Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust (RBFT) is a large acute Trust in the South East of England, supporting a diverse population across Berkshire and surrounding areas with more than 7,000 staff.

To support its ambition of having the right people in the right roles at the right time, the Trust partnered with Totara to develop RISE (Recognising Individual’s Success and Excellence)—an innovative digital Talent Management system transforming appraisal, workforce development, leadership planning, and staff engagement.

The Challenge

Before RISE, the Trust’s Talent Management and appraisal processes were fragmented, inconsistent, and heavily paper-based. Staff development conversations varied significantly across departments, limiting visibility of workforce capability, succession readiness, and leadership potential. Appraisals were often viewed as administrative exercises rather than meaningful development opportunities, and there was no single source of truth for workforce talent data.

The organisation faced several key challenges:

• Inconsistent appraisal completion and quality across services.
• Limited oversight of leadership pipelines and workforce capability.
• Significant administrative burden for managers and Learning & Organisational Development teams.
• Fragmented systems for appraisals, learning, talent management, and development planning.
• Difficulty identifying workforce inequalities and progression barriers.
• Lack of actionable workforce data to support strategic decision-making.

The Trust recognised the need for a digitally enabled, inclusive, and intelligence-driven approach to workforce development that could support retention, engagement, and future workforce planning.

The intended ambition was not simply to digitise an existing process, but to fundamentally redesign how Talent Management operated across the organisation. The Trust wanted a system that could:

• Create a consistent and meaningful appraisal experience for all staff.
• Empower employees to take ownership of their development.
• Connect objectives, behaviours, learning, and career aspirations in one place.
• Generate real-time workforce insight to support succession planning and leadership development.
• Improve accessibility, inclusivity, and transparency.
• Reduce administrative burden through automation and integration.

Importantly, the Trust also wanted to ensure the solution reflected organisational values and workforce diversity. Extensive staff engagement highlighted concerns around accessibility, digital confidence, fairness in progression opportunities, and inconsistent development experiences.

The organisation needed a platform capable of integrating learning, appraisal, talent management, reporting, and development planning into one seamless design, while remaining scalable, sustainable, and adaptable for future workforce priorities.

The Solution

Working in partnership with Totara (previously Think Learning), the Trust developed RISE, a fully integrated digital Talent Management programme.

Rather than implementing a standalone appraisal tool, the Trust used Totara as the foundation for a connected workforce development experience that integrates online appraisal, leadership behaviours, personalised development pathways, learning management, talent analytics, action planning, and ePortfolio functionality.

The solution was co-designed with staff across clinical, corporate, administrative, and operational services to ensure accessibility, inclusivity, and usability were embedded from the outset. More than 400 colleagues contributed through workshops, pilots, usability testing, and feedback sessions. Staff networks representing protected characteristics, including neurodiversity, Global Majority, and Pride networks, were actively involved in shaping language, navigation, accessibility features, and user journeys.

At the centre of RISE is the digital appraisal process, fully integrated within Totara Workflow. Staff complete appraisals online using the Trust’s Leadership Behaviours Framework, linking objectives, behaviours, career aspirations, and development conversations within one workflow.

A key innovation was the creation of automated RISE Pathways. Using Totara workflows, digital appraisal and talent management forms, and integrated learning functionality, the Trust designed tailored employee journeys that respond dynamically to the data gathered throughout the appraisal process.

Courses and development opportunities are automatically aligned to specific audiences, leadership levels, and organisational hierarchies through dynamic audiences. Tailored dashboards provide staff and managers with personalised visibility of objectives, development activity, progression, and workforce insights relevant to their role and level within the organisation.

Through capturing and utilising workforce data across the employee journey, the Trust created a platform genuinely designed around staff needs. RISE balances tailored guidance with open access to opportunity, enabling employees to clearly understand their own development trajectory while still exploring the full range of learning and career opportunities available through the organisation’s learning catalogues.

These pathways automatically recommend learning, development opportunities, and actions through Totara’s integrated learning functionality. Staff can also track their progress through Action Planner and ePortfolio, both designed through the workflow tool to be dynamic and interactive.

