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About Us

About Us

Here’s a brief history about us...

After years of working on successful learning projects as a contractor,
Rani started Sirenna Learning.
With over 20 years’ experience Rani started with an initial core team and has grown Sirenna rapidly over the last couple of years. Our outstanding team has taken on Sirenna’s values and created some exceptional learning.

Sirenna is a niche within a niche. With its strong values of teamwork, commitment, innovation, vision and passion, we have designed and continue to design inspirational training solutions.

These values are the cornerstone to Sirenna’s success

Teamwork

The strength of Sirenna’s team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team. Together we achieve success.
commitment

Persistence, Perfection, Patience and Passion is how we ensure our commitment to you.
Innovation

If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old. Sirenna prides itself in designing solutions that makes us stand out from the competition.
Vision

The bedrock of Sirenna is its vision to work together to provide you with the best solution.
Passion

We’re passionate about designing bespoke training solutions that improve performance by learning.

Sirenna create solutions that matter and here’s what we can do for you.

Solutions

A4E

Client

A4e is a market leader in global public service reform. Working across all sectors, A4e design, develop and deliver frontline public services that benefit individuals, organisations, businesses and local communities.

A4e Learning & Skills is the direct delivery arm for vocational learning, delivering Apprenticeship programmes, work based learning (QCF & NVQ's), in-house training and vocationally related courses, accredited courses including e-Learning courses. Most training takes place within the workplace, working flexibly to meet the needs of both organisations and individuals.

Challenge

Sirenna had the privilege to provide A4e with a blended training solution as they introduced the e-Learning and assessment technology, eTrack, to support teaching and learning.

eTrack is a Learner Management System that connects the learner, the employer, A4e staff and external verifiers giving all a single view of the learner's portfolio and assessment
It provides an electronic 'portfolio' containing all the learner information that can be easily accessed by all parties involved

Solution

Implemented the Learner Management System training solution, transforming the organisation from a paper-based to a paper-less one
Devised the change, communication and training strategies for A4e Skills to ensure staff and customer readiness
Developed classroom and e-Learning modules for learners, employers and A4e staff, including the national and external verifiers
Delivered training to the Learning and Skills teams across England, Wales and Northern Ireland
Provided Helpdesk with Administrator System training on eTrack to ensure that all users were supported

We had to ensure that both our staff and customers were ready for the transition of moving from a paper based portfolio to an electronic portfolio was smooth and deployed with the minimum amount of disruption to the learner. Upskilling the staff and more importantly, the team supporting the staff, was the priority and Sirenna bought in a solution that was pragmatic, workable yet innovative.

Catherine Fox-Lee

Transformation Manager

Animal Health

British Council

Client

The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities who work with over 100 countries across the world in the fields of arts and culture, English language, education and civil society. Each year the council reach over 20 million people face-to-face and more than 500 million people online, via broadcasts and publications. Founded in 1934, the British Council delivers benefit directly to UK individuals and organisations by providing opportunities for international learning and business and creating strong, mutually beneficial, cultural and educational relationships for the UK with people around the world.

Challenge

Head of Business Training Services In 2014 The British Council undertook a major transformation in its professional services to meet its ambitious growth targets and ensure they were able to meet the future needs of the organisation. In order to future proof the service, the British Council required an interim Head of Business Training Services (BTS) to develop a new Target Operating Model that defined the scope and funding arrangements for BTS and a corporate Training Strategy for learning and development that would identify a new range of training delivery options.

Solution

Following the appointment of a Sirenna Programme Manager as the British Councils Head of Business Training Services in August 2014, Sirenna were commissioned to conduct an end to end review of Business Training Services (BTS) service and develop a new Target Operating Model to meet the changing needs of the business. In order to encourage acceptance and embed the improvements over a twelve month period, the new model identified a range of proposed improvements for each phase of the training cycle:

• Training Strategy that supported the British Councils strategic agenda through clearly defined policies and guidelines

• Balanced Funding Model that aligned Investment Programme funding with Business as Usual allocation

• Planning Process that used a clearly defined, flexible approach to provide the demand forecast of the British Councils training requirements

• Training Needs Analysis to apply a standardised methodology for needs based assessments

• Technical Training Standards to apply a standardised process across the BTS Training teams in the UK, EMEA and India

• Resource Requirements to apply a comprehensive resource planning model to ensure capability and capacity were in place to meet demand

