emh group owns 20,000 properties across the East Midlands in 40 local authority areas. Its vision is to be the best social housing and care business in the country.
Steffan Beange, Customer Experience Team Leader, describes emh group’s experience of working with Access as their chosen apprenticeship provider.
Putting our Apprenticeship Levy to good use
“We have over 1,000 staff and have always been committed to leadership development and training. It was the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy, however, that really allowed us to capitalise on the apprenticeship style of learning.
Of the 30 staff in our Customer Services Centre, just under a third are currently studying for an apprenticeship through Access.
In scaling up our apprenticeships, our L&D team first undertook an analysis of local providers. Access was by far the strongest performer on knowledge of the sector, understanding of our requirements and building a strong working relationship with us from the off, as well as the flexibility of their delivery model.
Tailored to our specific needs
Futures Housing, such an influential member of the Housing industry, part-owns Access Training. This gave us huge reassurance that this was a training provider who would fully understand our needs as a social housing provider.
Since our contact centre’s aim is to resolve issues at the first point of contact, we knew the skills we sought to develop were higher than a Level 2 apprenticeship but we weren’t sure what was needed. Our Business Relationship Manager at Access, Helen Elliott, provided sound advice on
how we might provide the required evidence and we have introduced Level 3 as a result.
The logistics of taking an incredibly busy customer-facing team away from the phones can be challenging to say the least. We simply can’t afford to lose all contact points at any one time. It’s really helped that Access offers two different training days within a week. We can maintain service levels and cater for our part-time workers.
Measuring impact
The impact on the team has been both positive and tangible. Training for our call centre team can often be at desks or as buzz meetings so Access’ classroom style training has been really well received. Better still, our learners support one another in applying their new-found skills every day.
As well as strategic review meetings, Access presents regular feedback from the monthly 1-2-1s with learners and is very active in involving line managers in feeding into each learner’s progression report.
Steffan Beange, Customer Experience Team Leader, describes emh group’s experience of working with Access as their chosen apprenticeship provider.
Putting our Apprenticeship Levy to good use
“We have over 1,000 staff and have always been committed to leadership development and training. It was the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy, however, that really allowed us to capitalise on the apprenticeship style of learning.
Of the 30 staff in our Customer Services Centre, just under a third are currently studying for an apprenticeship through Access.
In scaling up our apprenticeships, our L&D team first undertook an analysis of local providers. Access was by far the strongest performer on knowledge of the sector, understanding of our requirements and building a strong working relationship with us from the off, as well as the flexibility of their delivery model.
Tailored to our specific needs
Futures Housing, such an influential member of the Housing industry, part-owns Access Training. This gave us huge reassurance that this was a training provider who would fully understand our needs as a social housing provider.
Since our contact centre’s aim is to resolve issues at the first point of contact, we knew the skills we sought to develop were higher than a Level 2 apprenticeship but we weren’t sure what was needed. Our Business Relationship Manager at Access, Helen Elliott, provided sound advice on
how we might provide the required evidence and we have introduced Level 3 as a result.
The logistics of taking an incredibly busy customer-facing team away from the phones can be challenging to say the least. We simply can’t afford to lose all contact points at any one time. It’s really helped that Access offers two different training days within a week. We can maintain service levels and cater for our part-time workers.
Measuring impact
The impact on the team has been both positive and tangible. Training for our call centre team can often be at desks or as buzz meetings so Access’ classroom style training has been really well received. Better still, our learners support one another in applying their new-found skills every day.
As well as strategic review meetings, Access presents regular feedback from the monthly 1-2-1s with learners and is very active in involving line managers in feeding into each learner’s progression report.
“As important as the impact on each individual’s progression is of course the impact on our organisation as a whole. The insight and evidence we receive from Access gives us certainty that our Levy money is being well spent on delivering social housing excellence.”
