Recruitment
“The most team orientated trainers I have ever had the pleasure to meet and work alongside. Fantastic attitude to teaching and attention to detail keeping the learners needs at heart.“
“I'd like to nominate the Virgin Trains training team for Training Team of the Year.
After spending 3 months on a secondment working with them, I'm completely in awe of everything they do - from welcoming new joiners to the business, to supporting apprentices through an amazing programme, to working with a prison to help get people back into work upon release. The entire team puts their heart and soul into everything they do, and offer support and guidance to everyone who needs it.
The training team are the first point of contact for new entrants to the business, and their passion for Virgin Trains and our brand values soon rubs off on the newbies - I can't imagine a better team to start them off on their Virgin Trains journey.“
“Since reaching the final 3 in last year’s Rail Staff Awards, the team at the Virgin Trains Talent Academy has since won “Best Apprenticeship and Graduate Programme†at the Women in Rail Awards, as well as “Large Employer of the Year†at the Employment Related Services Association awards. This year the team also became the first TOC-based training team to undergo Ofsted, and of the new “employer training providers†to go through an Ofsted monitoring visit this year, the Virgin Trains Talent Academy remains the most successful with Ofsted noting that the Academy’s leadership had made “significant progress [in] ensuring that the provider is meeting all the requirements of a successful apprenticeship provision.†The Talent Academy is the only new employer provider to receive this rating so far.
Since last year’s awards, the Academy has trained almost 200 apprentices in Level 2, 3, and 6 vocations. As well as the flagship customer-facing Level 2 programme which featured in last year’s awards, the Academy has since introduced a successful Junior Leadership Programme. Learners complete business units ranging from organisational culture through to financial management. The course is delivered using a blended approach, and features unique experiences that higher level apprentices may lack elsewhere. As well as setting up small business operations and running a “The Apprentice†style market stall, these apprentices also practice their skills in Scotland’s great outdoors – a way of also increasing environmental awareness amongst the industry’s future leaders. To see these apprentices in action, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jixTdeGlyjE.
When asked “how likely are you to recommend this apprenticeship to friends and family?†apprentices respond 8.7/10. Ofsted also recognised this, writing “apprentices are proud to work and study with Virgin Trains. They wear their uniforms with pride, and work enthusiastically.†Of the training team, Ofsted wrote that “trainers [possessed] expert specialist vocational experience [and] act as highly effective role models for apprentices.†Moreover, since introducing these programmes the Academy has been able to evidence that apprentices are 4 times more likely to come into work than their direct-entry counterparts, and also that apprenticeship recruitment is resulting in a 10% higher intake of BAME candidates resulting in a more diverse railway. All of this resulted in “Best Apprenticeship and Graduate Programme†at this year’s Women in Rail Awards. Overall becoming an apprenticeship provider has resulted in increases in training quality across all trades (even those with no direct link to apprenticeships), as the team exports its good training practice to other areas. Over the next year the company will deliver its first Level 3 Train Driver Apprenticeships, using standard practices developed over the last 2 years, and the team is starting to take a more active approach to RDG apprenticeship steering groups to help guide the industry’s apprenticeship provision onwards.
In order to make railway careers accessible to disadvantaged communities, the team runs an Employability Training Programme for non-employees. The team recently started a brand new training partnership with prison education provider NOVUS to offer this course. This involved building a new course aimed at prisoners, delivered inside prison walls by staff at the Talent Academy. As well as the course itself, the team had to navigate multiple stakeholders including the Ministry of Justice, NOVUS, and Virgin Group. It also required trainers to step outside their comfort zones, by stepping inside prison walls to provide face-to-face training directly to prisoners. Almost 10% of frontline recruitment this year is sourced from this training programme, and the programme recently won personal praise from the Prisons Minister Rory Stewart who remarked “I’m delighted to see the launch of this programme as I believe passionate that, through work, people can turn their backs on crime and start a new chapter.†For more information, see https://www.itv.com/news/2018-10-07/prisons-minister-welcomes-new-scheme-to-help-inmates-prepare-for-work/. This work resulted in an award from the Employment Related Services Association.
The team’s achievements this year, in the final year of Virgin’s West Coast Mainline franchise, outweigh anything it’s done in its history. To receive glowing praise from inside the Department for Education, Ministry of Justice, as well as transport bodies such as Women in Rail, while all the time trying to deliver railway ambition, passion, and careers to communities – are achievements that, on paper, seem a stretch so far. Nevertheless, this team has achieved all these things and deserve to win this year’s Training Team of the Year as its final beacon for like-minded trainers across the industry to follow.“
“Another Huge Success. We, at McGinley had a really lovely evening.”
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