As part of its commitment to build a high calibre team, Burton based pub company Punch Taverns, is encouraging its teams to develop their skills through vocational training opportunities including Apprenticeships.
The six month courses are flexible and designed to help teams focus on developing specific areas of their job from team leadership and business administration to customer service skills.
Five team members from Punch’s Contact Centre were the first to successfully complete Apprenticeships in Team Leadership and a further 20 team members commenced courses in July. A special drop in session held last week has also seen numerous further team members sign up.
Contact Centre team leader, Lucille Carter, who has just completed her Apprenticeship, said: “It was a fantastic opportunity and I am really grateful I have been given the chance to obtain a qualification in what I love doing. The training was centred on discussion and observation and it really brought home to me the amount of work I get through in one day!”
“The Punch Contact Centre actively encourages development at all levels and I am proud to be part of a team who takes development seriously.”
Punch’s HR director, Karen Caddick, said: “This is a fantastic achievement and part of our ongoing commitment to develop our people. The Apprenticeship schemes are closely aligned with our own internal learning and development offer and build on the on-the-job learning of our teams. Our Managers place a heavy emphasis on supporting teams through vocational training opportunities like Apprenticeships.”
Karen continues: “We have extremely high aspirations for the schemes. It’s a chance to build a strong internal career path as well as attracting talent to our business. As a next step we’re looking to align our offering with Diploma and Degree level qualifications.”
Punch’s pub, field and support centre teams have completed over 1500 courses so far this year. The company has also just completed its own employee engagement survey and received over 10,000 responses equating to a 67% return rate, exceeding the average return rate of 47.9% according to ‘Best Companies’.
Karen adds: “Having been rated as ‘One to Watch’ in the Sunday Times Best
Companies to Work For Survey, we really wanted to drill down further with our own survey to understand the key areas of importance for our people. The results have highlighted some real positives around job satisfaction, great team working relationships and commitment to the company, which is fantastic and also some areas that we need to focus on. Teams are now working together to develop clear action plans in response to the results to inform our future strategy.”