One of the most transformative aspects of the solution has been workforce intelligence. For the first time, the Trust can clearly identify where talent exists, where gaps remain, and where targeted interventions are required. Multiple reporting sources combine appraisal, talent, learning, succession, retention, promotion, and pathway data to provide rich workforce insight—all made possible because the data resides within a single platform.

For example, RISE data highlighted underrepresentation of Global Majority staff within leadership pipelines. This directly informed targeted interventions such as the Global Majority Aspiring Leaders Programme and targeted promotion of the Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship (CMDA). The platform has also enabled the Trust to identify areas of high engagement and digital development champions who support wider staff adoption, creating a positive cycle where increased platform use generates richer workforce insight and more effective decision-making.

The Results

RISE has delivered significant measurable impact across workforce engagement, operational efficiency, leadership development, and workforce intelligence.

One of the most significant outcomes has been the transformation of appraisal engagement. Prior to RISE, appraisals were predominantly paper-based with limited visibility and inconsistent completion rates.

Since implementation:

• More than 85% of the organisation now completes appraisals fully online.
• More than 80% of staff actively engage with their personalised talent dashboards.
• More than 95% of aspiring leaders (Bands 5–6) complete their appraisal online.
• Planned Care services now achieve more than 92% appraisal uptake and are piloting a new One Window appraisal model.

The automation and integration provided through Totara have significantly reduced administrative burden:

• Administrative processing time has reduced by approximately 30%.
• Manual data entry and duplication have been largely eliminated.
• Learning records update automatically through integrated workflows.
• Managers now access real-time workforce dashboards instead of manually collating appraisal data.

The platform has also transformed workforce planning and leadership development.

For the first time, the Trust has real-time visibility of:

• Leadership readiness
• Workforce capability
• Talent distribution
• Succession pipelines
• Workforce demographics and representation

This intelligence has enabled targeted interventions and measurable progress in inclusion and leadership development.

Since January 2025:

• 125 staff identified within the Trust’s Gold talent pool have achieved promotion or lateral career progression.
• The majority of progression has come from aspiring leaders groups, demonstrating earlier identification and development of talent.
• Representation of Global Majority staff progressing through promotion or lateral movement has increased compared to the same period in the previous year.

The Trust has also seen measurable cultural impact. RISE has strengthened development conversations between managers and staff, improved visibility of opportunities, and increased employee ownership of career development.

The Trust’s 2025 Staff Survey ranked the organisation second nationally for staff feeling “supported to develop their potential,” directly aligning with the purpose and outcomes of RISE.

The success of the programme has generated significant interest from NHS organisations nationally. The Trust has presented RISE through national workforce forums, shared best practice with colleagues across the NHS, and recently received Highly Commended at the HSJ Digital Awards.

RISE demonstrates how Totara can move beyond traditional learning management to become a strategic workforce transformation platform that improves engagement, retention, inclusion, operational efficiency, and workforce planning at scale.

Montessori Global Education, a global leader in Montessori learning, aimed to create a truly holistic online learning experience for a diverse international audience.

Their previous platform constrained their innovation, learner engagement, and peer collaboration. Through their partnership with BuildEmpire, they transformed online learning into a dynamic, learner-centred, blended environment that reflects the Montessori philosophy at every stage.

The Challenge

Before BuildEmpire, Montessori Global Education operated in a college-style format, combining face-to-face sessions with some online learning.

The existing LMS largely mirrored classroom-based teacher training: it connected learners and provided access to digital content, but its limited functionality no longer supported the organisation’s vision.

Learners experienced a largely passive, linear journey with minimal opportunities for reflection, collaboration, or personalised learning.

The platform also lacked the flexibility to deliver blended learning at scale, with limited support for synchronous and asynchronous integration, multi-tenancy, and centralised quality assurance.

With a global learner base spanning multiple continents, there was a critical need for a system that could adapt to different cultural contexts, learning styles, and levels of engagement, while maintaining a consistent, high-quality Montessori experience.

