Bridging the gap between training and ongoing competence and compliance

Great Western Railway (GWR) is one of the largest train operating companies in the UK and is part of FirstGroup plc, the leading transport operator in the UK and North America. They manage 200 stations and welcome 100 million customers onboard their trains each year.

The Challenge

With over 1000 drivers to train geographically dispersed throughout England and South Wales, all with varying IT skills and limited time to engage with learning on the job, GWR are presented with a challenge in supporting and managing train drivers’ learning and development. In safety-critical roles like train operations, rigorous competence monitoring is vital for a robust compliant safety management system.

However, traditional training and assessment approaches often follow a “top-down” structure, where learners perceive training as something done to them rather than empowering them to take ownership of their competence on a daily basis.

Recognising this challenge, GWR partnered closely with AssessTech, a platinum Totara partner, and embraced AssessTech’s groundbreaking developmental competence management philosophy.

The Solution

At GWR, there is a drive to break down barriers such that the result is a shift in culture to a place where individuals are supported to ‘own’ their competence. Fallibility doesn’t need to be feared by default as part of a fair culture, where it is acknowledged that skills and knowledge wax and wane over time. GWR have adopted both ACMS and AssessBook to support this endeavour. ACMS is an assessor-led competence management solution which provides a complete view of a candidate’s competence record whilst AssessBook is a candidate-driven learning management solution that provides a complete view of a candidate’s training and learning, underpinned by Totara’s LXP product.

The two solutions are integrated such that assessors, managers and candidates across GWR can access the complete history of their training, learning and assessments at each stage of their journey.

GWR use this integrated model to great effect as part of their assessment strategy in both a formal and non-formal context.

As part of GWR’s Competence Management System (CMS), each candidate is on a schedule of formal assessment events (in ACMS). To avoid end loading assessments, ACMS can be used to track criteria throughout the schedule such that items for development (marked using a grading scale) can be addressed at the next event.

eAssessment in AssessBook (either SCORM-based or through the native Totara quiz engine) has been increasingly used during formal learning such as traction (train type) conversions. These generate raw assessment data about what the candidate does know, leaving room to explore what the candidate doesn’t know, never with an assumption until 1-to-1 feedback has been undertaken.

The Result

The key business benefits have been:

• Learners across the whole organisation can maintain their competence on a daily basis
• Supporting drivers with good coaching and link it to the top down management processes
• Managers’ time is spent focused on areas for development, prioritising support and training where it is needed
  

Evidence is generated that demonstrates areas of greater proficiency and expertise.