What’s it all about….Yes another Award – but this one is a Royal one and involved a visit to the Palace.

We are immensely proud to have been recognised with the Princess Royal Training Award and being invited to St James’s Palace to receive the Award. So I thought it would be nice to share with you the event, especially as it involved royalty and the Palace!

Ian Mitchell and I, along with Ingrid our Human Resource Director, having received lovely gold embossed HRH invitations in the post, arrived at St James’s Palace to be greeted by a smiling team. We went through full security and were welcomed with a small glass of bubbly whilst we waited to be called into the Award Room. Once guests were seated and had been instructed on the afternoon and how to say ‘Mam’ (as in Jam) we then had the gracious Princess Anne arrive to give a few words as to the achievements of the recipient companies.

Over a thousand companies enter these awards, and some have tried for years to attain the recognition, so to be there was a real kudos. bartlett mitchell  is very fortunate in that we have a genuine culture of learning and support and therefore, when the assessors came on site to check our evidence and meet our team to verify our initiatives and training– they found our evidence true to what we said we do, and behold we were astounded to be receive this fabulous Award first time!

The awarding body is City and Guilds, who were established over 140 years ago. They know what they are looking for and so being recognised for our investment in people was extra special.

Ingrid, Our HR Director, went to the podium to receive the award, as it was her hard work that had enabled us to pass the mark. Ian, although thrilled with the recognition of the Award, seemed as delighted that Ingrid gave an excellent curtsy as she approached HRH.

The citation read out was that bartlett mitchell had heavily invested in the team, in an impressive way and engaged the team.  This was demonstrated via great interaction with the company. This was what most impressed the assessors.

Princess Anne was very firm in asking all those attending to make sure it was passed back to the team as to what an achievement it is.

There were 48 companies recognised this year – from the small to massive conglomerates. It was interesting to listen to their citations, and the work that they had done with their people. The one common thread was recruitment and retention and that investment in your people has a very real pay back if done well.

I was inspired by the

• Learning through doing
• Training incubators
• Upskilling
• Mental and health wellbeing programmes
• Trailblazing in Apprenticeship
• Blended training with all styles of learning
• Talent mapping
• Stepping forward in coaching

So although we did well there is still much to do

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