Wetlands are some of the world’s most vital yet threatened ecosystems, crucial for biodiversity, water quality and climate resilience; 40% of the world’s plants and animals depend on them. Yet since 1970, 35% of our wetlands have disappeared between 1970 and 2015.

The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) has been pioneering conservation for more than 75 years, and through the Wetland Learning Hub, it is now sharing this knowledge and expertise with conservationists worldwide.

The Challenge

With more than 75 years of evidence-based conservation expertise, WWT’s vision is a world where healthy wetlands thrive, support biodiversity and enrich lives. The organisation aims to share their knowledge with conservation professionals around the world, especially in regions where wetlands are under intense pressure and where training opportunities are limited. Key targets for WWT include:

• Create and restore 100,000 hectares of wetlands in the UK by 2050.
• Support locally-led action to improve 1 million hectares of wetlands globally in key biodiversity hotspots.
• Inspire and equip 25,000 conservationists with the skills to deliver impactful wetland conservation on the ground.

WWT is an international organisation partner to the Ramsar Convention, which is focused on wetland conservation through local, national and international cooperation.

With funding from the UK Government’s Darwin Initiative, WWT set out to address a lack of structured training for conservationists working on wetlands by:

• Improving conservation knowledge within organisations globally
• Sharing best practice globally, not just within one region
• Developing wider understanding of wetland management strategies

While initially focused on early-career conservationists, it quickly became clear that demand was broader, including government officials, NGOs, civil society staff, academics, researchers and private-sector practitioners.

The challenge here was scale: how do you deliver structured training across regions, organisations, career stages and languages while still creating a sense of cohort, community and real-world application?

The Solution

To help the organisation achieve these goals, Synergy Learning was tasked with creating the Wetland Learning Hub. This would be the organisation’s first learning management system, powered by Totara LMS, targeting wetland professionals working for local and international non-governmental organisations and charities, as well as government agencies, NGOs, civil society staff, academics, researchers and private-sector practitioners.

Structured learning pathways

The flagship programme is delivered as a pathway via the LMS, guiding learners through four key modules:

• Introduction to wetlands and wetland ecosystems
• Socioeconomic and cultural values of wetlands
• Wetland management and monitoring
• CEPA (Communication, Education, Participation, Awareness)

Learners complete modules over a set study period (trialled at 14 weeks, then refined to 10 weeks to increase completion rates through a tighter deadline), supported by recommended due dates and automated reminders in Totara LMS.

Engaging learning content that transfers to the role

Each module blends interactive content and practical application to boost learning transfer. This content includes:

• H5P interactive video lectures with in-video questions to maintain engagement and reinforce understanding.
• Practice quizzes.
• Topic-level feedback polls to continually improve the learning content.
• A practical assignment at the end of each module, requiring learners to apply their knowledge to a wetland of their choice and share outputs in
• Totara Workspace discussions for peer and facilitator feedback.
• A final graded quiz (80% pass mark), leading to a customised certificate within the LMS and an invitation to a Linkedin alumni group to keep the conversation going post-learning.

Live learning with streamlined management

WWT uses seminars in Totara LMS to manage registrations and attendance for live Q&A sessions and webinars. This supports peer learning and regionally relevant discussion, while giving the learning and development team at WWT the tracking needed to manage participation and progression.

Social learning at a global scale

WWT used Totara Workspaces as the engine of social learning within the Wetland Learning Hub. Workspaces became the focal point for:

• Introductions, questions, announcements and reminders
• Learner-led discussion, peer feedback and resource sharing
• A continuously expanding library of additional learning materials and recorded seminars
• Language-specific spaces to remove barriers and increase participation

Multilingual delivery for equitable access

The Wetland Hub has enabled courses to be delivered in English, French and Portuguese for regional rollouts in Indo-Burma, Madagascar and West Africa, with the ability to add further languages for more regions as the programme expands.

The Result

From the outset, WWT designed learning around real-world practice and behaviour change. The programme requires learners to apply frameworks and tools to wetlands they know, then learn from peers tackling different contexts across countries and ecosystems.

