Customer Story

Supercharging learning across four generations

Havebury Housing is a private, not-for-profit social housing company that owns and manages over 7,000 properties in East England. It also builds, develops, and manages 200 new houses every year. For Havebury, customer experience is everything, and the organisation works with tenants to tackle a wide range of issues – from property maintenance, to financial concerns. Another key piece of the Havebury puzzle is its green agenda, and the company is exploring ways it can become carbon neutral and upgrade existing properties to reflect this.

As an organisation working in social housing, remaining compliant is absolutely pivotal, as is up-to-date and top-of-the-line training for its staff. However, much of the organisation, which had previously been part of the council, was still working in very manual, paper-based ways. This slowed the organisation down. Havebury knew it had to become more modern and agile. Transforming its HR processes, as well as its approach to learning and development, was essential.

Why Cornerstone

One area that Havebury particularly struggled in was a lack of centralisation. Whilst good training frameworks and records did exist, they were often hard to find or were held in numerous locations. This meant there was no single point of truth, and this raised concerns about the organisation’s ability to easily unearth key records for future audits. The process of storing this information, and accessibility to this information, needed to be simplified.

Additionally, Havebury wanted to transform learning within the organisation. Learning was previously very traditional and ad hoc. The organisation wanted to modernise this by creating a culture of self-directed learning, where each employee had a personalised learning path. However, with four generations working across its staff, Havebury knew it had to implement this in a way that didn’t isolate the older workers who were used to the previous learning methods.

With all of these goals in mind, Havebury partnered with Cornerstone to modernise its internal HR processes and transform its learning culture.

The results

Inclusive implementation

Havebury provided every employee with a Cornerstone license, and implemented several modalities, ensuring that the entire organisation could find learning relevant to them. The change was implemented in a way that was inclusive to the many age groups working within Havebury, and included Microsoft Teams drop-in sessions, Q&As, videos demonstrating how to use the platform, and one-on-one training.

Centralised system

Adopting Cornerstone has allowed Havebury to consolidate training records and information into one system, simplifying access and boosting confidence that the company is audit-ready. The system also allowed Havebury to connect key dots – for instance, learning has been linked to onboarding, meaning new joiners are introduced to the suite of learning from day one. Finally, succession planning has been introduced, allowing Havebury to plan ahead for vacancies as well as boost internal mobility.

Creating a culture of learning

By implementing Cornerstone, Havebury met many objectives, including reaching its mandatory training targets. The strategy that underpinned the technology prompted a change to its learning culture to become self-directed and powered by AI, empowering staff to engage in highly tailored learning journeys. Additionally, by making learning available on any device, Havebury is creating a ‘learn anywhere’ attitude, encouraging field workers – who are away from desktops – to invest in their development as well.

Employee experience

Employee reception has been hugely positive, with 85-90% saying that Havebury offers a good selection of learning and development opportunities. Additionally, Havebury scored in the Top 100 List for Women to Work, showcasing a passion for diversity and equality throughout the business.

Getting ahead

The UK government has announced changes to mandatory training requirements in the housing sector, and these will kick in from April 2024. Havebury identified the competencies of this requirement and, using Cornerstone, incorporated them into its learning framework for employee training. This has placed Havebury months ahead of many its competitors in terms of readiness for the new requirements.

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