• Training Administration to utilise the corporate Learning Management System

• E-Learning Training Design and development to strengthen courseware development skills

• Training Delivery via CIPD qualifications and secondments

• Evaluation via a standardised methodology to provide data to evaluate the effectiveness of the in house and external training

• Management Information to provide accurate and timely MI to monitor the BTS Training and achievement against plan

The strength of the British Council is in the capabilities of its people. The future depends on how effectively we develop the knowledge and skills of our staff to ensure we meet the changing requirements of the business. Business Training Services is key to improving the productivity and efficiency of the British Council’s workforce and to realising the benefits of its investment in new systems and processes. Sirenna have embedded the required level of awareness, encouraged its acceptance and ensured the adoption of the new learning landscape.

Andrew Fotheringham

(Director, British Council Corporate Services)

BT NHS - NHS Care Record System (SPINE)

Chartis Insurance

Client

Solvency II is a fundamental review of the capital adequacy regime for the European insurance industry. The fundamental purpose of this legislation is to protect policyholders and prevent a financial crisis in the European insurance industry by requiring insurers to implement sound economic risk management practices.

Challenge

Chartis along with the major insurers across Europe have been heavily involved with streamlining and reengineering their processes to meet the requirements of the regulation. On top of which they have invested in building their own Internal Model to calculate the company’s solvency figure.

With something so new to the market and no roadmap of how to inform 6000 user across Europe about a new regulation, Chartis contracted Sirenna to devise the training and communications solution.

Chartis had a two level objective:

Provide the senior managers and board members including non-executive directors with detailed knowledge about Solvency II
Provide an awareness of the regulation to all the staff in Chartis Europe

Solution

Having performed a comprehensive Training Needs Analysis, Sirenna were able to establish the current level of knowledge for the top tier of the organisation including the Board.

Mapping the results with the requirements of the Solvency II Regulation, Sirenna were able to design a bespoke course for the senior managers and board members at Chartis.

Sirenna provided a multi-language e-Learning module for all staff, hosted on the Talent Connection Learner Management System and the Europe wide Intranet. The course was a highly interactive course and included a quiz to test understanding of the subject.

Sirenna brought life to regulation training. This informative solution ensured that the key messages of Solvency II and the impact it is going to make to the insurance market were relayed in an interactive way.
Working with Sirenna, so many new ideas came to the table, which not only produced innovate training, but was the most cost effective solution I had come across. We reduced the cost to the project by 60%.

Roger Aburrow

Compliance Manager.

Colt

Defra

Client

Defra are the UK government department responsible for environmental, food and rural policy and regulations in the following areas:

the natural environment, biodiversity, plants and animals
sustainable development and the green economy
food, farming and fisheries
animal health and welfare
environmental protection and pollution control
rural communities and issues

When reforms to the European Common Agricultural Policy (ECAP) impacted on the existing ways of working across DEFRA, new IT systems and training were required to help deliver the Organic Farming, Farm Woodland and Countryside Stewardship Schemes. The new schemes enabled farmers to farm their land in more sustainable ways and map the land use for every acre of land they owned.

Challenge

With the advent of a brand new computer system to administer the changes, DEFRA chose Sirenna as their training partner to design and deliver their national training programme to support the introduction of the new schemes. Sirenna provided Training Project Management, Training Designers, End User Trainers and Training Administrations to assist and support DEFRA to successfully roll out the project.

With the automation of many of the existing manual processes there was a clear requirement for staff to be trained in the new systems and processes but also a requirement for each individual to understand the new ways of working and how their job roles fitted into the new organisational structure.

Solution

Sirenna devised an overarching Training Strategy that took into account the changes in the ways of working, new scheme education, the systems and process training and post training evaluation.

As the main part of the training was classroom based, Sirenna Training Designers created hands-on training modules to enable the benefits of the new processes and ways of working to be clearly demonstrated.

A strong emphasis was placed on the practical sessions reflecting day to day procedures in order to build the confidence of the staff and their familiarity with the system and new processes. A typical user, carrying out casework activities was expected to attend approximately three days training which was delivered on DEFRA sites across the country by fully qualified Sirenna IT Trainers.