100% positive learning impact

WWT intentionally avoided “top-down” learning in favour of a social learning approach that has seen a staggering 100% praise for positive learning impact from learners; all respondents to a post-course survey reported a positive impact on their knowledge of wetland conservation.

Reduced support burden through peer knowledge sharing

Workspaces have helped learners share local expertise and solve problems together, including “helper” participants who answer technical and content questions. This has reduced support burden and strengthened the learning community for WWT.

Driving conservation efforts at scale

Despite being WWT’s first LMS, the Wetland Learning Hub has delivered strong results already:

192 learners have successfully completed the online course across three regions (Indo-Burma, West Africa and Madagascar), plus a further 50 who attended in-depth in-person sessions.

Learners came from government bodies, NGOs, civil society, academia and the private sector, reflecting strong cross-sector demand for structured wetland training.

79% shared learning with colleagues and within their organisations, multiplying the effect beyond direct participants.

In less than two years, WWT has successfully used the Totara LMS to build a multilingual learning community, improved conservation capability across sectors and created a scalable model that spreads best practice globally, turning digital learning into tangible environmental action.

Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue (NFRS) protects a population of 1.2 million people and responds to over 10,500 incidents each year. With 720 staff including 560 operational firefighters, the organisation’s ambition is to be recognised as ‘outstanding’ in every area of service delivery.

The Challenge

To achieve this, NFRS needed to modernise how it delivers, tracks and evidences operational training while ensuring firefighters remain safe, compliant and fully aware of hazard identification and risk mitigation.

Working in partnership with Synergy Learning, NFRS implemented a Totara-based LMS that has transformed compliance from a document-led process into a dynamic, measurable and learner-centric experience.

The Solution

For NFRS, compliance is fundamental to operational safety. A major driver for change was the need to digitise National Operational Guidance (NOGs): mandatory guidance that all UK fire services must follow. Previously, the content existed as written documents and slide presentations, delivered locally with limited consistency and traceability.

Over a three-year programme, NFRS led the conversion of 134 NOG modules into interactive e-learning, working collaboratively with neighbouring services to standardise interpretation across the region. Materials were standardised, rewritten and distributed as interactive e-learning, ensuring consistent interpretation of national guidance. To avoid cognitive overload, new content is drip-fed to learners each month, this generally follows a competency theme, for example, Fire in Buildings or Water and Flood Rescue.

Automating compliance

The Totara LMS is fully integrated with NFRS’s iTrent HR system. This synchronises role changes, station movements, shift patterns and new starters weekly. Compliance training is automatically assigned based on operational role, ensuring that the right people receive the right training at the right time.

This automation has eliminated manual enrolment processes and significantly reduced administrative burden while providing audit-ready reporting. Compliance is now systematic and dependent rather than relying on manual oversight. This compliance is also subject to external governance in the form of Ofsted style audit.

Learner-centric design

A defining strength of this implementation is its responsiveness to learner feedback. A service-wide survey highlighted strong learner engagement, but was also used to identify opportunities to improve accessibility. There was clear feedback that more varied formats would better support different learning preferences (e.g. video, rather than text-heavy content).

NFRS responded decisively and the next three-year NOG cycle has been redesigned to include more accessible content, greater use of visuals, increased use of narration and more video-based modules. This is particularly important for neurodivergent colleagues and those who process information more effectively through audio or visual means rather than text.

Although accessibility is technically enabled with Totara LMS, NFRS has proactively responded to learner feedback to shape content design around learner needs. Future modules will combine related subjects into streamlined releases and align with monthly drill and exercise suggestions, reinforcing learning through both digital and practical application.

As a result, compliance is now designed to be experienced in a way that works for the individual, based on Level 1 of the Kirkpatrick Model of learning.

 

Raising standards while protecting operational time

In the emergency services, every second matters so it was important for NFRS to create compliance programmes that also supported operational efficiency. Pre-course e-learning now ensures that theoretical elements of high-risk training (e.g. breathing apparatus exercises) are completed in advance. This means valuable face-to-face training time is focused on critical skill application rather than knowledge delivery.

With Totara’s flexible learning tools, firefighters can complete modules flexibly around shift patterns and on-call responsibilities using a mobile-friendly LMS that works around the demands of frontline work.

