Raise the Bar Case Study

Established in 2004, Raise the Bar are now one of the leading learning and development companies in the UK and Internationally. In November 2018 they started to deliver management apprenticeships and have since grown from 50 learners to almost 600 (as of 03/08/2021).

The challenge

Raise the Bar began delivering apprenticeships using two systems, one for the e-portfolio and one for the ILR return. They soon found this method to be admin heavy, requiring information to be input multiple times during the registration and enrolment process, and then transferred to their e-portfolio system. With ambitions for growth, they were keen to find a single solution that would reduce administrative workload, drive compliance, and provide an improved learner experience.

The solution

Bud has provided many benefits to Raise the Bar’s business across the key areas of:

• Management & Compliance
• Learning delivery
• Business Growth

Managing & compliance

Raise the Bar were keen to ensure their systems were frictionless, to improve the experience for learners, trainers, managers and employers. That their users could access everything they need with a single log on. As an end-to-end system, Bud enables learners, trainers and employers to see everything they need, from enrolment to end-point assessment. Janette Healey, Head of Apprenticeships at Raise the Bar said:

“With Bud my managers only need to log into one place to see everything they need. Administrative time is reduced for managers and trainers because our learners are now completing their own enrolment, filling in their own forms, providing this crucial data once. This means the data is more likely to be correct from the outset. Bud is now driving our compliance, and its workflows are reducing administrative error.”

Bud’s data warehouse is collecting data from every learner every day, its data suites and reporting mean that Raise the Bar are now able to drill into that data, with minimal effort, and surface key metrics to their senior leadership team. Through Bud’s RAG rating senior leadership can see, immediately, any areas of concern before they become a problem.

Janette said “The reporting that Bud provides looks really professional, in my experience, to gain reporting of this quality on other platforms takes a lot more work. Bud has transformed how we are able to run as a business, the control it’s given us over our data including the performance and quality measurements it provides have helped us to scale our business whilst being confident that the quality of delivery remains high.”

Learning delivery

Raise the Bar wanted to provide their learners with an engaging, innovative learning platform, that would keep them motivated throughout their learning journey. Bud has enabled their learners to access activities and resources, contact their coach, upload their work and supporting evidence from their smartphone, tablet or computer.

Wherever they are, whenever they wish to access Bud they can.

Bud’s intuitive interface means platform users require minimal training, the platform clearly guides the learners through their programme and gives line managers access to live data, allowing less excuses for incomplete tasks!  Janette said:

“Programme management within Bud has been a game changer for us. Previously our coaches were pulling together their own content which, although it was high quality, meant an inconsistent experience for our learners. Bud enables us to still use Raise the Bar’s unique content but by uploading it to the platform we can be sure that all our coaches are working from the same core content and that the quality is high and consistent. Coaches can still personalise the delivery to each learner, but we know that the key models and assessments will be covered and evidenced.”

Bud also allows programmes to be easily updated, even when they are live, which has meant that learners are seeing the very latest content and that high standards can continue to be driven. The natural prompts in Bud have helped Raise the Bar ensure the ‘hot topics’ such as British Values are being covered and evidenced. Janette said:

“The prompts and service messages that we activate in Bud have given us a great channel to communicate to our learners on other issues, for instance to promote our free webinars.”

Raise the Bar are also using the data Bud provides to manage performance and quality, IQA sampling is scheduled, and they can clearly see gaps where learners have missed submitting work. RAG rating trainers has enabled them to realise trainer performance and provide support for trainers who have needed it.

Business growth

Raise the Bar have cleverly included Bud in their new business process. By demonstrating the training site (loaded with dummy data) at pitch stage to new employers they can clearly see the learner and line manager view. They can show prospects all the embedded resources and how easy it is to use the system.

And in terms of their expanding team, Raise the Bar introduce their new starters early on to the platform. By giving their new coaches access to the Bud test site they can play around and gain confidence on the system. Janette said:

“By providing an opportunity for trainers to ‘play around’ on the Bud test site before they start teaching, they can familiarise themselves with the programme and see what it looks like from both the learner and coach perspective.”

Cultural fit

Bud and Raise the Bar both agree that the relationship is blooming because of a close cultural fit. Alistair Wakefield, ADC at Bud said:

“The team at Raise the Bar are a joy to work with. As a company they’re flying and they attribute some of that success to Bud.”

Janette said “The Bud team have been really supportive, from our first contact with the Business Development Team to our working partners in Support, Product and Customer Success. Bud are really receptive to our feedback.”