This is how Province of North Brabant makes an online academy work

June 1, 2017 was the day. The BrabantAcademy, the online learning environment of the Province of North Brabant, was launched. One of the goals here was that at least 600 employees should use the academy in the first six months. This goal was amply achieved and meanwhile almost all province employees have made use of the academy. Charlotte van Meer, project leader BrabantAcademie, and Lisan van der Lee, learning professional at SkillsTown, explain how this success was achieved.

Combining online with offline

Before the digital BrabantAcademy was launched, there was already a lot of attention for learning and development within the province. A training advisor was employed and learning lines were in place, focusing on a specific theme. For North Brabant, it was important that the online learning solutions would tie in with this existing offering.

Charlotte explains how this was realized: "An important learning line within our organization, for example, is project-based work. Together with SkillsTown we have developed essentials, short micro-courses in which the basics are briefly explained. By following these, you go to a training day better prepared. Even after the training, you can review the essentials to refresh your knowledge. This is how we ensure that online learning is an addition to the offline trainings."

"If the trainings are relevant to the employees, they have a good reason to regularly take a look at the online learning environment."

Lisan explains why it is important that the online content connects with the organization: "If the training courses are relevant to the employees, they have a good reason to regularly take a look at the online learning environment. Therefore, as an organization, make sure that you can constantly offer up-to-date content to your employees."

Staying under the spotlight with fun promotions

According to Lisan, communication about the academy is crucial: "You have to think of the launch of an online academy as a product launch. It's important to pay attention to this in as many ways as possible."

At Provincie Noord-Brabant, various actions were organized from the start to bring the academy to people's attention. For example, an article was placed on the intranet at the launch, allowing employees to click directly to the learning environment. In addition, flyers were distributed at the launch announcing the academy once again.

Another action that enticed county employees to take a look at the online environment was the summer academy. Charlotte explains: "For 5 years we have been organizing the summer academy. Now, for the first time, we also had an online offer including different language courses. We announced this action with a funny teaser movie. We got very nice reactions to this and we saw that people made great use of the specially selected offer."

"The use of online learning offerings should be completely established within the organization."

Embedding in the organization

For Charlotte, the ultimate goal of the online learning environment is clear: "The use of the online learning offerings should be completely ingrained within the organization. It should be natural for employees to look up the online courses when they go to a training day or when they want to develop in a particular area."

To achieve this, for example, a link was made between the intranet and the learning environment. This way, employees only have to log in once and the use becomes much easier. In addition, from now on, a button will be placed with all offline training courses, directing interested parties directly to the related online courses.

Tips for a successful launch

Finally, Charlotte briefly summarizes what to consider as an organization when implementing an online learning environment:

"The link between the existing offering and the online offering is very important. This is how you ensure that e-learning really adds something. In addition, as an organization you have to take into account that it takes time before the learning environment is embedded in the organizational culture. It is a long-term process in which the use becomes more and more automatic for the employees."

Lisan also wants to share another tip: "When you start implementing an academy, it's good to set some clear goals. That way you can take targeted action to achieve the set objectives. Province of North Brabant has done this very well and you can see that this works, as the number of active users continues to go up."