The Results

Through its partnership with Synergy Learning and its strategic use of Totara LMS, Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service has transformed compliance into a measurable, inclusive and high-retention experience. Results so far demonstrate this:

• Completion rates are consistently above 95%
• Compliance metrics continue to improve year on year
• Knowledge retention remains exceptionally high , even three years later
• Accessibility is evolving in response to learner feedback
• Administrative burden has been reduced while assurance has strengthened

Most importantly, the service now has evidence that its firefighters understand the guidance that keeps them and their communities safe.

 ISDIN is an international company specialising in photoprotection and dermatology, with over 45 years of experience in skin health research and care. Headquartered in Barcelona, the company distributes its products across numerous countries, combining scientific research with wellbeing.

As the organisation expanded internationally, it sought to align learning and development with its global structure and cultural identity.

The challenge

ISDIN reached a point where international growth exceeded the capabilities of its existing learning platform. With more than 1,800 employees across 15 subsidiaries, the organisation required a system capable of standardising global processes while accommodating the needs of different business units.

The challenge extended beyond technology. ISDIN aimed to move from a model centred on assigned training to a culture of self-directed development. This required a single, scalable access point integrating e-learning, face-to-face sessions and live streaming. The platform also needed to reflect ISDIN’s internal identity and approach to talent development, ensuring alignment with its corporate purpose.

The solution

In partnership with Totara partner Actua, ISDIN developed MyAcademy, a learning ecosystem built on Totara Learn. The implementation followed a co-creation approach to ensure alignment with organisational culture and development objectives.

Key features include:

The ‘Isdinización’ onboarding programme
A blended learning experience in which new hires complete a week-long introduction to the company’s culture, scientific foundations and strategic priorities. For selected profiles, the programme includes a collaborative business case linked to operational objectives.

Centralised global hub
MyAcademy operates as a single sign-on access point for global training activity, consolidating the course catalogue and KPIs across 15 countries.

Personalised programme environmentsUsing Totara’s interface flexibility, customised learning environments were created for flagship programmes such as “Vivir la Piel”, differentiating these experiences from standard training activity.

Blended learning integration
The platform integrates interactive e-learning with live streaming from ISDIN’s auditorium, enabling employees across locations to participate in real-time sessions.

Data-informed oversight
The system provides reporting on participation and progress, enabling HR teams to identify requirements by country or employee group and prioritise content accordingly.

The partnership extended beyond technical delivery. Actua’s team undertook the internal ‘Isdinización’ process to understand organisational culture and working practices.

The results

Following the implementation of MyAcademy, ISDIN consolidated its global training provision within a single platform environment.

User satisfactionThe platform achieved a global user rating of 4.6 out of 5.

Operational efficiency
Automation of administrative tasks enabled the HR team to redirect effort towards development initiatives.

Global scalability
The “Buildwork” model supports the transfer of knowledge and training programmes across international subsidiaries while maintaining organisational alignment.

Cultural adoption
Employees increasingly engage with learning as an ongoing development activity, recommending content and contributing to the evolution of their learning paths.

Programme deployment agility
ISDIN can deploy training initiatives more quickly through segmented assignments aligned with organisational structure.

The Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) provides advice, networking, training, education and professional development services to anyone in the UK healthcare sector who has a need to understand finance and commerce. In today’s fast moving, cost-constrained healthcare environment, these needs stretch to tens of thousands of healthcare workers. The HFMA partnered with Totara to modernise its learning delivery platforms. Its journey to overhaul learning and member support systems offers valuable lessons for organisations using Totara to navigate similar complexities.

The challenge

Disconnected systems in a demanding climate

Structural changes in the NHS, along with the obvious cost pressures in the public sector globally, are creating an ongoing need for financial training and support in the sector, which HFMA is well placed to deliver. However, HFMA’s legacy systems, with separate platforms for qualifications, online learning and website access, were fragmented. An alternative approach offered the potential to be more efficient.