Sirenna devised a series of awareness/education events that preceded the systems and process training so that users were aware and enthused about the new ways of working and had a chance to preview the tool that would enable them to work in a completely new and effective manner. All staff who were required to administer the new schemes on the system also received a level of “Scheme Education” in order to understand the scheme objectives and how they operated.

Sirenna Training Administrators maintained a register of users eligible to attend the sessions through regular contact with users and ensured that equipment and software was installed correctly prior to the training event. A master training schedule showing the training courses aligned to the rollout plan was made available online three months prior to the rollout and users were also required to complete a post implementation feedback form on how well the training equipped them for their new job role one month after training had been completed.

Sirenna took the challenge and provided a solution that captured our requirements perfectly, encompassing the process and systems training.
Producing the ‘hands-on’ sessions gave a realism that all staff could easily relate to and apply. I highly recommend Sirenna to provide the complete training solution.

David Barker

Environment Stewardship Project Lead

Highways England

Client

Highways England is the government company charged with operating, maintaining and improving England’s motorways and major A roads and is currently delivering the Government’s £15bn Road Investment Strategy.Highways England are responsible for around 4,300 miles of road network. While this represents only 2 per cent of all roads in England by length, these roads carry a third of all traffic by mileage and two thirds of all heavy goods traffic.Highways England set out a long-term funding programme to create smooth, smart, sustainable roads and ensure that highways work is properly managed using new Integrated Asset Management software.

Challenge

The Integrated Asset Management software “Network Occupancy Management System (NOMS)” replaced the legacy Scheduled Roadworks System (SRW) on the on 29 August 2017.NOMS is used to create and manage events, including lane and road closures for scheduled road works and provides real-time data to the Traffic England website. This means that the all road users get more up-to-date information about the roadworks before and during their journeys.

Solution

Highways England contracted Sirenna to develop the Network Occupancy Management System (NOMS) blended learning training programme to deliver all the safety critical systems and process training to 500 users across the UK:

Training Needs Analysis (TNA) aligned with technology competency categories
Design and development of 8 classroom-based training courses
Design and development of 2 “Safety Critical” face to face assessment-basedcourses
Fully interactive “Read Only” bite-sized e-Learning module developed
Fully hosted “Learning Management System” for Highways England staff and external Service Providers

Fantastic solution provided to complex environment of users
Highways England operates the UK’s Motorway and Trunk Road network through a blend of internal staff and service providers, this presented a unique challenge in delivering training for a new system used 24/7 which is vital to Operations. Sirenna lead on the Training and Embedment for Network Occupancy Management System (NOMS) which was successfully deployed in August 2017 [winner of 2017 Be Inspired Award].

Sirenna’s role included development of the training strategy and plan, modification of training materials and delivering training to over 300 safety critical essential users spread across the country ahead of deployment. Following deployment there remains the need to train new users plus those non-essential users that did not receive training ahead of deployment. Through the development of e-learning for NOMS, Sirenna has provided a much more cost efficient and robust method for training moving forwards. This approach is particularly welcomed by service providers who run teams of shift workers which provides it’s own challenge in co-ordinating time away from the office to undertake delivery together.

The e-learning package is now in use and has been well received by those undertaking the training.

Nathan Drysdale

NOMS Project Manager

King’s College London

Client

King’s College London is one of the top 30 universities in the world and was voted the Sunday Times 'University of the Year 2010/11'. It has nearly 23,500 students (of whom nearly 9,000 are graduate students) from 150 countries and approximately 6,000 employees.

King’s has an outstanding reputation for providing world-class teaching and cutting-edge research and is in the top seven UK universities for research earnings and has an overall annual income of £525 million.

In 2009 Sirenna won the contract to manage the design, development and procurement of systems and process training to support the Kings College Learning Academy.

The Learning Academy served the learning needs of KCL staff across the whole of the Kings College estate, ranging from the KCL academic, research and professional staff through to the Enterprise and Applications staff supporting the IT infrastructure.

Challenge

Kings College recognised that Sirenna specialise in providing flexible managed training solutions for large organisations. Working in partnership with Kings College we were able to:

Identify the range and extent of training needs from the business needs
Specify those training needs very precisely
Analyse how best the training needs might be met

Having performed a Training Needs Analysis (TNA) across Kings, Sirenna were then responsible for all of the IT training delivery for all staff across the University and seven international Strategic Partner Universities. This included liaising and integrating with eight technical projects and workstreams supporting 6000 staff and 20,000 students across the different programmes.

