NLMS Communication Toolkit
NLMS eLearning Lead
What is available to you?
Welcome to the eLearning through NLMS Communications Toolkit. This toolkit is aimed at individuals in local organisations responsible for implementing and promoting eLearning through the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). We hope this resource provides you with everything you need to start communicating your eLearning activities effectively and to achieve the maximum impact for your work.
This toolkit has been developed in consultation with the Strategic Health Authority eLearning leads and NHS Trusts to build a range of information and guidance to support you. The tools have been grouped under four broad headings that sum up the core areas of communication activity:
A. Planning and Idea Tools
B. Communication Resources
C. Learner Support Resources
D. Communication Literature
Although by no means exhaustive, this preliminary set of tools should enable you to start engaging with the relevant steps of a communication process. There is no set procedure in promoting eLearning through ESR as it is extremely dependent upon the culture of your Trust or organisation, but we suggest that before you begin your journey you have completed these two key pieces of work; draft a Communication Plan and complete the “eLearning Checklist”. Also, we advise that you have thoroughly read and considered the promotional activities that you can employ by referring to the worksheet ‘2. Communication activities tips and ideas’.
These are contained within:
Folder A - Planning and Idea Tools
1. Communication Plan
1a. The NLMS eLearning Checklist
2. Communication Activities, Tips and Ideas
Some useful points.....
Before you begin any communication activity refer to document 1. Sample Communication Plan. By planning a medium to long-term strategy for your efforts, you will be positioned to be more proactive and responsive. You may want to enlist the help of a local communication officer when drafting your communication plan and to aid your promotional activities.
Once you have completed the communication plan please refer to the document entitled 1a. NLMS Checklist to ensure that you have everything in place before you start actively engaging your Trust or organisation in eLearning.
There are also suggestions of communication activities which have helped other NHS organisations implementing eLearning through the NLMS, so please use whichever you feel will aid you in driving your message throughout your workplace. Please see attached worksheet entitled 2. Communication Activities Tips and Ideas for further communication activities that you can do to promote eLearning.
Please adapt the documents in order to achieve maximum communication coverage. You may also want to look and use the communication literature within the pack, and there are a range of case studies, benefits flyers and other promotional literature which are there to support you. This is contained within the folder D. Communication Literature.
Please Note: Corresponding documents are numbered and are found within your pack, if a number is not listed within your pack then please refer to the worksheet ‘2. Communication Activities Tips and Ideas’ as it denotes a promotional activity.
Folder B - Communication Resources
This folder contains a range of posters, leaflets and other promotional material that you can edit to include your local Trust or organisation contact details and branding.
3. Promotional Poster and Flyers
We would encourage you to create your own eLearning posters and flyers, but please do make use of the promotional posters and flyers that can be edited and adapted for your Trust or organisation.
These posters allow you to edit details, whilst still delivering the key benefits messages of eLearning through NLMS. There is a free section where you can display key messages of information which may be current courses on offer or new courses coming soon, in order to keep your learners up to date and aware. Keep these posters up to date by adding new courses as they arise and any other pieces of information.
You could make your promotional material interactive by providing hyperlinks. The hyperlinks could direct learners to online tutorials or specific courses. You can then send your promotional eflyer via email to all the staff in your workplace, or selectively at your target audience, per course promotion, to entice them into a particular subject topic.
3a. eLearning: We Need Your Influence
This letter should be adapted with the contact details of your NHS organisation and can be sent to individuals who could help you to promote eLearning. For example this may be:
- Heads of Service
- Director of Nursing
- Senior Manager Team (SMT)
- Staff Side Representatives
You may want to request that they complete some eLearning themselves in order to use their experience to communicate to staff or colleagues to get them prepared to start with their own eLearning.
Use this basic presentation to promote eLearning through NLMS to managers and team leaders, to encourage them to use eLearning with their team. This presentation should be editied to incorporate the courses on offer at your particular Trust or organisation, and specifically to the role or functionality of the team. This presentation can be further added to with information which is specific to your Trust or organisation.
5. eLearning Readiness PC Labels
To ensure that the users/learners have positive experiences before they begin their eLearning course(s), you must ensure that the computer is ready to support the NLMS software. Once this has been achieved (by working with your IT department), you may then want to use these labels to stick to computers or around the computer to raise awareness. The communication pack directed at the IT department will help them ensure that the relevant software is there to support the eLearning programmes.
This document explains the impact of incentives and how best to use them to increase the value of your communication activity. For example, you want to communicate an incentive to all staff who have completed their statutory and mandatory training on time and all recipients will be entered into a prize draw. Incentives are also useful if you are introducing a new course. The incentive can be anything that has value to the learner/user.
Folder C - Learner Support
7. The 'How to' Guide to ESR Employee Self Service
This document has kindly been supplied by the Royal United Hospital of Bath NHS Foundation Trust to show you how they approached training their learners and managing their own self learning within ESR Employee Self Service. This will help empower and motivate your learners. Dependent on the culture of your Trust or organisation, you may want to adopt your own particular style and approach.
K-9750 / K-9650 NLMS Supporting Literature
Within the folder there are ‘Quick Start Guides’ to support your eLearners.
Add to and adapt this document to include more frequently asked questions that your eLearners may encounter.
Folder D - Communication Literature
You will find a range of national NLMS promotional material and case studies that you can use to promote eLearning through NLMS. These may also give you ideas for generating your own internal stories. You may want to use the entire case study, or pick out sections which are most relevant to you. They include:
10. Sample Content Copy for Communication Publications
This contains sample copy which can be edited to be specifically targeted at your Trust or organisation to inform staff that eLearning is now available. Use this when promoting eLearning via email and display, with the aid of your communications team, in newsletters, intranet and places where there is high staff traffic.
Detailed revisions to content will need to be sourced from your local NLMS eLearning lead and training department.
This presentation will provide you with examples of how other NHS Trusts are engaging with their eLearners by promoting eLearning through the NLMS on their intranet sites or Learning & Development pages.
11. NLMS National Case Studies
- Heart of Birmingham PCT (June 2010) – Local learning in the Heart of the City – Implementing NLMS at the Heart of Birmingham Teaching PCT
- Rotherham Foundation Trust (June 2010) – Getting Started with elearning
- Royal United Hospital Bath (June 2010) – Innovative roll out of the Employee Self Service, Oracle Learning Management System and the National Learning Management System
- North Lincolnshire PCT (August 2010) – Achieving 98% compliancy with Safeguarding Children eLearning through NLMS
12. NLMS Benefits Leaflet June 2010
Use this document in its entirety, or pick out sections to promote the benefits of eLearning.
These articles about the NLMS Top 20 Performing Organisations by course completion user rates are regularly collated by the ESR Central Team. Use the published copy to promote course completion rates. Your organisation may be involved, so use this to actively promote eLearning and publicise your progress. Please note that the new figures/league tables are released on the second working Monday of the month.
This document contains three further case studies, the NLMS benefits and a range of images for you to use.