To address this, the association partnered with Think Learning, now part of the Totara Group, to implement a unified learning management system (LMS). The goal was to consolidate systems, streamline operations and deliver scalable, flexible learning solutions tailored to the needs of healthcare professionals.

The solution

A seamless, scalable learning ecosystem

Totara’s adaptability was central to the transformation. The ecosystem integrated an updated and on-brand LMS for learners to access, and a licence management system and Content Locker to manage allocation of training content. This enhanced the learner journey, provided more functionality for client administrators, improved operational efficiency and safeguarded intellectual property.

 

Key features included:

• Content Locker: a new Totara-hosted platform to enable HFMA customers to utilise their own LMS to access HFMA’s online content. This provides version control and protects intellectual property, and allows HFMA to dynamically update course materials across all client platforms. Content Locker is best suited to HFMA customers, who have their own LMS and want to keep their learners on their own internal platform when accessing HFMA online content.
• Licence Manager: a new administering platform for HFMA. The HFMA education team can create packages of online content in line with the individual contract agrement with the client. Client administrators can then upload and manage their learners, allocate courses to learners, and run their own progress reporting. Licence Manager is best suited to organisations who don’t have their own LMS.
• CRM integration: the HFMA’s core Microsoft customer relationship management system is the contact database for all members and HFMA learners. This provides the integration between the website, the licence management system and the HFMA Academy.
• Website and e-commerce integration: all access to learning content is via a single unified HFMA website entry point. This has increased awareness of learners to the wider HFMA offer. A new e-commerce platform (provided by another HFMA partner) provides an additional route for individuals to purchase content for their own use.

The Impact

Flexibility, engagement and strategic growth

The long-term benefits are clear. The LMS has become a strategic enabler, enhancing service delivery, increasing customer retention and positioning the association for future growth.

Försäkringskassan, the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, is one of Sweden’s largest government authorities, with approximately 14,000 employees. The agency administers key parts of Sweden’s social welfare system and operates within a highly regulated public sector environment. 

In 2023 alone, over 63,700 learning events were delivered through its LMS, covering more than 400 distinct training programmes. To support this level of activity, Försäkringskassan required a secure and scalable learning platform capable of serving both internal staff and external stakeholders. 

The Challenge

Försäkringskassan required a learning platform that could support both formal and informal learning within a complex public sector framework. The organisation needed: 

• An intuitive learning experience for different user types. 

• Support for informal, social and individualised learning. 

• Integration with internal identity and access management systems. 

• Learning-based access control to internal systems. 

• Secure and differentiated access for external stakeholders and partner organisations. 

External consultants were required to authenticate using BankID, the Swedish electronic identification system. In addition, external authorities needed access to specific training linked to role-based system authorisations, including the issuing of electronic IDs via EFOS. 

The Solution

Implementing Totara LMS with integrated access control 

Totara LMS was selected to meet Försäkringskassan’s requirements for structured learning, informal knowledge sharing and secure access control within one platform. 

Totara Partner Aleido supported the full implementation, including integration with the agency’s identity and access management solution to enable automated access control. Mandatory training was mapped as a prerequisite for gaining access to certain internal systems, linking learning completion directly to operational permissions. 

A key part of the implementation was the successful migration of historical learning data from the previous LMS. Försäkringskassan ensured continuity by transferring nearly 900,000 course completions into the new system, preserving compliance records and providing a seamless transition for users. 

The implementation followed a strict timeline, with the agreement signed in late December and the project beginning in February. A hard deadline required the platform to be live by 17 June 2025, which was achieved despite the scale of the organisation and the migration from multiple systems. 

The transition was completed without disruption to ongoing learning, ensuring continuity for users across the organisation. 

Configuring secure tenants for external access 

A dedicated tenant was also configured to support external access requirements. This included the EFOS tenant, where multiple Swedish government authorities can access training for EFOS administrators. 

EFOS is a secure IT service provided by Försäkringskassan for authentication, signing and encryption across Swedish government agencies. The LMS was configured to ensure that access to this training is controlled and aligned with role-based requirements. 

Participants from different authorities can access the relevant training within a secure and clearly defined environment, while maintaining the necessary separation and access controls required in a public sector context.