Solution

Having devised the corporate training strategy for the whole organisation, a suite of training deliverables were then created for Kings Schools and Departments. These ranged from the:

Design and development of e-Learning modules to train HR staff on the newly implemented Oracle HRMS e-Recruitment Web Portal
Delivery of classroom based training to 600 web designers on the Web Content Management System (CMS)
Scoping the design for the Purchase to Pay (PtP) global training solution
Developing learning interventions for KCL Card Access Control Management software

In addition to providing training consultancy, Sirenna were also responsible for developing the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the HRMS e-Recruitment programme in conjunction with Head of HR. Sirenna provided coaching and training to guide Recruiting Managers through complex e-Recruitment processes and formalised the Succession Planning and Talent Management processes across the Strategic Partner Universities.

" Sirenna went the extra mile for us"

Simon Harrison

Head Of Enterprise Applications

Kings College London

Learning Skills Council (LSC)

Natural England

NICE - NHS

Novae

Client

In late 2009, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) introduced new Europewide Insurance regulation. Part of the ”Solvency II Regulation ” required insurers to establish a governance structure that reviewed and challenged risk in the enterprise whilst providing evidence of what happened at the Boards and Committee meetings.

Challenge

With the advent of new regulation, Novae a leading global insurer who underwrite at Lloyds, implemented a bespoke Boards and Committees software application to provide an electronic copy and audit trail for the FSA of what has occurred within each board meeting.

This programme needed to be delivered quickly to meet an aggressive timescales and in a flexible way. To achieve this, Novae chose to partner with Sirenna. Sirenna’s interactive designers co-write and developed a blended learning programme specifically for staff who were required to use the application, namely the Board members, Non-Executive Directors and Committee Secretaries.

Solution

By working closely with the Novae subject matter experts and software house technical architects, Sirenna were able to effectively analyse the existing business processes and design new Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). This linked Novae’s business processes with the new system. Sirenna training designers then undertook a Training Needs Analysis to map the training requirements for each user group against the changes introduced by Solvency II and their impact on the legacy systems.

Rapid e-Learning tools were used to produce ten short e-Learning modules that were easy to comprehend and compelling for the users. The e-Learning modules were then published as Interactive PDFs and hosted on the Novae Intranet.

Board Members were able to download each training module from the Intranet onto their personal laptops and mobile devises. Having each module as a standalone entity and independent of a Learning Management System ensured that the Board Members and Non-Executive Directors could view the training on the go.

One to One training was also delivered to each Board member and Company Secretary using a secure training environment preloaded with training data support specific, tailored case studies.

Using the Systematic Approach to Training (SAT) and rapid e-Learning software tools meant that it took as little as one week to develop complete, signed-off e-Learning module specifications. A finished suite of e-Learning was scoped, written, designed and assembled in just over two months meeting the strict timelines for the introduction of the regulation by the FSA.

Sirenna did an excellent job for us in mapping existing business processes on to the new system to ensure that it met our needs and in providing very clear and flexible training modules across the organisation to assist with the roll-out. It was a pleasure to work with Paul and his team.

Teresa Furmston

Company Secretary Novae Insurance Group

QBE Insurance

Client

QBE Insurance Group is one of the world's leading international insurers and reinsurers and operates in 52 countries across the globe. Headquartered in Sydney, Australia, QBE have a presence in all the key insurance markets and are lead underwriters, setting rates and conditions within those chosen markets. They currently hold Standard & Poor’s ‘A+’ rating.

QBE’s European Operations, is active in both the Lloyd’s and company market and offer considerable diversity to the broking community. In addition to the London market, QBE operates from 7 UK-regional centres and has a presence in 20 European countries.

Challenge

In 2009 Sirenna Learning Ltd were contracted to devise a blended training solution for the QBE Vista desktop deployment and MS Office upgrade. The deployment of 4,500 new desktop instances across QBE Europe was a significant technologic challenge implemented within a tight timeline.

Solution

Sirenna undertook the challenge to train all of the users “Just in Time” in that delegates were trained two weeks prior to them receiving their new machine and going live with the new systems. An added complexity was the scheduling of remote users across the UK accessing the new systems and the requirement for the users to be trained in regional training centres.

Sirenna were able to design, develop and deliver an engaging training programme that took into account both the aggressive timeframe and the necessity of training staff in line with the technological rollout.

