This simple title seems entirely fitting for a piece which is not just about our philosophy as a company but also touches on a rather poignant family issue which affected one member of our team during the pandemic. I’m sure it’s a covid-related story that will resonate with many families out there.

I’ve mentioned in an earlier piece that Jane Preston founded Riverside with a strong emphasis on family values; that everyone in the team is important, will be respected and strongly supported and whose voice will be listened to.  The Senior Management Group are committed to demonstrating that ethos. We absolutely want people to feel valued and all our team members to feel that this is a great company to work for, not just because of the interesting and valuable work we do developing our Apprentices but also because we are a good employer.

So we have introduced a couple of initiatives recently that we know are much appreciated by our team. Firstly, we have increased leave allowances for all our staff as a thank you for working so hard in a difficult covid-ravaged climate. Also we are just about to introduce a salary sacrifice scheme to enable any of the team to purchase a new electric car tax free. It represents a significant saving plus it’s another positive way to help slow down climate change, which is something we are passionate about too.

So how can we gauge whether our staff are happy here? We do formal personnel reviews to capture feedback but often it’s the sense check you get with random acts of thoughtfulness. A classic example occurred just before Christmas when one of our lovely coaches, who modestly wishes to remain anonymous, brought in a Christmas hamper of goodies for the office-based team to share as a personal thank you for their ongoing support behind the scenes. I know how much the team appreciated the gesture and it’s typical of the spirit within the company.

Family matters – Kirsty Smith is one of our recent recruits to the Learning & Development coaching team and she is always upbeat and so positive. So it came as something of a shock to learn that her husband Chris was made redundant from his job as a pilot during the first lockdown. The fleet of aircraft he flew (Boeing 747s) were retired due to costs. What follows is Kirsty’s own story.

It was an incredibly difficult time with Chris fearing his beloved career could be over. However, he didn’t rest on his laurels. He home schooled the children, took part in a geophysical survey, helped out family members with various jobs and even delivered groceries for Tesco. It was extremely tough on him mentally especially because it looked as though the aviation industry seemed to be pretty doomed.

However, out of the blue, last August he got the call to return to Virgin Atlantic and started his training to fly a different aircraft (Airbus A330). After weeks of training, Chris flew a plane for the first time in nearly two years on the 13th December from Heathrow to Orlando. It was very emotional but also pretty great as Chris got to reconnect with all his colleagues and regular hotel staff. Here’s a photo of the team at their hotel in Florida before flying back for Xmas.

Kirsty explains that they are just starting to get back to ‘normal’ and feel very fortunate that Chris was able to resume his career and they know that many people weren’t so lucky. She remains incredibly proud of Chris for bearing up so well in really challenging circumstances

Some of the Riverside team shared in Kirsty’s joy and pride at watching Chris take off on that inaugural flight via the live radar and gave him a virtual wave as he flew over Hereford. Marvellous!

We are delighted to report Kirsty’s own words from that moment; it made her ‘feel like a genuine part of this inspiring and wonderful work family’.

I think I speak on behalf of the Riverside Senior Management Group in saying that we are so proud to hear that but even more pleased that Kirsty and Chris and their lovely children are enjoying something approaching normal life again.

Family matters.

Sharon Young

HR Manager

I know, it’s amazing. The Levy is a UK tax on companies with an annual wage bill in excess of  £3 million.  The Levy is charged at a rate of 0.5% on the full wage bill so it can be a significant amount.

The Levy is collected by HMRC and  is held in a Digital Apprenticeship Service (DAS) account. It is available to spend on Apprenticeship Training for 24 months from the date of payment. All funds that are not spent after this period are clawed back by the Government and as you can see from the headline, a considerable amount of money is going unclaimed by many companies.

It just seems incredible that companies would knowingly do this. So why is it happening? We have uncovered one instance where a parent company, based overseas, was not fully aware of UK tax legislation and the fund was lost through lack of knowledge. That is an understandable oversight. We are now helping that company to reclaim its latest levy funds to develop a comprehensive Apprenticeship programme.

But we are also believe some HR managers may not have full knowledge of their company’s tax payments and thus possibly missing out on the possibilities that an Apprenticeship  programme can bring.

