As Head of Learning & Capability at Britvic, I believe every week is learning week – but this one is particularly special. The Campaign for Learning’s annual event uses a dedicated week to highlight the importance and benefits of continual learning and development.
This year we’ve revitalised our commitment to dynamic personal growth and career development. Our progress in transforming the range of opportunities our colleagues asked for, and their response to them, has been amazing.
Whatever your role, wherever you work, Learning at Work Week gives us an excellent opportunity to discover, and have a taste, of the incredible support that is available. We encourage everyone to carve out a little time to spend on themself in this week, get involved and learn something new.
Through the results of our employee survey, Employee Heartbeat, we heard that people wanted to grow their careers and we listened. We’ve introduced learning resources covering more than 3,000 topics and available online, helping everyone to learn and grow. These supplement existing resources including our interactive modules educating everyone across the business on the importance of our long-term sustainability strategy – Healthier People, Healthier Planet.
We’re continually investing in our employees’ career development, supporting young people find careers they love, and supporting people in our communities who have fallen on hard times. In the past year, we have delivered:
- Apprenticeships programmes in Great Britain: Right now, 74 apprentices are working, learning and earning at Britvic locations up and down the country across various parts of our business. This includes 46 apprentices in our supply chain – 31 as engineers, 19 in finance and nine in marketing
- Support to 18-24 year olds: Britvic took part in the Government’s £2 billion Kickstarter scheme to offer placements to young people claiming Universal Credit who were at risk of long-term unemployment. So far 42 opportunities have been provided, leading to Kickstarters securing seven fixed term contracts, eight permanent roles and one temporary contract with one of our suppliers
- Graduate schemes: This year Britvic offered further placements on our graduates schemes across multiple departments including Finance and Marketing in Great Britain and Ireland
- A female mentorship programme for women across our British, Irish and French markets. The programme, launched by CFO Joanne Wilson aims to coach women through workshops and mentorship initiatives to support future career growth as part of our aim to support gender equality across the business
- Support for people facing hard times: Britvic has pledged its support to Only A Pavement Away as the charity prepares to open training cafés on high streets across the UK. Britvic has agreed to provide all the soft drinks needed for the cafés, which will offer hospitality training and employment opportunities to people facing homelessness, prison leavers and veterans
These achievements all get to the heart of what Learning at Work Week is all about. We can only truly succeed in making positive change, when we make learning and opportunity accessible to us all and to provide everyone with the right skills needed today in order to prepare for tomorrow.
Andy Surridge | Head of Learning and Capability