When Clare Kelly joined Trainline as Global Head of L&D three years ago, she inherited a blank canvas. Around 1,000 employees (spread across London, Edinburgh, Milan, Paris, and Barcelona) were hungry to grow, but there was almost nothing in place to help them do it.
Building the function from scratch was one challenge. The harder one turned out to be engagement. Once Trainline had launched Learning Express (their branded HowNow instance — yes, they love a train pun), the real work began: getting people to actually show up.
Time was the most common barrier. In a fast-paced tech business, learning competes with everything else. Managers weren't actively championing it. Comms got buried in Slack. And an initial platform launch loaded with too much content left people unsure where to start.
Key pain points:
→ Low time and headspace for self-directed learning in a fast-moving tech environment
→ Platform launched without a strategic hook — hard to show people why it was relevant to them
→ Comms getting lost in a Slack-heavy culture
→ Generic, off-the-shelf compliance content that nobody wanted to engage with
→ Managers focused on day-to-day tasks rather than employee growth conversations
Rather than trying to fix everything at once, Clare and her team took a deliberate, experimental approach. Small bets. Measure what worked. Double down on it.
The biggest shift was connecting learning to things that were already happening in the business. At performance review season, Trainline built a dedicated performance channel in Learning Express — a central hub containing everything employees needed: process briefings, goal-setting guides, feedback frameworks, and structured pathways. Paired with workshops, it dramatically reduced inbound questions and drove people to the platform with a clear reason to be there.
One of the simplest wins came from a simple idea: a learning calendar. Trainline sent a single message — "here's what's on, here's where to find it in HowNow" — and saw immediate spikes in workshop bookings and content engagement. It turned out visibility was the problem, not interest.
Trainline ditched its generic off-the-shelf compliance provider and rebuilt everything in-house using HowNow, working directly with subject matter experts from each function. Short videos, quizzes, and real business scenarios replaced long, irrelevant modules. The result: compliance time was cut by 50%, completion rates improved, chasing dropped, and unusually, the content received positive feedback.
Twice a year, Trainline runs a company-wide learning day. One is in-person, one is self-led — a full day with no meetings, dedicated to growth. With exec sign-off and active leadership endorsement, these days have become a key driver of platform engagement. The most recent in-person day was themed entirely around AI, blending external speakers with internal workshops tailored to different capability levels across the business.
Clare's team didn't treat manager development as a one-off programme. From aspiring manager training through to leadership development, the same thread runs through everything: how to motivate your team, how to have growth conversations, how to empower rather than just direct. Managers are now showing up more and taking their teams with them.
⭐Engagement scores up year on year — Trainline's bi-annual engagement survey has a dedicated learning section, and scores have risen consistently since Clare joined, directly attributed to employees now having the tools and resources to grow.
⭐50% reduction in compliance training time — in-house content, built in HowNow, replaced a long-winded off-the-shelf provider. Less chasing, more completion, better feedback.
⭐More managers showing up — workshop sign-ups and attendance have improved as manager capability programmes take hold and leaders start actively championing learning.
⭐Career coaching flies out the door — 45-minute career coaching sessions, open to all levels, are oversubscribed. Demand is outpacing supply — a problem Clare is happy to have.
⭐Learning tied to performance and progression — hi-po programme participants are tracked through to promotion, giving the L&D team a direct line of sight between learning investment and business outcomes.
