BAE Systems is celebrating after being commended for its commitment to apprenticeship training and skills development by Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal at a ceremony at St James’s Palace in London.
BAE Systems was one of 34 organisations honoured with a new training award – the Princess Royal Training Award – for excellence in delivering skills for business performance.
The winners, including car manufacturers, healthcare organisations and charities, all demonstrated that training can make a significant impact on productivity and business success.
The judges were reportedly impressed by BAE Systems’ award winning apprenticeship programme, which has maintained consistently outstanding levels of quality throughout the company’s UK business.
Princess Royal Training Award judges recognised that apprentices are a key element of BAE Systems’ talent pipeline and are given a diverse variety of enrichment activities ranging from ‘Outward Bound’ to an ‘Apprentice Innovation Challenge’ which leads to high satisfaction levels in surveys.
BAE Systems is also helping to support young unemployed people by offering work experience places under the Prince’s Trust ‘Movement to Work’ programme which has led to some full time roles. The judges also commended its leadership in the engineering sector by its development of new standards for engineering and manufacturing apprenticeships.
The Princess Royal Training Awards were delivered for the first time this year by the City & Guilds Group. Each of the more than 100 applications was assessed against three Hallmarks of Excellence and the Princess Royal Training Award Commission, which comprised HRH The Princess Royal and ten leading figures in the business and learning & development community.
City & Guilds Group chief executive, Chris Jones explained: “I hope these awards have shone a light on how important it is for businesses to invest in training to boost their productivity, address skills gaps and develop their leaders.
“This has never mattered more than in today’s uncertain economy. I hope this year’s winners inspire other organisations to share their experiences, and put forward their training and development success stories.”
