Woodland Grange
Woodland Grange is one of the UK’s leading conference
centres and an award-winning provider of health, safety and
environmental training and management development
programmes.
The organisation is passionate about customer service. It pays
off because they typically average an approval rating of 98% from
customers who evaluate their premises, food, facilities,
cleanliness, efficacy of training and service levels before they
leave.
Woodland Grange also recognises service excellence when they
receive it and that is why they chose Warwickshire College to meet
their staff training needs.
Their 85-strong staff cover a wide range of job roles.
Sharon Long, Human Resources Manager said: “When I joined the
organisation, I assessed the market to see who could meet our need.
Many of the staff had not had a structured training plan, so I
needed their ‘buy-in’ to make it work. Warwickshire College was the
obvious choice and even though they are local, they come here to
deliver the training because it’s what we need.
"We started with an Open Day for staff who were invited to drop
in to discuss their training needs. Each was individually
interviewed by the College and from that they drew up a proposal to
take us forward."
Warwickshire College is delivering a mixed portfolio of level 2
and 3 NVQs from domestic cleaning and information technology to
customer service, which is being undertaken by 15 members of
staff.
Sharon also has plans for staff progression and intends to
move those taking the Cleaning NVQ onto the customer service
qualification. In addition, the organisation is looking to offer
other courses including English for Speakers of Other Languages and
there are also plans to stage some one to two day courses on Word,
Excel and PowerPoint.
Sharon added: “Although it is too soon to talk about a return on
investment, I can say that everyone is thoroughly enjoying the
courses and they are giving them a lot of confidence. Customer
service is of paramount importance to us and we know this
confidence will pay off in even better service for our clients.
"Our relationship with Warwickshire College has been very
important too. Over the three years that we’ve worked together,
they have listened carefully to what we’ve needed, including
flexible timing to suit our shift patterns. Overall they are
delivering an excellent standard of service."