It’s also possible that  some companies may feel that they don’t have the capacity to expand their Apprenticeship programme to the level required to reclaim their levy in full. Yet again some employers are just risk averse possibly believing that they simply don’t have the necessary practices in place to retain the Apprentices once they’ve completed training. In which case there’s a risk of losing the now-qualified person (and their training investment) to a competitor. That’s a fear that is becoming less apparent as time goes by.

Some employers may be simply still suffering from the effects of lockdown and are not training/hiring at all. Others may have had a negative previous experience with training apprentices or believe there are no suitable candidates to recruit as Apprentices. Perhaps some haven’t yet found the right training provider to help them develop a viable training programme.

That’s where we can definitely help. In case you are a new visitor to our website, we are Riverside Training, a well-established Government-approved Apprenticeship training provider. In a highly competitive industry Riverside is widely-regarded as one of the UK’s most dynamic  and respected in the field with a reputation for innovative delivery and a conscious, caring work ethos.  We’ve worked with over 500 companies and taken more than 5000 Apprentices through to qualification.

And we are sure we could help your organisation too. Even if you’ve had a poor experience in the past we think we can assuage any concerns you may have going forward. We are confident you will enjoy the conversation with us at Riverside. We think and act differently from all other providers.

I’m a Finance man and at the end of the day I just think that allowing the Government to claw back your company’s money when it could be put to such positive  use in filling skill gaps and motivating your workforce, just doesn’t make any business sense.

We can help make sense of your investment in training.

If you’d like us to follow up just leave some details in the adjacent comment box or call us on 01432 359244 or email  louise@riverside-training.co.uk

Paul Workman

MD

*****

I was fascinated to learn the other day that Multiserve the Apprenticeship training provider co-founded by Euan Blair, the son of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair had secured a $130-million funding round to allow it to meet the growing demand for professional apprenticeships in both the UK and the US.  This puts the value of the company at almost $1Bn

The apprenticeship provider has experienced exponential growth since being founded in 2016 including the opening of a New York office last January. They are now servicing heavy duty clients on both sides of the Atlantic including Facebook, Morgan Stanley, and Google.

In certain ways I envy their growth and success and for a while I thought our best course of action would be to try and emulate their style, approach  and brand positioning. But I’ve come to realise that our company cannot possibly replicate their success. They are based in London with many of the major company HQ’s centred there with ready access to the City. And let’s face it Euan must have the most amazing social, political. legal and financial connections to draw upon with his parents’ background.  You simply cannot mirror that.

But I do share one ambition with him – to  build a truly outstanding alternative to university and corporate training, helping to transform the opportunities available to people in the UK and maybe one day overseas too. But our approach has fundamentally changed; it’s no longer to compare Riverside with its competitors but to establish and project what makes us distinctive, and more importantly, different from the rest.

I founded Riverside Training some 25 years ago and I remain with the company as its Sales Director. The company really does mean everything to me and I guess I could never completely walk away. I have children and one of the reasons I created the company was because I am passionate about allowing young people to realise their potential. So we set up the company to allow people not attending University to develop fantastic career options by undertaking Apprenticeship qualifications. And very rapidly we realised that businesses needed help too to manage Apprenticeship schemes within their organisations.

We started with a handful of staff and a single major client and our initial batch of apprentices and learners were exclusively drawn from Hereford and the local area. The company, now led by my colleague Paul Workman, today has more than 40 employees and over the years we have successfully trained well in excess of 5000 learners, in conjunction with almost 500 business clients. The company now has national reach and a client base that covers everything from primary schools through to the NHS and our capability extends across a broad range of training qualifications, including level 7, enabling us now to target any person and every level within an organisation.

You could say I must be rather proud, and you’d be right. But here’s the thing, there are literally 100’s of businesses on the Government’s list of approved training providers. And I’m not afraid to say we are some way from being on the scale of Multiserve. But in my view no other training provider can match our values and dynamic, innovative approach.

So what makes Riverside Training different? Well our company ethos has never changed. I deliberately set Riverside up as a company with soul. I wanted a distinctive family feel where everyone has a voice and openness and transparency are encouraged. Many staff have worked with us for 10 years or more and we do lots of things together – whether its early morning runs or  clean-up days in the community.

Indeed I am proud of our conscious approach to people and the environment. You will have seen from my colleague Sharon’s recent posting on Treading Lightly just how much store we put on being eco-friendly and significantly reducing our carbon footprint as a company and group of individuals.

