as office-based staff.
The verdict
“Marked Improvement are very reactive and helpful with any issues or support that is required for the day-to-day management of our e-learning platform.
This was crucial particularly in the early stages of our rollout to ensure the system was successfully implemented.”
Ashton Garner
Derby Homes Employee Development Officer
The future
A decade on, the relationship between Derby Homes and Marked Improvement remains as strong as ever, and we are currently planning further developments mapped to organisational strategy and priorities.
As Sophie commented,
“Without the support of Marked Improvement, this wouldn’t have been possible.”
You might also be interested in:
British Sugar
British Sugar commissioned us to develop a new bespoke module on Conscious Inclusion for their entire workforce, translated into Polish and Lithuanian.
Work Health Hub
Launched by the University of Derby in April 2023, the Work Health Hub - based on CourseBeam LMS - is a subscription-based platform providing support and resources around workplace wellbeing.
Pulvertaft Hand Rehab
The Pulvertaft is a leading international hand and wrist clinic. They commissioned us to develop an online rehab platform for patients recovering from hand injuries.
Derby Homes
Derby Homes has ever-changing needs and hundreds of staff to train – which is why our agile and comprehensive approach to e-learning has been such a success.
Are you our next success story?
Why not book a video call with one of our friendly team to find out how we can help train your staff.
