Case Studies

Harbour is an internationally recognised market leader specialising in litigation funding and commercial dispute insurance. Maximity started working with Harbour during lockdown in 2020, when Harbour realised the need to embrace its existing technology in order to continue to run the business efficiently whilst staff had to work remotely.

The Challenge

When the pandemic forced staff at Harbour to work from home, software such as Microsoft Teams and SharePoint became a lifeline for the business. Whilst some of the staff were managing to find their way around the software unaided, others were struggling to get to grips with using the technology. Harbour decided it would be advantageous to invest in some IT training, as the lack of knowledge and understanding of Microsoft Teams internally meant that staff weren’t making full use of all the beneficial features that Teams offers, plus some of the staff needed some refresher training on other platforms.

Teams Training
Excel Training
PowerPoint Training
Word Training
Power BI Training
SharePoint Training

The Solution

One of the Managing Directors at Harbour knew of Tracy Pound, MD of Maximity, so got in contact to discuss ideas. Tracy was able to suggest some possible solutions, as Maximity was helping many other businesses during lockdown who were in a similar situation during the worldwide pandemic.

In order to help the team at Harbour create a viable training plan, Tracy used Maximity’s Training Needs Analysis process to help the organisation understand which people required what training. This helped Harbour’s Admin Team plan out the training courses with the staff, to ensure everyone received the training needed, whilst allowing the company to maximise benefits from its training budget.

Harbour’s Admin Team organised the required blocks of Teams training with Maximity. The training sessions included people from all different areas of the business, including Admin, Case Management, Insurance and the Origination team. It was decided that this would provide the best experience for the attendees, as, whilst each department may use Teams differently, all departments need to interact using Teams. Dividing staff this way for training also offered some additional online social interaction and team building opportunities, which were welcome when everyone was having to work remotely from home.

Due to the UK lockdown, Maximity ran all the training courses remotely, training Harbour’s staff online with a live instructor to provide support and answer any questions. Whilst the subject of the initial training was Teams, the software used to deliver the training was also Teams, helping the delegates build their confidence in using the software!

Maximity’s Training Needs Analysis also helped highlight what other IT training the organisation required, enabling the Admin Team to organise some refresher training on other Microsoft packages such as Excel, Word and PowerPoint. There were also some additional special training requests. For example, Harbour’s Finance Team required some PowerBI training, to help them with data analysis, formulating and modeling, which Maximity was qualified to deliver as the team regularly use PowerBI for development projects.

The Insurance Team also needed some extra training, as they required more help with SharePoint. However, in this instance, Tracy Pound recommended some consultancy-style training instead. As an alternative to Tracy training the whole team, she instead imparted her knowledge directly to one member of the team who could then become the ‘go to’ person in that department to help answer any queries about SharePoint -effectively training that team member to help the others.

Business Benefits

Feedback from Harbour about the training received by Maximity has been exceptional. Office Manager, Billie Peel says: “Organising the IT training with Maximity has been a pleasure, as their processes make it so simple to arrange everything. We really appreciate how Maximity invested the time to learn and understand our business, in order to deliver exactly what each delegate required.

All the Maximity trainers have phenomenal IT and business knowledge, and they explain everything very clearly during the trainings, enabling everyone, whatever level of existing knowledge they have, to move forward and be confident using the new skills. We especially appreciate how the trainers think outside the box, go the extra mile and offer something completely different if that is the best solution for our business. For example, offering to train-up a trainer in the Insurance Team to be the main point of contact for any SharePoint queries was a winning alternative to the traditional training route. Similarly, when we didn’t always need a specific block of training delivering, Maximity offered to run dedicated power hours of training with individuals, to cover off any special training requirements.

We’ve been very impressed by the whole process, from the training needs analysis right through to the staff feedback. We’re now looking at building more regular training reviews in to our business, to provide our employees with the knowledge they need to help our business thrive.”