Facilities engineering group launches Midlands hub

Facilities, technical and process services firm Edwin James Group has launched a purpose built academy hub in the Midlands.

The facility will be the home of training in England and follows the successful launch of a centre in Scotland in 2021.

The hub in Derbyshire features a classroom, collaboration space, several e-learning rooms and an electrical training and assessment facility.

It can deliver in-person and remote learning for the company’s employees.

The group is also launching 23 new in-person training courses to support colleagues in their career development and day-to-day roles, taking the total number of courses available to over 170.

Training courses covering topics including people management, leadership development, safety, and functional skills will be delivered by internal and external training experts. The group has also enhanced its talent development programme designed to support the next generation of leaders, with courses from the Chartered Management Institute and the Institute of Leadership & Management.

Christopher Kehoe, chief executive, said: “We are always seeking to innovate and take a creative approach to how we deliver the learning and development that is vital to our future growth and success. By offering both online and in person training we can make our training accessible to everyone.

“During the pandemic, we moved quickly to introduce virtual training to ensure our colleagues could continue with vital career development and to ensure we didn’t lose crucial training hours. Despite the challenges, it’s been a time of innovation and progress where we’ve had to re-think how to deliver not only role focussed training but also much needed support around health and wellbeing.

“Moving forwards, we’re now able to support and encourage more face-to-face learning that can also help to develop some of the softer and more interpersonal skills that can be difficult to teach remotely. Launching the new Academy hub in England is a milestone for the group, making it much easier for us to deliver high quality, expert training to our staff wherever they’re located.”