The Result

Försäkringskassan now operates a consolidated digital learning environment that supports both internal and external users within a secure structure. 

All 14,000 employees have access to the LMS, supporting structured courses, instructor-led training, quizzes and microlearning across the organisation. 

Each department can manage its own learning activities, while central administrators retain visibility of activity and progress across the organisation. 

The LMS enables the agency to: 

• Deliver consistent and compliant training to a large and diverse workforce. 

• Provide controlled training access to partner agencies and consultants through role-based logic. 

• Support ongoing engagement through integrated social and informal learning functionality. 

With over 63,700 learning events delivered in 2023 across more than 400 programmes, the platform supports learning at scale while aligning with public sector security and governance requirements. 

Since going live in June 2025, Totara LMS has supported ongoing development across the organisation. Planned next steps include certifications, structured learning pathways and expanded use of microlearning. There is also an ambition to extend training beyond the organisation in the future, potentially through additional tenants, subject to security and organisational priorities.

Educo is a global NGO with over 30 years of experience dedicated to defending children’s rights, specifically focusing on education and protection. With a team of 900 professionals, they operate in 16 countries across Africa, America, Asia, and Spain, working closely with schools and local communities.

The Challenge

Educo faced a monumental mission-critical challenge: ensuring the safety and education of thousands of children across 16 countries through a training model previously hindered by manual processes and a legacy platform with zero traceability. To fulfill their global mandate, they needed to professionalize the training of 900 staff members on sensitive issues like transparency and conflict management.

Crucially, they had to scale this expertise to the front lines—forming more than 1,032 individuals from 83 external organizations (including schools and sports centers) in 2025 alone.

The goal was to deploy a robust, multi-tenant ecosystem capable of delivering high-quality, standardized pedagogical content to remote areas with limited connectivity. This ensures every caregiver, regardless of location, is equipped with the “PROTEGEmos” methodology to detect bullying or abuse and act correctly to protect a child’s well-being.

 

The Solution

In collaboration with Actua, Educo launched “Campus“, a sophisticated digital ecosystem powered by Totara designed to amplify social impact through knowledge.

The solution features:

• Mission-Critical Accessibility: A mobile-first approach with offline access was implemented, allowing field workers in remote regions of Africa or Asia to access vital protection protocols without internet dependency.
• Pedagogical Excellence & Co-creation: Moving beyond simple PDFs, the project involved an intense “co-creation” process. Using a “less is more” philosophy, dense legal and protective frameworks were transformed into engaging audiovisual stories, interactive simulations, and community forums that foster deep reflection on child rights.
• The “Extended Enterprise” Engine: The platform’s multi-tenancy and audience customization allowed Educo to digitize its flagship “PROTEGEmos” program. This enables the organization to “package” its 30 years of expertise and deploy it rapidly to 83 different external organizations, adapting the training to the specific context of a local school or a municipal government.

The Result

In just one year, “Campus” has redefined Educo’s global reach and operational efficiency:

• Exponential Social Scaling: The platform successfully trained 1,032 individuals from 83 external organizations, creating a massive network of certified child protection agents that would have been impossible to reach through face-to-face training alone.
• Exceptional Engagement: Internal adoption reached a staggering 95%, with success rates in mandatory compliance and transparency training between 90% and 95%, ensuring the organization operates at the highest ethical standards.
• Operational Transformation: Digitalization significantly reduced travel costs and logistics. More importantly, it allowed the specialist teams to shift from 100% face-to-face delivery to becoming “content architects”. This shift enables Educo to be “in multiple places at once,” scaling their protective shield over children without increasing sub-contracting costs.
• Strategic Foresight: With real-time data, Educo now has full traceability of learning impact, allowing them to proactively define structured itineraries for over 200 local actors in their 2026 expansion plan.

Brightshores Health System is a regional healthcare provider in Ontario, Canada, delivering care across multiple sites and managing extensive role-based compliance training requirements for its clinical and operational workforce.

