Actic's LMS appeals to its young, mobile-first audience

Actic is a Northern European health and fitness club operator with a focus on Sweden, Norway and Germany, and with a presence in Austria. Actic’s vision is to create a healthier society through exercise.

The Challenge

A key component in Actic’s value proposition is to provide a high service level from the experienced and certified personnel, to all 220.000 members visiting any of Actic’s 178 clubs. Traditionally, this has mainly been solved via face-to-face training, which of course both is a challenge and costly given the geographical spread of Actic’s 3.000 employees.Early in 2018, in relation to planning for an improved onboarding program, Actic realized that they needed a re-take on their whole digital learning offering to their employees. They started to search for a new LMS and a partner to help them improve their offering.A key challenge was Actic’s young workforce. Their average age is around 25 years, many belonging to ‘the snapchat generation’ having high expectations around user experience. And since few employees have access to office desks, mobile would be the primary means of consuming the digital learning.

The Solutio

 Xtractor proposed a solution based upon Totara Lear, but with the addition of Xtractor’s highly configurable premium theme. This theme made it possible for Actic to provide a sleek and visually rich user experience, aligned with Actic’s brand and values. Xtractor also hosted workshops, with the purpose to structure and enable Actic’s course creation capabilities.A key tool was the open source plugin, H5P, which has come to be the primarily used tool for creation of interactive learning, and where Actic can build and manage the content directly in Totara Learn. Various H5P-modules are used, such as interactive videos, small quizzes and interactive timelines – all directly accessible on the course pages.  Only six months after first having met with Xtractor, Actic was ready for launch. During this time, the Totara Learn LMS had been implemented, with a true Actic look’n’feel. With only a limited set of resources, they were also able to create a large amount of videos, interactive H5P-modules and podcasts, all built inhouse and translated into three languages.“One small almost accidental detail, which proved to be part of our success, was that we performed the migration of historical course completions in batches a short time after launch. We had already created badges also for some of those courses, which meant that learners received badges daily during the first period after the launch. This helped us with creating a ‘buzz’, and made many of our learners eager to earn more badges, also from the new courses. And the badges are really valued, we often find that our employees include their badges in their mail footer”, says Linda Nilsson, Head of Human Resources at Actic.Actic is proud of their new learning environment. User uptake is above 90 per cent, completion rates are above 70 per cent. Feedback from both learners and managers are above expectations. But Actic still has plans for further improvement.Linda continues: “We want to continue to improve the learning experience.  We also look forward to create even more value out of our data, e.g., by analyzing learning data in relation customer surveys and other KPI’s”.

The Result

 Actic has set an ambitious goal, to reach an above 90 per cent completion rate of their comprehensive onboarding program within six months after launch, where this percentage not only includes newly hired, but all employees.Having reached above 70 per cent after four months, they’re confident that this target will be reached. Feedback from both learners and managers have been above expectations, and Actic is certain that the positive results from their training will also be visible in upcoming NPS-surveys to their clients.Actic’s first meeting with Xtractor was in February 2018. In accordance with Actic’s plans, the site was fully up and running by August 2018. Within the scope of the project, Actic collaborated with Xtractor to establish a structured process for the creation of learning content. This has enabled Actic to become self-sufficient in their creation of learning content, which makes it possible for Actic to respond to changes quickly and always provide an updated catalogue.In addition to a large number of videos and podcasts, hundreds of bite-sized interactive learning modules have been delivered, built via the H5P-plugin directly in Totara Learn.

“We knew we faced a challenge in providing LMS and e-learning to ‘the snapchat generation’, i.e., our young mobile-first audience.  We did succeed. I think a lot of this success is due to the attractive and visual user experience, the highly interactive learning modules as well as the appreciated badges.”– Linda Nilsson, Head of Human Resources, Actic