Customer Stories
Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education
How OnBoard helped the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education become more efficient and free up board members for more strategic work.
Customer Stories
Industry: Civil Service – Education
Headquarters: London, U.K
Board Management Goals
Results
The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education is an arms-length body, sponsored by the Department for Education. It has a unique role in the U.K. educational landscape, putting employers at the heart of the development of high-quality apprenticeships, T Levels and other technical education products.
“We function as the voice of employers, ensuring that apprenticeships and technical education products meet the needs of their industries,” says Gaetan Cotton, the Institute’s Senior Services Designer. His role is to bridge the gap between strategy and delivery, between the work of the Institute and the external stakeholders who engage in its business processes.
“We have around 150 external employers collaborating with us on the development of apprenticeships and technical education products,” Gaetan explains. “They work in groups called ‘route panels’, which represent England’s 15 major industry sectors. The panels meet every eight weeks to review hundreds of pages of documents that detail occupations in those sectors and the development, training and assessment that apprentices and learners need to become competent in those occupations.”
“As a government organisation, managing communication and data securely is our priority. The OnBoard platform gives us peace of mind as well as improved business continuity – securely bridging what happens before meetings, during meetings and after.”
— Gaetan Cotton, Senior Service Designer The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education
The Institute Membership Team took a rigorous approach to identifying the right tool to streamline and support the route panels’ work. The goals for the platform included improving the efficiency and effectiveness of route panel meetings, business processes and decision-making by:
“My colleagues are getting the most benefit from the platform as a way to automatically create the agenda and meeting pack/book. That is invaluable.”
— Gaetan Cotton, Senior Service Designer The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education
The benefits have been pronounced for the 150 internal staff who prepare the meeting and the documents the panels scrutinise, Cotton explains. “My colleagues are getting the most benefit from the platform as a way to automatically create the agenda and meeting pack/book. That is invaluable. The platform has also generated security and process improvements that are in the realm of 2 or 3 times more efficient.” Cotton estimates that with OnBoard, the Institute saves hundreds of hours from the elimination of manual document management and PDF creation for meetings.
“I can say that it has been appreciated by all people who attend the meetings,” Cotton says of the OnBoard platform, “because it simply works. That is something you can put in big bold letters: IT WORKS. It does the job that it is asked to do, and it is reliable, engaging and pretty intuitive.”
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