Hi, everyone and welcome to today’s webinar with Ciphr. We’ll be introducing you to the Ciphr Academy. That’s HR systems training from Ciphr that takes you from supporting cast to top of the class. I’m Cathryn. I’m Ciphr’s, head of content. Welcome. And joining me today is by Bradley Burgoyne, Ciphr’s head director of talent. Sorry. He’s the head of the academy project. Welcome, Bradley. It’s great to have you with us today.
00:25
Thank you, Cathryn. Morning.
00:29
And if you’re new to Ciphr, let me just give you a quick overview of what we do here. Ciphr is a leading UK based provider of integrated HR, payroll, LMS, and recruitment solutions. Our integrated HCM platform helps organisations manage the end to end employee lifecycle so they can deliver amazing employee experience inside the organisation can be confident they can access all their people data in one place, thanks to secure time saving integration between our own solutions and API connections to other specialists third party software, more than 600 organisations across the UK P cyphers. Solution, and that encompasses public, private and nonprofit sectors. Now we’ll just take a look at the agenda for today’s broadcast, we’re going to look at the challenges of HR systems training where HR teams may have struggled, perhaps in the past. But he’s also going to give you a quick tour of the new Cyber Academy, which is our new digital portal for customer learning. So it makes sure that our customers are supported every step of the way through this journey. We’re also going to look at what you should be asking vendors about HR software training, if you’re considering switching to a new provider. This webinar is being recorded and the recording will be emailed to you afterwards. So you can rewatch that at any time or share it with a colleague. And with that, I’m going to hand over to Bradley.
01:50
Thank you, Katherine. So we’ll start with that first agenda item, I think and start to look at some of the challenges. So when we when we started to look at Cypher Academy, and how could we best support our customers with you know, upskilling, and learning everything they need to learn around to around our product to fully utilise it. We had to kind of look at what what were the challenges that our customers were facing. And I personally spoke to lots of our customers in in this project to understand at a granular level, what were they coming up against, and there was some common themes that really, really kind of emerged from that. So one was this need to kind of cater for different learning styles. So our customers had lots of different learners, lots of different users of the cypher system. And they have different learning styles and different ways in which they wanted to learn more around the product. Definitely this sense of a greater level of flexibility. So learning that needed to fit in around the busy day to day work of a HR team. We noticed and through the conversations that our customers were speaking about, they had more of their colleagues working remotely. And how does that look versus in person training. And there was definitely a stronger trend towards wanting more remote, more virtual led sessions. And actually that the activities that they wanted to access, they wanted them to be bite size in an hour, I could get the information I needed. And then I could get back and put that into practice versus some of their experience may be historically may have been all day workshops that covered lots of topics, but much more difficult to plan in for a whole day and also much more difficult to then go back and practice everything you’ve learned because of the breadth of topics that you had covered. Most importantly, how how could Cypher support them as a customer to get up to speed with the system as quickly as possible? And that came through in two ways. So one was, we’re brand new, and we’re implementing the system where we just want to make sure that this investment that we’ve made, we can get a return on that as quickly as possible. So how quickly can you get us up to speed? And the other element of that was we already have your system. But as in when I get new people join my organisation? How can I get them effective as quickly as possible in using Cypher suite of products. So again, we can get them competent, and we can get them up to speed and fully productive as soon as possible. And ultimately, how can we then as Cypher do that repeatedly and deliver the same level of experience every time and deliver a really high level of experience? Those are kind of similar challenges and gauntlets that were thrown down to me when we looked at redesigning and re looking at our Cypher Academy platform. Now as well as talking to our own customers, we also went out and surveyed 195 UK based HR professionals and we asked them about their experience CES have of HR systems and implementation and the type of training that they’ve received. And it was quite interesting, some of the statistics that came back. So, you know, just just, you know, 45% of HR professionals who are company implementing a new HR software, so they’re getting as much training is there need. So that’s only about half that actually are not receiving the treatment that they wanted, you know, nearly a third said that they would have liked more training and more ongoing training. And roughly over a quarter of them said that they felt confident. And that was a real surprise to me, really, because, you know, that’s three quarters that say they’re not confident in using their system after a vendor has provided training. So that tells me that the the methods and the style that maybe the industry is delivering that training needs to be looked at if it’s not sticking and the confidence levels aren’t there. And, you know, what sort of training do HR professionals want, you know, the, the 37% of them said that they wanted some kind of structured online pathway that they could follow, that ultimately led them to become competent in the system. So there were some really interesting insights that were produced as a result of that survey. And when we brought all of that insight together, we then looked at, okay, so how do we reinvent our platform? How do we repurpose our platform to really meet those challenges and provide our customers with the experience that they’re looking for. And this is where we arrived today with with our new Cypher Academy platform. So we now have a platform that has over you know, more than 400 activities within it. And all of those activities are designed to support our customers, whether they go through implementation, or beyond that in terms of the Bau, using