Saffron wins Instructional Designer of the Year (again!)

Last night’s Learning Awards saw Saffron Interactive win the coveted award for the second time in four years – the only e-learning provider ever to do so. Beating stiff competition from Mind Click, Dell and Unicorn Training, Saffron’s Moira Nicolson took the prize for an extraordinary e-learning course on mental resilience created for Transport for London.

This category, which is judged by industry figureheads including Clive Shepherd and Julie Wedgwood, recognises ‘exceptional instructional design’ which is ‘innovative and of high quality’ and delivers ‘demonstrable performance improvement for learners.’ In 2010 the same award was won by Saffron’s Stephanie Dedhar for her work with BT.

‘I’m immensely proud of Moira and I’m pleased to say I’m not surprised!’ says Noorie Sazen, Saffron CEO. ‘Winning this award for the second time shows why Saffron is such a special company. Moira never settles for less than perfection and always challenges our clients to develop learning experiences that really do change behaviour. That’s the Saffron difference.’

Moira is modest about her achievement: ‘I had a wonderful time at the Awards and I’m so happy that the judges recognised what this course achieved. Not only did we deliver £7.8 million in ROI by reducing paid absences, but we also tackled taboos around stress, depression and anxiety and helped to change TfL’s organisational culture for the better. This is a cause I’m passionate about.’

In the run-up to the Olympics and with various other high profile projects underway, it was important for us to boost mental resilience among our workforce,’ says Dan Church, online learning consultant at Transport for London, ‘but we never imagined that replacing a classroom session with this e-learning intervention would have such a positive impact! Moira did an incredible job in taking difficult subject matter and transforming it into very human, personalised online learning. It’s no exaggeration to say that this is one of the most effective and well-received 40 minutes of e-learning I’ve been involved within my career.’

The Learning Awards ceremony takes place each February and is hosted by the Learning & Performance Institute (LPI), which accredits L&D teams and vendors and drives better standards across the industry.

To find out more about the thinking behind Saffron’s award-winning approach to e-learning, readers can attend an LPI webinar on 28 February at 11am to be co-hosted by Dan Church at Transport for London. Register here

To read Moira’s case study about the project and find out more about Saffron Interactive, contact us today.