100% Course Relevance, 90+ Course Authors, And More
Combat Stress, a leading UK charity supporting veterans' mental health, has a rich history of over 100 years. Their work is life-changing, and their mission to deliver specialist treatment for veterans is instrumental in helping former servicemen and women live full and meaningful lives.
As the organisation continues to grow their network of 150 charities and services, they need to evolve their Learning and Development strategy from purely transactional to a more impactful, collaborative solution.
Combat Stress required a robust, scalable solution to manage both internal and external training needs, including onboarding, employee development, compliance training, and support for veterans and their network group.
The Team
- Andrew Veevers, Partnership Lead for Learning & Development
- Dr Jessica Bolton, Head of Maximising Clinical Effectiveness & Specialist External Training
- Elin Solomon, Learning & Development Assistant Trainer
- Gill Gallagher, Training Programme Co-ordinator
The Challenge
Before implementing 360Learning, Combat Stress relied on a transactional Learning Management System (LMS) that fell short of their evolving needs. While it covered mandatory courses like GDPR and fire safety, it lacked the flexibility and interactivity needed to foster a culture of collaborative learning and knowledge sharing. This presented five main challenges:
- Difficulty in creating expert-led training. The previous system did not allow Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to share their knowledge effectively, leading to a reliance on the L&D team to create content, which was not scalable. This made it difficult to foster a culture of continuous learning.
- Lack of engagement among peers and Subject Matter Experts. The organisation's previous transactional learning culture fostered minimal interaction amongst learners, resulting in low engagement and poor knowledge retention. There was a critical need to transition from passive content consumption to active, collaborative learning that encouraged peer engagement and knowledge sharing.
- Challenges in providing digital training to veterans. Combat Stress faced significant challenges in providing training to veterans during COVID-19. Their face-to-face support stopped overnight, and moving their training from in-person to online became an urgent priority.
- Siloed employee development. Training was often conducted in silos, with different departments managing their own training independently. This led to a lack of coherence in the organisation's overall L&D strategy as training was dispersed and disorganised.
- Delayed ramp-up for new hires. The onboarding process was not as efficient as needed, with new employees taking up to 13 weeks to become fully operational. This prolonged ramp-up period was affecting overall productivity and delaying the impact new hires could make.
The Turning Point: Discovering 360Learning
Combat Stress's journey with 360Learning started when external L&D consultant Andrew Veevers identified the need for a more interactive learning platform that could go beyond compliance training to support both internal onboarding and employee development, as well as external training for veterans.
As Andrew Veevers, now Partnership Lead for L&D at Combat Stress, notes, "360Learning was integral in transforming our training programmes."
The Solution: 360Learning
Since implementing 360Learning, Combat Stress has seen a significant transformation in their L&D processes. Here's how the platform has made a difference.
Empowered SMEs And Course Authors
Combat Stress has empowered over 90 Subject Matter Experts, over a third of their workforce, to create content on the 360Learning platform. This has notably decentralised and streamlined the process, freeing up the L&D team's time. A two-stage quality assurance process ensures content accuracy and alignment with organisational goals, involving a deputy SME for factual review and the L&D team for final checks.
The course authoring functionality has been a game-changer, transforming initially reluctant SMEs into proactive content creators. "It was a real light bulb moment," says Andrew. "In the past, everything was transactional. Now, SMEs receive positive feedback from learners and are eager to explore new ways to share information."
Increased Engagement And Collaboration
The introduction of blended learning programmes has boosted engagement across the board. Feedback from both internal employees and external users has been overwhelmingly positive, with many appreciating the platform's user-friendly interface and the variety of content available. As Andrew says, "The platform is intuitive, easy to use, and the front-end is clean. This really helps to engage our multigenerational audience."
This shift from a transactional to a collaborative learning culture directly addressed the issue of low engagement and lack of development opportunities for everyone and has led to better knowledge retention and a stronger sense of community within the organisation.
Created Invaluable Learning Communities
One of the most transformative results of implementing 360Learning at Combat Stress is the creation of learning communities across the UK. "These communities are life-changing," says Andrew. "They provide real-time peer support and knowledge sharing, greatly improving our responsiveness to training needs. Before 360Learning, getting updates, like a policy change from the government, could take weeks or months—now it happens in a single afternoon."
