Why Choose Riverside Training?

What sort of training provider best suits your needs?

Paul Workman, MD of Riverside Training, asks you to consider these factors:

We think these factors demonstrate why Riverside Training should be your first choice training provider:

Experience

Riverside Training is an established Government-approved training provider with a wealth of apprenticeship knowledge gained over 25 years of experience in the industry. We work nationally with a very broad and diverse range of organisations from primary schools through to the NHS, providing them with a range of apprenticeship programmes and recruitment services. In fact, we have worked with over 500 businesses and our clients have included BMW, Close Brothers, Balfour Beatty, Eurostar, Anchor Hanover and Portman Dental.

Breadth

We offer a whole range of qualifications from Accounting Assistant through to Operational Management and up to Senior Professional People. These qualifications cover every level from Intermediate (Level 2), broadly equivalent to five good GCSE passes, Advanced (Level 3), broadly equivalent to two A-Levels, and Higher Apprenticeships (Level 4-7), equivalent to a Foundation or Bachelor’s Degree and even a Master’s Degree in some sectors. We work closely with professional bodies such as The Institute of Leadership and Management and the Association of Accounting Technicians to ensure our courses, where appropriate, are fully accredited.

You can see a full list of our qualification courses via this link.

Expertise

We have trained well in excess of 5000 learners through to qualification status covering people as diverse as Teaching Assistants through to board members. Our very talented and committed young team of Learning & Development Coaches have all had personal experience in the sectors they lead in. We just employ the most competent staff.

Innovation

We are a dynamic organisation; we adapt and change and often take the lead on implementing new approaches to meeting our clients’ and learners’ needs. We believe we are the only provider to offer a dedicated mental well-being support service. We were one of the first to offer level 7 qualifications training and led the way on the introduction of interactive online learning via BUD and cutting-edge cognitive domain mapping which allows us to offer each apprentice tailored learning. Riverside Training has also led on fully electronic enrolment and an employer portal to view applicant and learner progress. We believe that fresh thinking and fresh ideas will keep Riverside at the forefront of training delivery.

Adaptability

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, we quickly realised that organisations would have to make fundamental changes to the way they work. We rapidly adopted a remote working model to deliver our learning courses. Not only does this provide a safe learning environment for our learners and our staff, it also allows our client businesses to continue to up-skill their employees whilst remaining Covid-compliant, ensuring business continuity. Today most of our courses are delivered via Zoom which is Covid-safe, limits disruption and does away with costly travel and overnight costs. It just makes complete sense.

Point of Difference

One of the key factors that makes Riverside Training so different from other providers is our conscious approach to people and the environment. We have recently increased leave allowances for our staff as a thank you for working so hard in a difficult climate. Also we are just about to introduce a salary sacrifice scheme for our team to enable any of them to purchase a new electric car, tax free. It’s a small step but another positive way to slow down climate change and it’s something we are passionate about.

We feel it is important to take responsible actions to promote sustainability and also to be responsive to the needs and feelings of our staff and learners. Increasingly that includes people’s mental well-being. We use the services of a specialist local company to deliver fantastic third party support and coaching to help any of our learners or staff who may be struggling with issues. We believe we are the only organisation that offers this level of care and assistance.

Our company ethos is to encourage openness and transparency; it may sound trite but we really do think of the team as a family where everyone has a voice. We take our community responsibilities to heart and do what we can to protect our local environment. In a nutshell, we care.

Value-added Approach

This gets to the nub of our relationship with employers. We like to get under the skin of our clients to fully understand and analyse their skill gaps and thus their training needs. Our singular aim is to put in place a training programme to enable you to help you meet your growth and business objectives. We engage with you to manage the programme and your levy funding. We can even find your new apprentices via a free-of-charge placement programme backed by an interview and screening service. We then put in place a very smart portal to enable your managers to track spend and monitor training progress.

In addition we report, report, report. As well as a dedicated account manager for everyday responsibility we provide you with monthly feedback on delegate progress, quarterly detailed reviews and an annual strategic review. All dealt with honestly and openly. If something’s not working we let you know and come up with a plan to get things back on track. You will definitely know we are working with you and it’s one of the reasons we have such great client feedback.

Achievement

So from our experience working with over 500 companies delivering well over 5000 qualified apprentices we’ve achieved some remarkably good feedback and results…

We are currently achieving 100% pass rates once learners pass through Gateway (versus an average of 94% amongst a clutch of other providers)
75% of our learners are achieving qualifications at distinction level
Our post qualification tracking of satisfaction levels stands at 96% amongst employers and 86% amongst learners

Commitment

I can honestly say that we know of no other training provider who shares our values and dynamic approach. We are absolutely determined to meet your up-skilling needs and help you achieve your business objectives. I hope I’ve convinced you. If so please call our super team for a more detailed chat on 01432 359244.