Comline

Summary

Comline is one of Europe’s leading automotive aftermarket parts brands, exclusively supplying motor factor and distributor trade partners with an extensive range of own-brand products. Each Comline part is carefully manufactured for consistent, reliable performance in real-world conditions and priced to deliver genuine value to aftermarket customers worldwide. Comline was first established in the UK and now operates from its headquarters in Luton and sites in Greece, Ireland and Spain with a joint venture manufacturing plant in India. It has built a network of trade distribution partners in more than 50 countries worldwide. 

Background

Comline is a family-owned business that began trading in 1991. Following substantial international growth, it recently established its ‘People Team’ to bring its focus on people to the forefront and drive the company’s investment in them. People Co-ordinator Emily Brown was appointed to help drive the creation of the company’s first corporate training and development programme as part of this extensive culture change. 

“We were brought in as a team to look at the possibilities within the business of what we can do to invest in our employees,” says Emily. “It’s a complete culture revamp that we’re trying to achieve here and this is one of the first steps to let our employees know that we are investing in them.”

The objectives

Emily undertook research into learning management systems (LMS) to select a system that Comline could use as its content creation and delivery channel for corporate training and development.

“My manager and I both have had different experiences of different programs and platforms and My Learning Hub was one that my manager had looked at in her previous role. She did really like it and it seemed to offer all of the support and functionality that we needed. It looked like it could really support the whole process, especially as we wanted it to be interactive and engaging, and it definitely gave us that reassurance.”

The challenge

While developing a new learning programme and introducing a new delivery channel carry considerable risk, Emily says My Learning Hub offers Comline the freedom to try new things, which is important as it explores all the potential within the business to invest in its employees. 

“The functionality of creating our own courses with the authoring tool was one of the biggest attractors, because it’s very easy to use. We wanted, and did, buy the pre-prepared training, but it was extremely important to us that we had the ability to create our own material as well.”

The solution

Since its launch in February 2021, Comline has made 80+ courses available to its employees, covering a wide range of topics from written and verbal communication skills to managing conflict and mental health. 

“We wanted it to be a very, very broad spectrum baseline information hub for our employees. The courses take only 15 minutes to complete and it’s that bite-sized learning that really that was attractive to us 100%.”

The Results

System utilisation: 82%

Number of users: 173

Courses built: 83

Numbers of material: 226

Isabel Jeatt

Board Level People and Development Business Partner

“A lot of our employees are very, very pleasantly surprised. They think it looks professional. It’s simple, it’s very straightforward and not complicated to find out where they need to go for specific information. They have very positive feedback on the bite-size learning, the quantity of learning we have and the breadth of topics it covers. This is also tied into what it means to us as a business and what it means to them as employees, so the feedback is extremely positive.”