A trainer you can trust – how continuity is key for health and safety training for British Land

Introduction

International Workplace has worked with British Land and, prior to its acquisition by the company, Broadgate Estates, for over ten years, training staff in IOSH Managing Safely, Permits to work, and Risk Assessment and Method Statements (RAMS) training.

Jessica Rice, Learning and Development Consultant at British Land, explains how having a trainer who really knows the business is invaluable for company-specific training.

Trainers who deliver personalised content

"We've been working with International Workplace for a good number of years. Kate Gardner has been doing our training since British Land acquired Broadgate Estates, which is great because she really knows the business, and she makes the training really specific. Kate keeps up to date with any changes that have happened in the business to make sure that the training is relevant and as specific as possible, which you're not going to necessarily get elsewhere."

The shift to online virtual training

"At the moment, everything is online, so most of our facilitated sessions are run over Teams and then for the rest – such as IOSH – we've switched to eLearning. Previously it was all classroom-based, which we held in our head office in London. However, it's actually been really good for us because we have operational sites all across the UK, all the way up in Edinburgh down to Plymouth. It was often really hard to get some people on the training as it meant they had to travel and stay overnight, so we've been able to capture so many more people over the last 18 months or so.

"I think at first we wondered what it would be like online, but people are a bit more used to using Teams now. We've got really great feedback from those sessions being virtual, as opposed to face-to-face. So it's actually had a lot of benefits and I think, going forward, we'll probably look to do more of a blended approach – maybe some training could be classroom-based, but actually run more utilising the online format, to really be able to include all of our employees."

Flexibility and responsiveness

"Where a lot of our health and safety staff are on site, it makes sense to do it online, whereas if people are already in one location we would definitely look at a face-to-face option as I think that's still really important.

"Kate’s very well known to the business and she'll actually reach out before a session and speak to the health and safety team to see what their priorities are. The team are very flexible and quick to respond, so if we want to book in a last-minute training session they’ll see what availability Kate has and manage to fit us in, so it’s very efficient and easy. Having that one point of contact is really good. The fact that Kate knows the business really well, she just gets on with it, and we always get really great feedback from her training sessions as well."