the system all the time, and continuously upscaling customers on the new features and functionality within the platform. And how do we do that? So we really looked at the methods that we were using, and how we were catering for different learning styles. And we now have a much broader range of, of methods for delivering that training. So whether that be an interactive learning module, or eLearning module, which is available online on the platform that is self paced, that you can do, you know, at your pace at your time, with a multiple different ways of making that interactive, whether that’s a scenario based interaction whereby there’s a, you know, a, a kind of version of the system that isn’t a live version of the system. And now I need to work through this scenario to embed that skill that I’ve just learned. And now I’ve embedded it and I feel confident, we then encourage you back into your life platform to do that in your life system to put that into practice, or does that just look like a really short sharp bite size video, where I can get in, I can learn a bit about topic over a couple of minutes, get out, and then use that knowledge straightaway, got loads of comprehensive fishing guide, written guides, because a lot of our customers really appreciate that having those step by step instructions and working through it. And some of our customers really value tapping into the experience and expertise of a product training specialist. And for those customers, we have bite sized live classes, which customers can attend. They tend to be anywhere between an hour and 90 minutes up to two hours. They’re very focused on a particular topics that may be focused on something like absence within the platform, how do I get the most out of utilising the absence functionality, I can get in, I can ask questions about product expert, I can get the knowledge I need, I can exit that workshop and immediately start to put into practice the piece that I’ve learned around absence. So that’s a tonne of different ways that we are supporting our customers. And that is an ongoing evolving piece of work to always look at how can we bring different elements of interactivity and different activity types based on our customer feedback to ensure that customers are able to learn in a way that best suits them. In addition to content types, we had a whole new look and feel to our Cypher Academy platform. So you know, let’s let’s be realistic. Sometimes the thought process of doing systems training is maybe not the most interesting and enticing topic to do training on. So we really wanted to bring some stories, some theme to our platform that just injected a little bit of fun and stuff that we could play with and stuff that we can have some fun as we go through what could be quite a dry topic, and turn it into something really interesting, engaging and fun as we go through. So we’ve got a whole new concept, whole new brand, whole new design element to our platform. And that really just elevated some of the pieces we were doing already around classes help guides. We have a dedicated section on our platform that when we do release new functionality within our product, customers can access that five release note page and they can understand what that functionality is what that enhancement is book on to a webinar book on to an experience with product specialists. Just making it really Easy to get the information that our customers need. And all of the webinars like for example, even the one that we’re recording today, whether it’s a thought leadership webinar or something cyphers doing or something that’s topic based within the platform, all of those webinars are saved and stored in the platform that all of our customers can access on an ongoing basis. So this is where we’re saying, How can we make it easy to access the content? And how can we make sure that customers are always able to access it, regardless of what time of day it is, where they are, there’s a one stop shop through which they can access all of that information. We also really looked at our customers learn through implementation. And we worked in collaboration with our partners in implementation and projects to really understand what that customer journey looks like here at Cypher. And how can we support that with a really structured learning journey, so customers are on board with us have the benefit now of a very structured three level induction programme, all of which is online learning journey based and takes them through step by step, all of the knowledge that a customer would need in order to implement the cypher HR product, you can see that that split into three different levels, those three different levels are targeted at the right knowledge at the right time through implementation. So by the time you exit that next stage of implementation, you have all of the information you need, ready for the next stage that’s coming up. Interestingly, when we piloted this with our customers, and customers went through pilot, we serve some really amazing engagement. But the real acid test for me was that customers that went through the pilot process, none of those customers raised this a support ticket via our customer care, tea. And I guess what that showed me was that those customers were getting the right knowledge at the right time, and didn’t feel the need to have to raise a query via customer care, because there was something they didn’t know. And that was a great result for us. And we’re hoping now we move out a pilot, we see that trend continue as we get more and more customers implementing through through our structured learning pathway. As well as the new implementation process, we also introduced some new functionality within our academy platform too. So we spoke about bite sized bite size was a new concept. For us. This is where we’re migrating away from all day, classroom sessions to 6090 minute two hour sessions that any customer can book onto, and tap into for the benefit of that knowledge of an experienced product trainer. The learning journeys was a really interesting part of this. So learning journeys are a way of us being able to collate and structure different learning activities in a step by step guide that I can start at point A, I can finish it point Zed, and by the time I finish it point Zed, I’ve mastered that topic. So I alluded to earlier through implementation or implementation is one of our learning journeys, I start from not even having a live system or knowing you know how to use the system to finishing having fully implemented ready to implement to my end user in the organisation, and, and complete the setting my system up for