CASE STUDY – GUIDE DOGS

How Guide Dogs set a new standard for accessible compliance training in the charity sector.

For a charity that supports people with visual impairments, accessibility isn't a feature - it's a fundamental requirement. Guide Dogs partnered with Cognexo to build a compliance training programme that works for every member of their workforce, provides auditable evidence of knowledge retention and saves thousands of productivity hours a year.

Sector: Charity · Compliance Readiness & Accessibility

At a Glance

  • 1,800+ staff and volunteers enabled through the platform
  • 36,000 productivity hours saved in refresher training per year
  • 60% of knowledge topics at KPI level and above
  • Clear, auditable compliance evidence ready for regulatory review

Products used: Cognexo Develop
Readiness signals addressed: Capability · Compliance · Alignment

Background

Guide Dogs is one of the UK's most recognised charities, providing life-changing support to people with sight loss. With over 1,800 staff and volunteers operating across the UK, the organisation must adhere to stringent compliance guidelines covering data protection, health and safety and safeguarding - and provide clear audit trails to demonstrate that training has not just been delivered, but understood and retained.

Accessibility is equally critical. A significant proportion of Guide Dogs' workforce and volunteer base live with visual impairments - making the usability and accessibility of any training solution a non-negotiable requirement, not an afterthought.

The Challenge

Guide Dogs needed a compliance training solution that could serve a large, dispersed workforce of staff and volunteers - many of whom have a visual impairment - while providing the auditable evidence of knowledge retention that regulators require.

Traditional training approaches could demonstrate that learning had been delivered. They could not demonstrate that it had been understood, retained or applied.

Their goals were clear:

  • Provide volunteers and staff with data protection, health and safety and safeguarding learning
  • Deliver an accessible solution that works for people with visual impairments
  • Investigate further ways in which Cognexo could assist with improving Guide Dogs' employee enablement programme

The Solution

Cognexo Develop - Capability & Compliance Readiness

Guide Dogs deployed Cognexo to move from one-off compliance training to a continuous, accessible knowledge programme - embedding learning over time and providing the evidence base that regulators and auditors require.

Accessibility by design

Many members of Guide Dogs' workforce use Cognexo's proprietary assistive technology to access the platform - enabling people with visual impairments to participate fully in the same learning programme as sighted colleagues. Together, Guide Dogs and Cognexo have delivered a solution that goes beyond basic accessibility standards and has helped transform the day-to-day lives of the Guide Dogs workforce in the UK.

Evidence-backed compliance readiness

Through Cognexo's intelligent dashboard, Guide Dogs can provide clear evidence to regulators that their employees and volunteers have not only received training - but that the information has been embedded and retained.

Gap analysis

Cognexo's analytics give Guide Dogs a continuous view of compliance readiness and knowledge levels across staff and volunteers - identifying where gaps exist and enabling targeted intervention before they become compliance risks.

Significant productivity savings

By embedding compliance knowledge through daily bite-sized questions, Guide Dogs has dramatically reduced the need for time-consuming refresher training - saving 36,000 productivity hours per year across the organisation.

The Results

  • 1,800+ staff and volunteers enabled through the platform
  • 36,000 productivity hours saved in refresher training per year
  • Clear auditable evidence of knowledge retention provided to regulators
  • Accessibility: Accessibility standards were exceeded — platform actively used by staff and volunteers with visual impairments

What Our Clients Say about Cognexo

"Cognexo is a valuable resource to our organisation by providing evidence of learning and retention for compliance and audit purposes. This is something we struggled to do prior to the introduction of Cognexo."
— Linda Cooper, Head of Learning & Organisational Development, Guide Dogs

See the platform working.

The best way to understand what Cognexo can do for your organisation is to see it in action. Our product team will walk you through a live demo — tailored to your organisation's size, sector and specific readiness challenges.