The main L&D challenge Cushon faced in the past was time. As a small but growing startup, their teams were time-pressed, and employees found it difficult to fit learning around their schedules. Add to this the fact that Cushon has many call centre and support teams, where someone always needs to be active, meaning it was impossible to get the whole team together for in-person training.

As Jo Bean, Cushon's Chief People Officer puts it:

Cushon takes a ‘70/20/10’ approach to L&D - 70% on-the-job learning, 20% learning from others in the business, and 10% structured learning. The People Team was struggling to fulfill the vital structured learning aspect of that plan, because teams were just too busy. In the past it was difficult to find suitable formal training for people to put on their individual development plans.

Jo decided on 5Mins for two main reasons - time efficiency and ease of implementation. Because of the short form nature of the video courses, Cushon’s time-pressed teams could learn quickly and efficiently, often only having to spare 5-10 minutes a day. This also meant that teams weren’t losing out on a day or afternoon of work, as they would with traditional learning sessions.

It wasn’t just employee time that Jo was looking to save - she was fed up with HR-tech platforms that took her People Team days to set up and onboard their teams on. She needed something super-easy to roll out to her teams:

Cushon’s teams have shown much more engagement in structured learning since they started using 5Mins. Jo and her team have found that many employees are including specific 5Mins goals in their development plans. In the first 60 days,

• Employees upskilled by watching over 1,400 video lessons. 
• Employees visited the platform on avg. 9 times and many have visited every day for 40+ days.
• Learners tested their knowledge by answering more than 500 quizzes.

The fact that employees can explore their own interests on the platform has also been a huge boost, says Jo:

5Mins has also meant a much less labour-intensive L&D program for Cushon’s People Team. Since onboarding, employees have been learning at their own pace, without the need for the People Team to remind them or organise sessions. Jo’s been running a monthly competition for the best learners, which has also been an easy way for her to keep teams learning.