How Edinburgh Council brought thousands of roles together through one shared learning experience

Learning for a city-sized workforce

With 700 services and 20,000 colleagues, learning at Edinburgh Council has to move as fast as the city it serves. Each area requires role-specific learning, while the wider organisation also needs consistent understanding of core topics like health & safety and asbestos awareness. 

But their old learning strategy didn’t meet those challenges. 

Learning records lived on paper, and running compliance training or organisation-wide initiatives demanded heavy manual effort that took away from more pressing work. There was no single space where people could see what they needed to complete, what needed to be done, and what new learning opportunities were available to them. 

Getting everyone on the same page

Partnering with Thrive – and using the Platform Admin Specialist service for extra impact – Edinburgh Council created structures that reflected how the organisation actually operates, rather than forcing learning into generic categories. Over a short time-frame, the council created 500 structures with 5000 audience members. 

This change made it possible to assign the right learning to the right people, while still giving everyone access to shared topics and conversations. Organisation-wide campaigns now run directly through the platform, while initiatives like Learning at Work Week and themed awareness campaigns give teams a simple way to spotlight the content that matters most to them.

Learning that earns attention

Now, learning is something that the colleagues at Edinburgh Council actively want to return to, instead of an unexciting task on their to-do list. In the words of Peter Stills, Learning Consultant: “The feedback coming in [is] ‘Oh wow that was really interesting,’ or, ‘I didn't know that!’ or ‘Do you have any more courses on that subject?’” With Thrive, Edinburgh Council has enabled self-directed learning in a way that feels truly accessible – and lives in one single place.

Gone are the endless reams of paper and scattered records. Thrive provides instant visibility to L&D and HR admins, with compliance that can be checked in real time and analytics that show which topics are landing well. Most importantly, it’s become a shared experience. Thrive has turned learning into something Edinburgh Council can rely on, at the scale the city demands.