There is only One

Interview with Susanna Lawson of OneFile

Susanna Lawson is the Founder of OneFile and on the advisory panel of BAME Apprenticeship Alliance. In 2017, OneFile was awarded the Queen’s Award for Innovation and Susanna was crowned Forward Ladies/HSBC Business Woman of the Year. The first learner was registered onto OneFile in 2005. OneFile has grown from a back bedroom startup to a platform with over 1.2m users and has listed on The Sunday Times Top 100 companies to work for in 2021.

Working with over 700 customers around the world, OneFile supports them to deliver apprenticeships and vocational training more cost efficiently and increasing quality. Customers include further education colleges, universities, training providers, public sector employers - NHS, police, fire and corporates such as Siemens, Airbus, Spec Savers.

Where did the idea come from?

The idea for OneFile came when I was working in the apprenticeship sector. I was delivering care apprenticeships in nursing homes. I saw huge inefficiencies in the logistics and lost opportunities to improve from not having real time objective data. Through a chance conversation with my partner who was a web/database designer we realised there was an opportunity to build a tech solution to solve the problems being experienced.

Any memories from the start of the start up?

After 2 years of working from home we were working 80/90 hrs a week each so we realised we had to get an office and employ our first member of the team. When she started we completely forgot to pay her on pay day as we hadn’t had to set anything like that up before. She came in the next day and asked about it. We were mortified as we had just simply forgotten. She left soon after as probably thought we were a cash strapped start up but we never made that mistake again!

How would you describe the UK’s understanding of digital skills and edtech before COVID?

Before Covid there was more and more attention being diverted to apprenticeships, digital skills and edtech.  Apprenticeships - especially degree level - have become a viable option especially for Higher Education. Because of these kinds of discussions being had, it is now raising the profile of apprenticeships in general. The introduction of university fees has definitely accelerated the

questions around the value for money and at least the viability of other options which previously might not have beenresearched. With more schools and parents discussing apprenticeships at HE level the conversations were starting to increase at other levels too.

Digital skills were definitely on the agenda pre Covid. As more and more companies looked to digitally transform their businesses, it was a focussed issue that employees needed to have improved digital skills and attitudes to move to technology. Before Covid, though, a lot of businesses had a 3-5 year digital agenda, but Covid accelerated that to weeks.

The interest in edtech continued to grow pre Covid. The ability to increase student engagement, have better visibility - as well as making processes more and more efficient - was obviously making the transition to edtech a no-brainer for organisations. There is also a demand from the students themselves having an expectation to use technology - at OneFile we get regular requests from students wanting to do their training with us because of the technology and we have to explain that we are not the training provider but a supplier to the sector.

Has it improved in the last year - and how so?

The last year has accelerated organisations’ reliance on technology.  As mentioned above - where companies had a 3-5 year digital transformation strategy, suddenly they had to do it in a matter of weeks - if not days. This included our own company too. Nothing like an emergency to focus the mind.

What is your vision  for industry now, based on your experiences?

My vision for apprenticeships and education in general is that technology continues to be an enabler. Providing access to resources and training any time, any place. That technology can support in providing a personalised experience based on a learner’s starting point. No two learner’s start an apprenticeship with exactly the same prior education and experience so therefore their journey through should also not be identical.

I also hope that apprenticeships will be offered as a viable alternative in schools and that parents have all the information they need to support their children to make an informed decision based on all the alternatives.

I would not hope for a world where all education is remotely delivered. I believe a strong blended approach would be ideal. A lot of learning takes place from just the experience of being around others. Learning how to act, reading body language, picking up nuances from other people that can’t be done as effectively online.

Visit Onefile: onefile.co.uk