success. So that’s a great example of the type of learning journey that exists. We spoke about the fact that we now have over 400 pieces of learning, and some of that learning is assigned is kind of what we would say is, you know, we would expect you to do this in order for you to implement your product successfully, you’re in it to keep going and keep that knowledge up to date. And you’ll find all of that within my learning. So that’s a nice one stop shop places where if I don’t know, but to complete, start with my learning, because I’ll start there. And I’ve built my way up from that rewards and badges. So every time an activity is completed within our platform, customers get reward points, and that goes into a league table. And that creates some fun and some competition within the customers organisation. And what we’re finding with that is that then that’s that’s kind of starting that conversation to want to be more learning and find out more about our products. And every time a journey is completed, a badge is awarded to show that level of competence around that topic, haven’t completed that journey. And our final element here is trending topics. And this was a real interesting collaboration with our customer care team whereby we now work really closely with them on a week by week basis, to understand the trends of any customer care tickets that are raised by our customers where they have questions or queries about the product. We then look at the big themes that are coming through in that and we look at okay, is there anything we can proactively do within academy that creates a piece of content that have prevented that ticket from being raised in the first place? So this is us constantly looking at what are those trending topics that our customers are saying are important to them? How can we present that that content really nice and clearly in Academy, because that prevents that ticket being raised in the in the in the first instance, it just gives the customer the knowledge they need straight away to answer that question. So that’s a really interesting space. And I’m really intrigued as to how that’s going to progress as we move forward. We’ve spoken lots around the different types of, of activities that are contained within the platform. Now, you know, in this short video, you see here, you can see a great example of a learning journey with different activity types to really kind of help understand, Okay, what’s this topic that I’m trying to master, give me some scenarios and some content to work on, that’s going to help me master that topic. And when I have mastered it, let me kind of test that knowledge at the end to make sure I’ve got that full understanding, and then move on to the next topic in that learning journey, gradually accumulating that knowledge. The nice thing about the journey is that I can go back to any time. So even if I did my implementation journey, I finished it. And now I’m out of implementation. And I’m using my system as Bau. If at any point, there’s something that crops up and I just want to circle back, because I remember that from from that implementation journey, I can simply reload the journey again, find that topic, reopen the content, and re complete it to refresh that knowledge. And this is where we’re really committed at Cypher that none of our customers fall off of that cliff edge after implementation, you know that we don’t end up in that scenario where there’s lots of activity at the beginning to upskill our customers. And now we’re live. And we’ve implemented the system that forms off cliff, we want to make sure that that trend continues after implementation. So customers are constantly getting that same level of service from training that they’ve come to expect as they’ve gone through implementation. And that knowledge is always there always available. So what benefits have we kind of really seen from from this? So, you know, we’ve seen huge amounts of benefit from this structured learning journeys, you know, I shared earlier around the benefit of the pilot customers not not having to raise any support queries for our customer care team. That’s great for us. Because that really does mean that those customers are getting the right knowledge at the right time, as and when they need it. We really are noticing it enables a quicker and smoother induction experience. It’s very clear and transparent. As customers go through that journey where they are on the journey, what they have coming up. Next, we can monitor that from a cyphers perspective as well, to understand where our customers are sitting. If a customer is moving a little bit further ahead, we can have conversations around that if a customer’s you know a little bit higher, we can kind of pick up the phone and say, Look, is there anything else you need from us, we noticed that you’re not quite on track with your learning journey, it just creates a much smoother experience because it’s far more transparent. And everyone knows where our customers are on that journey. And ultimately, those journeys are fully aligned to our Cypher way, the way in which we implement our products and services. And any new projects that take come from an existing customer perspective, in terms of the ongoing training piece, again, you know, we’re really seeing that engagement around that content that can be accessed online at any time. You know, this was something that really came through when I spoke to our customers, that when we had a previous working model, which was I booked on today’s training, and then I got on manual afterwards, it wasn’t so easy that if I had a question post training, if I really wanted to recover something to go back on that again, whereas now that content is always available, it’s much easier to circle back any time that I needed to access that. There’s a greater variety of content types. And you know, some of our customers absolutely love the Bite Size workshops, some of just love the videos getting in and out doing the videos of as a preferred structure the journeys, but it’s now down to customers having that personal choice as to how do you learn best, and pick a content type that suits you. And there’s something there that caters for your particular learning preference. Those bite size workshops have been a great success for us to be able to fit those around a customer’s busy working day, much easier to carve out 60 or 90 minutes in a day, compared to a much harder to carve out a whole day in the diary. And we’re really seeing that come through and the feedback from our customers. At the scenario base is really helping to build confidence. You know, customers are saying to us, it