Tata Chemicals Europe achieved a 46% increase in learner engagement with Enovation and Totara

The UK-based chemicals company Tata Chemicals Europe (TCE) is one of Europe’s leading producers of sodium carbonate, salt and sodium bicarbonate.

Established in 1874, the former Brunner Mond company was acquired by Tata Chemicals in 2005 and has operations on four continents: Asia, Europe, Africa and North America.

Their products are used by well-known global services companies in several industry applications, ranging from glass and detergents to animal nutrition and pharmaceuticals. Meeting high-quality standards for their products while applying the latest industry regulations in their Northwich plant is key for Tata Chemicals Europe, who need to ensure their staff are being trained effectively.

The Challenge

Prior to 2015, the delivery and management of compliance and onboarding training for Tata Chemicals Europe was a heavily manual process.

Training programs were being delivered as group face-to-face sessions that were consuming a lot of coordination efforts to ensure that the 24/7 production operations of the plant were not affected.

Added to this, the imperative for strict management of course attendance and completion, particularly in compliance areas, was becoming an increasingly administrative burden.

A requirement for a performance-management process was further down the road, but not imperative for the first couple of years.

“Prior to deciding on Enovation, I had approached a number of other organizations to develop an LMS, and often felt that they were more proud of the technical achievements of their products and solutions, rather than the practical applications or learner experience. Enovation has great technical expertise, but everything they propose has a direct benefit to our business or to our employees.”

The Solution

In 2015, Tata Chemicals Europe began working with Enovation with an implementation of Moodle as their e-learning platform. After success with the platform, the business saw that the next step was to adopt Totara Learn, following demands for a performance management process with a user-friendly workflow for managers and employees alike.

Upgrading the original Moodle ‘My Development Hub’ to the Totara Learn version took place early in 2017 and transformed a previously cumbersome process into intuitive workflows and designs that have been well received by the business. Other features that Totara Learn added and which drove its adoption was management-level reporting and notifications.

Today the learning and development platform, named ‘My Development Hub’ allows TCE to:

• manage the delivery of important regulatory compliance training programs online
• provide employees with elective training courses selected to help them develop their skills
• adopt the performance-management system to Totara Learn’s performance-management workflow builder and align it with both business goals and personal objectives.

A further advantage of the Totara Learn project is its ease of integration with other business systems. In the case of TCE, this was proven though seamless linking with the corporate intranet.

Hosted in the Cloud and fully managed by Enovation, the combined e-learning platform and intranet portal provides Tata Chemicals with the security and reliability that they need, giving them complete peace of mind.

“Thanks to Enovation, we were able to move from an old-fashioned way of delivering training to online learning, training and personal development. Not only did they provide us with the right and cost-effective solutions, Moodle at the time and now Totara, which both scaled and adapted to our evolving needs, but they also guided us in the right direction, always helping us to understand our own concerns and expectations. Enovation helped us create a real L&D portal that is supported by our management and employees, who are now confident and empowered to develop their career.”

The Results

From a starting point of time consumption and administrative-heavy processes, Tata Chemicals Europe has progressed to a contemporary implementation of a learning and development portal that is responding well to the needs of the business.

Training has been made accessible to all employees and is now rolled out as part of a well-planned L&D strategy. Performance-management processes in the platform have been aligned to company and development objectives, with each employee having a personalized learning plan for adding to their skills and contributing to the goals of the business though the achievement of their assigned objectives.

Delighted with how the platform is performing, the business is working with Enovation and the broader Totara features set to further improve performance of the business through its employees.

“Thanks to Enovation, we have been able to scale our L & D function to better support the business goals and the development objectives of our managers and employees. The solution we now have in Totara Learn is cost effective and delivers many more hours of training than we could have imagined a few years ago.”