The company
One business, 11 branches and a diverse workforce.
EH Smith is a long-established builders' merchant employing around 500 people across 11 branches and several specialist showrooms. With locations primarily across the Midlands and South East, including branches in Hertfordshire, Essex and a brick showroom in central London, the organisation supports a diverse workforce spanning branch teams, drivers, yard staff and head office employees.
The challenge
Consistent, auditable training for a workforce spread across branches.
To strengthen compliance training and create a foundation for wider staff development, EH Smith, led internally by the People Team looked to implement a learning platform. The focus, to help the business standardise training, improve visibility of learning activity and provide a scalable foundation for future learning initiatives.
Before introducing the new platform, EH Smith had limited structured digital learning in place.
The organisation had experimented with online learning previously, but utilisation was low. However, the need for a more consistent and manageable approach to training became clear.
The primary drivers for the new learning platform were:
Ensuring mandatory compliance training was completed consistently across the business
Creating an auditable record of learning activity
Providing a scalable system capable of supporting future internal training initiatives
Giving managers visibility of team training progress
With employees spread across multiple locations and job roles, the business needed a system that was easy to use, flexible and manageable by a small internal team.
The solution
A centralised Totara LMS built around compliance certifications.
EH Smith, as a BMF Merchant member, was already well aware of Cortexa's LMS credentials in their market sector and a project began to establish a Totara LMS to deliver a centralised learning environment accessible to the entire organisation.
The initial rollout focused on structured compliance training, ensuring all employees complete a set of essential courses relevant to their role.
Examples include:
Health and safety training
Workplace compliance topics
Cybersecurity awareness
(for employees using company email systems)
Courses are grouped into certifications, ensuring staff complete required learning and repeat it at the appropriate renewal intervals.
The system also allows EH Smith to target learning to specific roles, ensuring that staff only see training relevant to their job function.
Implementation
A simple structure, set up by a small internal team.
The project was led internally by the People Team, with the implementation primarily managed by Project Lead Jamie Relph.
Working closely with the Cortexa support team, EH Smith was able to efficiently configure the platform, structure learning programmes and launch the initial compliance courses.
The implementation approach kept the structure intentionally simple, reflecting the organisation's relatively flat management hierarchy. Branch managers can monitor their teams, while senior leaders can also view progress across the wider areas they oversee.
Despite being managed largely by one internal lead, the implementation progressed smoothly with strong support from the Cortexa team.
Setting up the organisation structure across branches and departments
Creating manager hierarchies so leaders can monitor their teams
Launching the first wave of mandatory compliance courses
Developing manager dashboards with embedded reports to track training completion
Results
High completion rates and clear visibility for managers.
The platform has already delivered measurable benefits across the organisation.
One of the most significant indicators of success has been high completion rates across mandatory courses, demonstrating that employees can easily access the system and complete training.
Key outcomes include:
Weekly reporting allows the People Team to monitor progress and quickly identify outstanding training, ensuring managers can follow up where required.
The ability for managers to log in and immediately see their team's outstanding training requirements has also simplified oversight of compliance across branches.
"From the very beginning of the project through to launch, the Cortexa team were incredibly supportive. During the setup phase in particular, the time and effort they invested made a real difference. Everything was explained clearly and simply, which helped us feel confident about each step of the process.
The implementation plan they created worked really well, breaking the project into manageable stages so we could focus on the right topics at the right time. That structure made the whole journey feel straightforward and well organised.
What really stood out, though, was the responsiveness and helpfulness of the team. Whenever we had questions, encountered an issue, or wanted to tweak something, they were quick to respond and always willing to help. At no point—from our initial conversations right through to launch—did we feel stuck or unsupported.
Sam and Alex in particular were fantastic to work with. Their expertise, patience and commitment ensured we were able to take the project from a standing start to a successful launch with complete confidence. It's been a genuinely positive experience working with people who are so focused on making the project succeed."
Looking ahead
From compliance training to a culture of continuous learning.
While compliance training was the primary driver for the project, EH Smith is now planning to expand the platform to support broader learning and development initiatives.
Future plans include:
Developing internal management training programmes
Recording short learning sessions and leadership guidance
Delivering digital onboarding and company induction through the platform
Providing a central hub for sharing "the EH Smith way" of managing people and processes
By combining mandatory training with optional development resources, the business aims to create a sustainable culture of continuous learning across the organisation.
EH Smith · Totara LMS
Register your interest
Tell us a little about your organisation and we'll be in touch to talk through what a tailored Totara platform could look like for you.
Thanks, we'll be in touch
A member of the Cortexa team will follow up shortly to talk through your learning platform.