Training Trends in Recent Weeks

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many organisations have had to adapt their businesses to work in the current climate.

For this reason, we’ve noticed that many organisations have been changing the way they train their employees and what courses they have been using, leading to some unfamiliar trends in the usage of our online courses.

Over the past couple of years we’ve seen some impressive growth in the usage of our training courses, but more recently and to be expected, there are a number of training courses that have seen dramatic surges in usage, and others that have seen drops in usage.

We’re going to break down some of the most interesting trends we could find. We looked at data from the past 5 / 6 weeks (Since most organisations have been WFH or have had staff furloughed) and compared that to the previous time period. 

Note: This data was only collected from training courses with over 1,000 monthly uses. Courses with fewer sessions than this are likely to fluctuate frequently regardless of current circumstances, so the data we’re using should better reflect training trends in the current climate.

Education Training Trends

• Education clients Coronavirus Awareness usage down by 7%
• Education clients GDPR Essentials usage up by 37%
• Education clients DSE Training usage up by 147%

The total usage of our Education clients has seen a huge increase of 109%! Seeing as many education staff are working from home, this percentage increase is mainly due to increased usage of GDPR and DSE Training courses.

Care Training Trends

• Care clients GDPR Essentials usage up by 6%
• Care clients Coronavirus Awareness usage down by 30%
• Care clients Moving and Handling People Training usage up by 86%

The total usage of our Care clients has seen a very steady increase of 7%. This is more than likely due to our growing number of clients in the care sector, which is seeing a steady rise with the upcoming release of our full care certificate training bundle.

Offices and Private Sector Training Trends

• Office clients GDPR Essentials usage down by 19%
• Office clients Coronavirus Awareness usage down by 70%
• Office clients Mental Health Awareness usage up by 18%

The total usage for our clients in Office and other Private Sectors sees a steep fall of 50%. We very much believe that this is due to current circumstances, and the fact that many businesses aren’t operating through this time. This may indicate that offices and other private sector businesses have seen the most staff furloughed as a result of COVID-19.

Public Sector Training Trends

• Public Sector clients Coronavirus Awareness usage up by 238%
• Public sector clients Fire Awareness usage down by 3%

The total usage for Public Sector clients has seen a significant increase of 228%! High-quality Health & Safety and Compliance training have never been needed more for the Public Sector and we’re delighted to have been able to help. We’ve helped through a number of campaigns including free training for key workers and free Mental Health/Stress Awareness training for NHS Care Homes in the South East. 

Manufacture Training Trends

• Manufacture clients Fire Awareness usage down by 34%
• Manufacture clients DSE Training usage down by 5%
• Manufacture clients Manual Handling usage down by 36%

The total usage for our Manufacturing clients has seen a very slight increase of 3%. Although this conclusion may not pair well with the data above, we are seeing a huge increase in the usage of our Mental Health Awareness Training, Cyber Security Training, and Health & Safety Training for Homeworkers from our manufacturing clients!

The following image shows training usage for sectors as a whole:

Usage trends by courses

Core Health & Safety

Our core Health & Safety courses have seen a 22% decrease in usage since the start of the pandemic despite impressive growth beforehand. Here is a chart that shows the fluctuation in the usage of our core Health & Safety courses:

GDPR & Cyber Security

Our GDPR and Cyber Security Training courses have seen a whopping 80% increase in usage over the past few weeks! Our clients are aware of the challenges faced by homeworkers and these two topics. Find out why Business Compliance Training is now more important than ever before.

Mental Health & Wellbeing 

Our Mental Health & Wellbeing courses have seen the joint largest percentage increase in usage. The growth of these two courses is staggering! Again, homeworking can make employees feel disconnected and they may find it mentally draining. Our clients have clearly recognised this, as it is reflected by the usage. Find out more about protecting homeworkers' mental health. These courses have seen an 800% increase in usage!

Health & Safety for Homeworkers

Finally, our Health & Safety for Homeworkers Training shared an equal spike in usage as our Mental Health & Wellbeing courses, just look at the increase of users since the start of March. This one speaks for itself, homeworkers need sufficient Health & Safety training and our course provides the perfect solution. The same as the Mental Health & Wellbeing courses, our Health & Safety for Homeworkers Training has seen an 800% increase in usage!

Summary

We’re extremely lucky to be in a position whereby we can continue to help so many of our clients in difficult times such as these. Overall we’ve witnessed the usage of our courses increase massively throughout this period. Some areas such as Core Health & Safety are down to be expected, but others have exploded, particularly Mental Health & Wellbeing and GDPR & Cyber Security. 

On a final note, we are very proud to be able to continue our service to our clients through these difficult times. If you need anything from us, we’re just an email or a phone call away!