Louise Lock, head of talent acquisition and development at Ageas UK, talks about her firm’s entry to the Excellence in Professional Development category
1. Why did you put yourselves forward for this category?
We know the sector needs to do more to attract, develop and retain talented people, while continuing to deliver high quality service and value.
We believe our dual strategy offers a well-rounded response to this challenge, by developing a focused, ever more professional talent pipeline that benefits our people, our business partners, our customers and the industry itself.
This award showcases our work and rewards our people for their vision and expertise.
2. What makes your entry stand out, and why should you win the award?
Our dual strategy is a creative adaption of inhouse apprenticeships to support our own as well as sector skills needs, which blend internal and external development resources and offer formal qualifications in a cost-effective manner – at no cost to employees.
This is along with guaranteed promotion into permanent roles which are aligned to individual skill capabilities and business needs.
This strategy enables us to both make qualifications accessible to employees that may otherwise not have had the opportunity to develop skills in these areas.
It also advances our diversity and inclusion goals by fostering a culture of growth, professionalism and inclusion – all these factors combine to make our entry compelling and underscore the investment in and of our people.
3. What would winning this award mean to you and your firm?
It would mean a huge vote of confidence in our long-term strategic approach to addressing the skills gaps in our business and enhancing the professionalism of our sector.
On a personal level, it would give fitting recognition to those who have been instrumental in creating and producing our self-sustaining programmes,.
It would also give recognition to those colleagues who have shown determination and commitment to step up and develop themselves through their roles.
Ultimately, winning this award would give us even greater pride in our diverse, dedicated and hard-working people.
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