We also feel it is important to be responsive to the needs and feelings of our staff, and learners and that includes people’s mental well-being. We have been using the services of a specialist local company, Bee Inspired, to deliver fantastic support and coaching to help any of our learners or staff who may be struggling with issues. We believe we are the only provider offering this level of care.

But it’s not just softer values that sets us apart. We are highly respected for our innovative thinking and pioneering approach to training. 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, cognitive domain mapping, fully electronic enrolment and an employer portal to view applicant and learner progress. Plus you must have been impressed by my colleague Donna’s recent piece on how we pioneered a remote working model to save massively on time and costs.

Fresh thinking is what keeps us ahead. That and the fact that we just love doing what we do.

But are we effective you may ask? Well I believe our branding is now very distinctive and recognisable, the language we use is positive and unapologetic and our marketing and sales activity is very focused and effective. To this end I should tell you that we have just signed up well over 100 new Apprentices in the last 2 months  plus a major new American-owned client, with significant interests in the UK, who will deliver scores of new Apprentices for our qualifications. Perhaps this will provide a springboard to opening our own New York office. In addition;

• 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

So there you are. Riverside isn’t a $1Bn-valued business but we are distinctive, high-achieving, highly innovative, conscious and caring. We have emerged from the covid crisis with real momentum. And we owe a huge debt to our fantastic staff for all their efforts during this period. We are so lucky to have such a smart, dedicated and energetic  team. We are so very different and we hope potential clients out there will like our drive and approach. And I’ll always be up for a chat if you’re a financier and fancy investing $130m in the Riverside Apprenticeship training business.

Jane Preston

Founder, Riverside Training

*****

I’ve noticed a number of interesting news articles this past week all on the subject of climate-friendliness. It’s a theme that resonates with us at Riverside. You see Jane Preston who founded this great company wanted it to be a business which had real soul. So right from the start we’ve tried to operate as a caring, conscious organisation, responsive to the needs of our staff, our learners and the environment.

I’ll come on to talk about our green credentials and what we at Riverside are doing to reduce our carbon footprint and deliver sustainability through re-use and re-cycling. In a number of ways we have completely changed the way we now work. And everyone is playing a part.

But let me share some of those wider, almost incredible, initiatives which caught my eye. First up a feature on Kaja Gersinka who this week became the first woman in the UK to have climate-friendly pain relief whilst giving birth. It’s completely true! Apparently traditional pain relief from gas and air, or Entonox to give it its name, is a mixture of nitrous oxide and oxygen. And it is the nitrous oxide which is a powerful greenhouse gas once exhaled. Kaja received a new mixture which breaks down the components into harmless nitrogen and oxygen.  And I’m delighted, as a woman, to report that it was just as effective and that mum and baby daughter are both doing well.

Second up another unlikely story. This time it was the success of a programme being run by a behavioural science team in New Zealand to teach cows to use a ‘MooLoo’. No bull, this is another true story and  it’s a way to capture animal waste before it mixes with other products to release harmful emissions and pollutants. Apparently the cows were as trainable as 2-4 year old children. Amazing.

Finally another scarcely believable headline about how many of our leading football clubs, who you’d imagine to be the least green-conscious  organisations out there, have joined an initiative to significantly reduce their carbon footprints. The aim is to do this by the time of COP 26, the UN’s Climate Change Conference being held in Glasgow in November. How will Premiership teams achieve this? By asking fans to cycle/walk  to the ground, replacing plane travel for the team with coach travel, introducing vegan options at food stations. Last week-end’s match between Spurs and Chelsea was the UK’s first zero-carbon top-level game. Finally the clubs intend to reduce the frequency at which they introduce new replica shirts for fans etc. I think I can speak for all parents with footie-mad kids and say thank you for that pledge.

I’ve been slightly tongue-in-cheek with these initiatives but in reality we absolutely applaud all efforts to reduce organisations’ carbon footprints. They all show what can be done. We do have just one world and we’re in danger of spoiling it for future generations. Here at Riverside  we feel a great responsibility to tread as lightly on this planet as we can and we’ll continue to adapt to make us as environmentally friendly as possible.

