29 January 2021
Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service and Synergy Learning wins Best Government LMS in Totara Awards 2020
Matthew O'Connor
Marketing Manager
NFRSLearn, the learning management system we created for Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service, has been named best government LMS in the Totara Awards 2020.
The site won the Best Government Project award in a virtual awards ceremony held on Tuesday.
We worked with Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service to deliver the new platform in just six weeks in order to meet a tight deadline for delivering mandatory training on new breathing apparatus.
Totara confirmed that its judging panel had selected NFRSLearn as the best government LMS because of the excellent results achieved by Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service.
This included achieving 100% course completion for critical safety training – starting with the urgent training on new breathing apparatus – and adding an additional 100 days to frontline firefighting services by reducing the time needed to undertake training. This was a result of reducing the number of steps needed to access e-learning modules, making it quicker and easier for firefighters to find the learning they need on any device, and limiting the number of occasions on which firefighters needed to attend a training centre for classroom learning.
A government LMS with societal impact
Lars Hyland, Chief Learning Officer at Totara and a lead judge of the 2020 Totara Awards, said: “These awards recognise the very best of the submissions we received in terms of success, innovation and positive business/societal impact. My congratulations to the teams at Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue and Synergy Learning for their win.”
That societal impact has been one of the most satisfying parts of the NFRSLearn project for us.
Our CEO Roy Kerley said: “We’re absolutely delighted to win this award for best government LMS in recognition of our work with Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service.
“It’s always great to see the impact our work has on learning, and that’s only magnified when you can see such a significant real world improvement from a public sector LMS like this one.
“Increasing the amount of time firefighters are able to spend serving their communities so significantly is an incredible achievement by everyone involved in the project at NFRS and Synergy Learning.”
Speaking about the project, Steve Wass, from Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service’s eLearning Team, said: “We were impressed with the flexibility and the level of consultancy that Synergy Learning was able to provide. They were able to understand our requirements and create a user friendly learning portal for staff.”
Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service will be presented with a waka — a Māori canoe made from genuine reclaimed Totara wood — as a prize. We can’t wait to see whether the waka is pressed into active service on the waterways of Nottinghamshire!
