How AWM had increased compliance and completion rates with Acorn

The gap: Manual effort affecting customer service 

As the Learning and Development Manager for the Australian War Memorial, Janette Keynes knows a thing or two about education. Firstly, she works at one of the most famous museums and research centres in the world. Secondly, her role involved coordinating the Memorial’s learning & development arm… through email.  

And with emails came spreadsheets and a high risk of error. 

Janette worked as a lone entity in HR support, single-handedly managing L&D and menial administrative tasks for all Memorial employees. She simply didn’t have the people power to offer the training employees needed to provide the quality service the Memorial was known for. 

“Inaccuracies were occurring that impacted on our customer service.”

But then the Memorial acquired Learnhub. 

The impact: Overnight, real-time success 

Learnhub, the Australian government’s adaptation of Acorn, had an immediate impact. “No one likes to do mindless work all day, and Acorn absolved that issue by providing an end-to-end process for all training. The shift from manual to online meant we were suddenly digital and working in real-time.”  

“All managers and staff are more consciously aware of their own learning and development requirements.“

Acorn’s functionality helped Janette and the Memorial save time and money, as well as improve their employee engagement. “All managers and staff are more consciously aware of their own learning and development requirements, and that has helped us foster a learning culture we are very proud of.” 

A central repository for learning and administration has improved not only Janette’s day-to-day processes, but the Memorial’s completion and compliance rates. “The system has improved compliance, because all learning and development activities, corporate inductions, annual refreshers, face-to-face training, requests to attend, and StudyBank applications are now registered on Acorn.” 

“Acorn has provided us with a one-stop shop for all things workforce development.”

The solution: One place for learning and performance 

In Janette’s words, the return on investment has been huge. “Acorn is a communication, management, and information system all in one and has provided us with the ability to customise what we offer to Memorial employees on a single interface.”  

And it’s not just the Memorial that has benefitted. Janette says other cultural agencies have seen the real-time advantages of Acorn. “The offer of a shared service arrangement has meant that many small agencies—who would not have been able to afford an LMS previously—were now able to.”  

That also meant easy access to the expansive LinkedIn Learning library thanks to Acorn’s focus on quality integrations: “Two staff told me they would not have been able to continue with the work they were doing if they were not able to access the information that LinkedIn Learning provided.” 

“When you get this quality of service, you don’t leave town.”

On request, the team behind Acorn created custom materials for the Memorial that are crucial to their unique staff development. Alongside these customised online forms and modules, Janette says the technical support Acorn provides is next class. “A product is only as good as the people behind it, so service is key to success. The team are amazing, respectful, and engaging with a same-day turnaround. It allows us to conduct our business with professionalism and build confidence in what we can provide as a business unit.”

Even now that Janette’s single entity has expanded to two people, she believes “the role would not be possible without Acorn. It would not be possible to do the work efficiently and effectively.”

“We have been using Acorn since 2015 and there is not one day I regret it.”

Janette has three words for those considering Acorn: “Just do it.”

“Two agencies visited me to view what Acorn offered. One had nothing, so hopped on straight away. The other was already on a system and made the swap saying they could not believe how user-friendly it was compared to what they had. Acorn has been the best thing that has ever happened to our staff and the workforce development space.”