All initiatives are worthy and here are just some of the many small things we have been doing:

• we drink a lot of tea so we have replaced our regular tea bags with a Clipper brand which is fairtrade, plastic-free, gluten-free and uses bags made from a plant-based material;
• we’ve reduced printing to an absolute minimum so that 99% of our correspondence is now electronic;
• use of plastics in the office setting has been seriously minimised eg with plastic water bottles replaced by re-fills;
• we re-cycle all paper, cardboard and other waste materials assiduously;
• redundant equipment like old laptops is re-cycled thoughtfully;
• every evening we shut down and switch off all devices and lighting;

We ask our employees to engage too:-

• we encourage walk/cycle to work schemes including an electric bike usage/charging solution. Car sharing too.
• we organise pre-work fun runs, gym sessions and netball games for the team which are very popular;
• several members of staff have chosen to support us by cutting out red meat consumption, reducing fast food, caffeine and carbs intake, and adopting more fresh food/vegan and plant-based meal solutions;
• lockdown and home working has taught us to be less clothes-conscious (especially beneath the on-screen sight lines!). We’ve all learned how to embrace old comfortable clothing and to resist buying lots of new stuff;
• at the same time we are all re-cycling clothes and shoes and we’ll be introducing in-house clothes trades/sales days;
• we shall also be following Jane’s personal big issue lead by doing our community thing by organising litter pick-up days, planting projects , riverside tidy-ups etc.

They say every little bit helps environmentally and we really think it does. But there have been some more fundamental changes we have made too. In the last posting my colleague Donna talked about the impact that our remote working model for our learners, largely introduced because of the restrictions posed by the covid lockdown, had made on our business. It not only saves our work based tutors from travelling all over the country but the same applies to learners travelling to and from our Hereford HQ for training sessions. It saves massively on time, travel costs and overnight stays and has delivered  a massive reduction in our carbon footprint.

But it’s not just our learners who have had to adjust to a new working normal, our staff too have had to adapt. We now employ several people who are remotely based and can operate from home online pretty much exclusively. That too is cost and time saving and carbon-reducing.

But I’m the HR manager and I’d like to see more of our staff returning to the office after many months of working from home. I realise that many people have enjoyed the benefits of WFH but we as a business need to see our team co-ordinating effectively again. Junior staff learn from their seniors by being with them and absorbing knowledge. There’s a positive uplift from teamness – sharing info and stimulating  creativity, debate and ideas. Plus we need to be alert to any feelings of isolation that may be effecting our remotely based staff.

But of course we have do this this safely, carefully and fairly. All of my team for example are expected to be office-based and they can see others who rarely appear in the office. So my task is to introduce flexible working arrangements which are  fair to the employees and to the business. It’s a question of getting the balance right. This new working environment can be challenging to get right but it’s important to be adaptable and responsive in our approach to try and secure a happy crew. Do that and we believe they will embrace the Tread Lightly’ approach far more readily.

There’s one final way we can give a tiny boost to the planet –  we’d like to send you a mini-box of seed balls to plant and hopefully attract some bees and other wildlife.  Simply scatter them on top of soil or compost (no digging required) and nature will do the rest. Voila!

To claim simply email Megan at our Hereford office giving her your name and postal address and she’ll send a mini seedbox to you. Maybe get your kids to plant them. Let us know how they develop and we’ll share your imagery/story on our website and social media platforms.

Sharon Young, HR Manager

*****

They say necessity is the mother of invention but I reckon that pregnancy and pandemics challenge you to think differently too.  Let me explain….

I’m going back a few years to when I was Riverside’s Level 5 tutor and heavily pregnant with my 3^rd daughter. In those days we relied heavily on work-based training and I was beginning to find all the travelling around the country exhausting. We also had many learners travelling to our Hereford HQ for sessions. It seemed like we were spending many hours not actually training and tutoring but in transit. And it was costly too.

So I thought there had to be an alternative delivery mechanism – one which could be done remotely and save both time and money and my aching back. It wouldn’t call it an original idea but I hit upon the use of Skype to make contact with my learners. It wasn’t the best technology but it worked and within weeks I was reaching out to almost all my learners and employer contacts in this way.

The key thing I found was that they all seemed to embrace remote contact as much as I did. I just hoped it wasn’t personal! I don’t think it was as several of my tutor colleagues started working the same way.

Fast forward  a year or so and I was being interviewed for the role of Operations Manager on the Senior Management team. As well as managing our team of tutors the role called for someone to drive forward Riverside’s whole approach to its delivery process. So my pitch was based on the concept of moving towards a remote learning model as Riverside’s primary delivery mechanism. The clincher I think was the proposal to re-invest the money we’d save on more technology and innovative platforms which you can explore here later.