really helped to practice it in that safe environment before trying it out in my live system for the first time. So we want to do more of that we will be building more of that capability in on future content, the rewards points and badges, you know, it’s kind of made me smile, how competitive maybe some of our customers have got that within their own organisations. And that’s great for us because the more content customers complete, the more capable they are of using our product suite. And ultimately that also benefits can customers as well, because you know they’ve made an investment into this product, we want to make sure they want to make sure that they’re maximising that investment and getting a great return and the more customers are educated, the more they’re able to maximise the return on that investment. And ultimately, through the platform, learners are now fully empowered to drive their development at the pace that suits them, and the depth of which they want to go to at whatever point they are within their journey with us. And that is a great ongoing benefit of the training that we provide. So ultimately, you know, when we’re thinking about training, and whether it’s I’m implementing a new HR system, or I just want to maximise the one I’ve got, ultimately, if we look that why is it so important, and that that kind of survey that I mentioned earlier? One of the things we asked him that was why is it important for people and, you know, some of the things that consistently come up is that, you know, it does help that process optimization, it helps me get the most out of this thing that I’ve purchased. I want to be able to understand my product, better the data, the reporting side of things to understand those insights into my organisation, where do I need to be directing my attention? We absolutely want to reduce the admin time, you know, let’s face it, the whole purpose of implementing the HR system is that we can automate a lot of those processes to save that admin time training and how to adequately use the system is going to help reduce that that time spent on tasks that could be being done by the system. We really want to support our customers with training because the more we maximise the system, the more we can assist with achieving that ROI goal that any organisation set themselves. Ultimately, this is about how can we help HR teams work more efficiently and more effectively? And ultimately, how do we use that full functionality and potential of our system, whether that’s through the task authorization, or just making sure that we’re maximising all of the functionality that exists? So whether you know, you have chosen Cypher is your your chosen vendor or thinking about choosing Cypher or somebody else, I guess, some top tips really I’ve shared, what we do here at Cypher, and our approach to customer education is around how can we fully support through implementation? And then how can we also support beyond that as the needs evolve of our customers and new functionality comes in. And we really want to make sure that from a learning perspective, we cater for all of that, regardless of where a customer is, in that lifecycle of our product. If you are out there considering a vendor, you know, these are some of the questions that I would I really urge you to have front and centre in your mind in terms of what training does that vendor offer through implementation and beyond beyond this just as important, how you’re going to support me on an ongoing basis? And anyone new that might start in my organisation? What ongoing training did you offer? What does that look like? How will you support anyone who joins post implementation within my team? Really get into that nub of how much of this is included? You know, and or do I have to pay extra? So everything we’ve spoken about here today, all of the online content is available for all of our customers to access at no additional cost. The only element that attracts in additional cost is those bite sized workshops where we tap into the product experts. But again, that’s that’s very clear and transparent. All of our customers can see that upon logging into Academy and through that sales process as well. And are those learning activities interactive? You know, are they? are they actually going to help me contextualise understand the learning that I’ve just done, put that into practice to build confidence and build the skill set. By the time I get into my life system. I feel ready and I feel confident about implementing that new function or implementing that new process within my products. They will definitely be questions that I would urge you to ask. And I would hope that you get satisfactory answers back from all of those questions. That’s that’s us in terms of how we do things here at Cypher. Thank you for taking that time to join the web, the webinar and let us know if you have any follow up questions.
24:32
Yeah, thank you so much Bradley for that quick tour of Cyber Academy and how Cypher supports customers with training and support. Obviously, if you do have any questions, you can send them into the chat box on your screen and we can pick those up after the broadcast or you can get in touch with us to interact SCI fi.com If you don’t watch live we will send this recording to you automatically so you can take them again. And if you want to find out more about products just let us know by emailing me at on screen or if you’re watching live through the exit survey that you get at the end of the broadcast Thank you Bye they really appreciate you sharing all of your expertise with us today and thank you everyone for joining us and we hope to see you at another cipher webinar again soon take care thank you
About this webinar
HR and L&D professionals put so much energy into the learning and development of the people in their organisations, that often they are relegated to the sidelines and overlook their own training needs. Nowhere is this training deficit more apparent than with HR’s own systems.
Join Ciphr’s director of talent Bradley Burgoyne as we showcase the new Ciphr Academy: a digital learning platform packed with learning journeys, on-demand training activities, and live bitesize workshops – all built on our own platform, Ciphr LMS – that promises to put all Ciphr HR software customers centre-stage when it comes to learning. We’ll show you how Ciphr’s market-leading customer training platform supports our clients every step of the way, from implementation to ongoing use of their systems. Plus, you’ll leave the session equipped with essential questions to ask potential HR software vendors about their training and support provision.