The creation of this one-of-a-kind collaborative learning community has not gone unnoticed. Combat Stress has since won the Healthcare and Rehabilitation Award at the Soldier On Awards, a prestigious award that honours contributions made to the physical or mental welfare of current and former service personnel.
Provided Over 450 "People Around The Veteran" With Training And Education
The platform has also played a crucial role in Combat Stress's external mental health education initiatives. The L&D team, with the help of their SMEs, have created blended learning paths in 360Learning, allowing them to track sessions in one place. Through interactive online learning, live events and forums, veterans and their support networks have access to high-quality training on topics such as suicide prevention and creating trauma-informed organisations.
Combat Stress has even received requests from veterans eager to contribute in the co-authorship of courses, live events and share their personal stories.
"It's incredibly powerful to have veterans share their stories and be able to use these for educational purposes, utilising the platform to share this very personal journey," says Andrew. "On average, it takes a veteran 13 years to seek help after leaving the military. If we can reduce that gap by inviting them to share their experiences on the platform, we're committed to doing so."
Further funding success means more people will have access to the content and best practice, which will see over 3000 people joining Combat Stress's online learning communities by the end of 2025. "A huge 'thank you' to the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust (AFCFT) for their continued support and shared vision in effectively educating the 'team(s) around the veteran'," says Andrew.
Centralised Employee Development Training
Since implementing 360Learning, Combat Stress has centralised and streamlined their training efforts. By managing in-person training and eLearning initiatives in one platform, they have eliminated the fragmented approach that previously hindered cohesive development.
This centralisation also enabled better tracking of employee progress and performance. By no longer manually tracking in-person learning in a separate platform, the L&D team can now review reporting across all training in one platform. In addition, Combat Stress has fostered a more unified and aligned learning culture, and as a result, employees across all departments now have equal access to structured development opportunities, promoting a more consistent and scalable L&D strategy.
Improved Onboarding For New Hires
Combat Stress has revamped their onboarding process, making it more streamlined and engaging.
New hires now undergo a comprehensive induction programme that combines organisational and role-specific training, significantly reducing the knowledge sharing time that it takes to become fully operational, from 13 weeks to just 8 weeks—a 40% improvement!
"The best feedback we've received from new hires is their surprise at how advanced our onboarding is, especially for a charity. Many have said that even corporate companies have more outdated programmes than Combat Stress, which is great to hear!," says Andrew.
Enhanced Leadership Development
As well as a revamped organisational induction, Combat Stress are utilising the platform to share Leadership and Management expertise and strengthening not just the statutory and mandatory training titles, but the developmental elements of roles, too.
To have specific Leadership and Management groups, where teams can communicate openly and effectively in the newsfeed, as well as pick up on each other's comments for peer learning makes these titles so much richer.
The Results
Combat Stress has achieved impressive results since implementing 360Learning:
- Engaged 90+ SMEs to author courses, over a third of the entire workforce
- 100% course relevance score
- 97% course completion rate
- 1000 hours of online learning content consumed by external users
- Over 600 participants in live events
- Significant reduction in onboarding time, from 13 weeks to 8 weeks—a 40% reduction
- Shortlisted for the prestigious Soldier On Awards for the creation of their unique collaborative learning community
What's Next For Combat Stress?
Combat Stress's partnership with 360Learning has been pivotal in transforming its approach to L&D. By moving away from a transactional LMS to a dynamic, collaboration-led platform, Combat Stress has been able to foster a culture of continuous learning, improve operational efficiency, and extend its impact across the veteran community.
As Combat Stress continues to scale its efforts, 360Learning remains at the heart of its strategy in how they support veterans and their network. With more funding on its way, Combat Stress will be adding 3250 new licenses by the end of 2025, allowing them to reach and support even more people around the veterans. Andrew and the team will also start leveraging 360Learning's AI-powered features more by introducing the AI course builder and L&D controlled prompts across their author population as well as utilising existing tools such as Learning Needs and the statistical and reporting data.