Sirenna delivered the following training solutions to time and to budget:

Awareness Roadshows to introduce the new ways of working
Lunch and Learn sessions highlighting the new features of the MS Office Suite
Support materials which included a User Manual and Quick Reference Guides for laptop and remote users
Floorwalking support to assist delegates post go live

Sirenna’s designed a solution that minimised the disruption to the working day. The clear and comprehensive training documentation was easy to follow and has been well thumbed – it’s an excellent reference document. A brilliant job, well done.

Natalie Carter

Deployment Manager

SumTotal

The Ministry of Justice

Client

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is one of the largest government departments, employing around 76,000 people (including those in the Probation Service). The MoJ works to protect the public and reduce reoffending, and to provide a more effective, transparent and responsive criminal justice system for victims and the public. They provide fair and simple routes to civil and family justice.

It has responsibility for different parts of the justice system – the courts, prisons, probation services and attendance centers. They work in partnership with the other government departments and agencies to reform the criminal justice system, to serve the public and support the victims of crime.

They are also responsible for making new laws, strengthening democracy, and safeguarding human rights.

Challenge

The Ministry of Justice has for many years trying to bring technological solutions to the Magistrates Courts of England and Wales. The National Case Management System (Libra) was developed specifically for the MoJ to manage the caseload more efficiently within the courts.

Solution

Sirenna supported the national rollout of Libra by:

Devising the training strategy to incorporate business processes into application training
Conducting a full impact analysis of the application manuals to identify where business process should slotted prior to developing the training materials
Developing a complete programme of training for all user communities
Building a training team to deploy the training by supplying MoJ with high calibre trainers
Managing and delivering the Train-the-Trainer events
Devising an evaluation strategy for the training programme and monitoring the effectiveness of all the training solutions

This was a very large scale deployment with training having to take place at every single Magistrates Court in England and Wales.<br /> Sirenna’s ability to design a logical and pragmatic training programme for a challenging group of people was exceptional. The MoJ had been promised a new case management system for several years yet despite the change fatigue by the staff, Sirenna’s training team deployed the training with ease. I would welcome the opportunity to work with team again.

Martin Brookes

Deployment Manager

Travelex

Warwickshire County Council

Client

Warwickshire County Council is the county council that governs the non-metropolitan county of Warwickshire in England.

Challenge

Sirenna were tasked with training over 1600 social care staff across WCC on the new social care system Mosaic. Mosaic was introduced to replace the multiple recording systems used by each area of the business. Sirenna were asked to develop over 50 eLearning modules to be rolled out in three phases covering three main areas of social care; Early Help,Children and Adults; and trained the Support Desk, Finance and Business Intelligence teams

Solution

Sirenna provided a complete Managed Service, from developing the training, managing the content on the Learner Management System to delivering roadshows, communications and change element of the project. Sirenna's solution was simple, have three members of staff on site, conversing with Subject Matter Experts (SME's) from within WCC, creating the best eLearning packages possible. This included involving key members of staff across the business to ensure that the correct messages and information was communicated out to all staff. Additionally, face to face sessions were organised and facilitated by these staff to give more of a blended learning approach to cover multiple learning styles and preferences.

Sirenna Learning - Enabling the successful delivery of a Mosaic Care Records System into Warwickshire County Council through bespoke ELearning Development and training. The Mosaic project is currently delivering the replacement of Warwickshire County Councils Care Records system in a phased approach. To date we have successfully delivered the solution into Early Help, Children's Social Care and will soon be going live with Adults. Rani has been a key member of our project team, working very closely with us designing and developing 50 e-Learning modules, building online assessment simulations and has delivered classroom-based training to business champions and social workers on the new care system Mosaic. Rani and her team have also helped us ensure we successfully embed the change into the business in delivering Awareness Roadshows to the wider communities/stakeholder groups within the council and supporting the end users of the new system through delivering floor walking having travelled to various office locations throughout the County area. Rani, and the support offered by her team has been, and continues to be, an important factor in ensuring the success of our project.

Peter Robinson

Senior Project Manager at Warwickshire County Council

West Yorkshire Police

About Us

Here’s a brief history about us...

These values are the cornerstone to Sirenna’s success

Teamwork

commitment

Innovation

Vision

Passion

Sirenna create solutions that matter and here’s what we can do for you.

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