As it happened it proved to be a bold and very important decision by the SMT as within months the covid pandemic had hit and we were compelled to work in a completely different way. Remote learning suited the new environment perfectly.  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.

Many businesses really struggled to survive during the pandemic and although our business was impacted by it, we are fairly sure that our adaptable and innovative approach enabled Riverside not just to survive but to thrive. By thinking differently we’ve emerged stronger with a distinctive modus operandi and identity.

Has it worked operationally? Well we are currently achieving 100% pass rates once learners pass through Gateway (versus an average of 94% amongst a clutch of other providers). And 75% of our learners are achieving qualifications at distinction level. Whilst our post qualification tracking of satisfaction levels remains very strong at 96% amongst employers and 86% amongst learners.

That said  we are all constantly learning how to adapt the process to keep it engaging for both our learners and our staff. So we are employing symbols and chat boxes and plug-ins like Jamboard to keep the experience highly-interactive and a bit of fun too.

But I’m the first to admit too that people are social animals and F2F interaction with colleagues is something that people have missed during lockdown. Now that things have eased a little we are trying hard to encourage safely-held water cooler moments both live in the office and online too. So that we can natter about issues other than work. It’s good to talk but it’s great just to chat sometimes.

Donna Loynton, Operations & Quality Manager

*****

As ABBA succinctly put it, this is all about the Money, Money, Money

There was an interesting article in last week’s Sunday Times. A respected former Head of Kings College School, Wimbledon was offering advice to anxious 6th formers who’ve fallen short of the offer grades for getting to Uni. He asked ‘What can you do? And he offered several slices of advice:

• Clearing; except that this year places at many of the better Universities are more limited because they admitted more students than planned last year, following the grading fiasco. So forget trading up. Do you really want to end up at a lesser Uni with still-high expensive tuition fees and living costs? More on this point later.
• You could maybe consider re-taking your subjects but you’ll need to find a tutor (not cheap) or college or see if you can do  a third year 6^th back at school (though all your mates will have left of course)
• You could try for a place studying a related subject eg archaeology instead of history or materials science rather than that engineering course you’d set your heart on. And possibly risk disappointment later?
• You could look at Uni’s abroad but how viable is that in a covid world?

He then posed the big question; do you really want to go to Uni at all? It’s a very good question. Uni can be a great experience of course but traditional teaching methods are fast disappearing.  Many courses now rely heavily on online teaching. Will you be happy to pay those expensive tuition fees and rarely have a face-to-face session with your lecturer/tutor? Forget the days of Good Will Hunting; today it’s more like Big Bill Resulting.

Look we need to get into the economics of this as it is likely to be the biggest investment of your life outside of buying a place in which to live.  I’m the MD of a dynamic and respected training provider specialising in Apprenticeship training so you might think I’m biased. But I’m a Finance guy and numbers matter to me.  I’m convinced that choosing an Apprenticeship course compares incredibly favourably with heading off to Uni from a financial point of view.

And here’s the headline bit of logic; young people who choose an Apprenticeship over a University place could be more than £50,000 better off. Let me just repeat that: you could be more than £50,000 better off.   Here’s the maths….

• it’s generally accepted that average rent costs are c £12,500 and living costs c £14,250 for any student away at Uni or on an Apprenticeship over 3 years
• Apprentices typically earn £40,000 over 3 years whilst qualifying, delivering an excess of c £13,250 after living costs and rent
• Meanwhile University graduates incur debts of c £40,000
• The net balance is that Apprentices can be well over £50,000 better off

That’s a hell of a lot of a financial edge when you’re in your 20’s (or even at a more mature age). And here’s another pointer; the average salary after graduating with a degree is between £18,000 – £23,000. The average after completing an Apprenticeship is £20,000 – £25,000. Impressed?

But important as it is, it’s not just a financial equation, compelling as it is. There’s just so much sense to learn as you earn whilst achieving equivalence in qualifications and parity of esteem. Apprenticeship training is no longer the Cinderella  learning option; it’s the most sensible and smartest choice if you are feeling anxious about those results. Trust me.

Paul Workman

MD, Riverside Training

*****

Jane Preston, the founder of Riverside Training, describes her motivations behind setting up the company some 25 years ago and amazingly she appears not a day older. We learn about her background and her influencers and the values she has embodied within the company.