The Challenge

Brightshores’ Organizational Development team needed to give managers and team leads timely, audience-specific visibility into compliance training across a complex healthcare workforce. The existing reporting workflow was largely manual: the LMS Specialist was pulling course-by-course data, mapping it against role requirements by hand, and distributing reports across the organization.

The complexity wasn’t routine. Brightshores’ compliance structure layered course completions and seminar attendance tracking against position-specific training requirements; the same course might appear in multiple tracking buckets, with different audiences required to complete different subsets.

Manually pulled reports went stale within days, and frequent manager team turnover meant the people receiving reports often weren’t the ones who originally requested them. Compliance reporting consumed disproportionate administrative time and still left managers working from outdated information.

The Solution

Lambda partnered with Brightshores on a multi-phase modernization, beginning with an upgrade to Totara 19 to give the team access to the latest reporting engine and a stronger foundation to build on.

As part of the upgrade, Brightshores’ LMS Specialist conducted a comprehensive environmental scan of the system’s full course catalog — roughly 300 courses — and built a course-to-position matrix mapping which roles required which training. This single source of truth replaced fragmented manual lookups and made audience-based reporting possible for the first time.

With the matrix in place, the team adopted a deliberate hybrid approach.

For everyday compliance and completion visibility, Brightshores’ LMS Specialist built eight manager-scoped reports directly in Totara 19 — covering mandatory corporate training, certification completion, course and program completion, learner-level breakdowns, and seminar attendance. The reports leverage role-based default views and embedded charts that V19 surfaces natively, and went live for managers immediately, providing core team-tracking visibility without external development.

For the more complex requirements — courses that span both regular completion and seminar tracking, cross-course correlations, and audience-specific dashboards tailored to each manager’s team — Brightshores re-engaged a Zoola Analytics project that had originally been scoped in 2023 but paused.

Zoola, Lambda’s reporting and analytics layer for Totara, connects directly to the Totara database via a real-time replica and supports custom data sources purpose-built for Brightshores’ compliance model.

In April 2026, Brightshores and Lambda formally restarted the Zoola dashboard build, leveraging the original 2023 dashboard request form and audit work as a foundation. Updated requirements have been submitted via Lambda’s support portal, Lambda’s Zoola developer is conducting the technical assessment to scope the build, and a full Zoola walkthrough and training session for the Brightshores team is scheduled for June 3, 2026.

The Result

The combination of Totara 19, the course-to-position matrix, and custom Totara reporting has shifted Brightshores’ compliance reporting from a backwards-looking, manual process to a real-time, role-aware foundation serving 2,300 staff.

Manual reporting time for the LMS Specialist has dropped from 5–7 hours per week to 1–2 hours per week — a roughly 70% reduction — and over 40 hours of administrative time have been saved across the team since the beginning of April 2026 from Totara native reporting alone, even before Zoola dashboards go live.

Dynamic audiences now reflect specific department training requirements; staff are no longer missed when job changes happen, and training is assigned in real time, relevant to each position.

Managers and team leads have direct, on-demand access to eight pre-filtered reports tailored to their teams.

Status badges colour-code training records — green for active, assigned, and upcoming items, red for overdue — giving managers an at-a-glance visual triage of their team’s compliance posture, replacing the monthly reporting cycle that used to go stale on arrival.

Team leads can now pull and share reports with their managers directly, supporting them with timely training reminders instead of waiting on the LMS Specialist.

Each manager sees only what is relevant to their team, eliminating report volume overwhelm.

The hybrid reporting model is in place: Totara native handles everyday compliance and completion visibility, and Zoola Analytics is being built for the complex cross-course and audience-specific requirements that exceed native capabilities, with the Brightshores team walkthrough scheduled for June 3, 2026.

Freedom outcomes:

• Freedom to save — manual reporting overhead reduced ~70%, freeing the LMS Specialist for higher-value work and getting accurate, audience-specific data to managers faster.
• Freedom of choice — the hybrid model lets Brightshores match the right tool to each reporting need: Totara native where it suffices, Zoola where complexity demands it.
• Freedom to learn — automated, audience-based reporting ensures the right people receive the right training and managers maintain current visibility into compliance.