Virgin Trains talent academy hosts newly-elected Mayor of Crewe and Nantwich
Friday, 16 May 2008 13:57
The newly-elected Mayor of Crewe and Nantwich, Councillor Brian Silvester has today visited The new Talent Academy for Virgin Trains in Crewe. The visit followed an event at Crewe railway station where the Mayor was invited to put the last plant into the newly-created station garden.
Virgin Trains Director Human Resources, Patrick McGrath said: "We are delighted with our new purpose-built Talent Academy. It supports our vision that we will only succeed by making it possible for our people to develop and use their talents and skills. Visitors to the Academy will see immediately that we live up to our status as an Investor in People by continuing to improve our facilities."
The Talent Academy is the new home of the Virgin Trains Talent Team, looking after recruitment, training and career development. The team had previously been based at offices on Crewe station.
There is a Recruitment Assessment Suite at the Academy. When new starters join our business they will spend their first few weeks at the Talent Academy. Train Managers spend around ten weeks before they go out to work on trains. The Academy will also house most of our Vision workshops - our cultural change programme that we are running throughout the organisation.
Refresher training such as Safety and Food Hygiene will also be conducted at the Academy.
The new Academy has an Emergency Response suite so that our staff can be skilled up to deal with major incidents. We hope to offer this training package to other Train Operating Companies too.
The Academy will have a small Learning Centre to provide online access for people studying through Learn Direct.
The Academy will be used not only for our frontline people (stations, customer service assistants, train managers), but also to deliver management development programmes for the Virgin Trains management team.
The Academy is expected to deliver 2,300 training days during 2008.
The Academy is in the Crewe Business Park, a 15 minute walk from Crewe railway station. The location was identified with the help of the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) and Cheshire County Council's Business Location Service.
For further information contact the Virgin Trains Press Office on 0845 000 3333 or visit our media website at
www.virgintrainsmediaroom.com
Disclaimer:
Press releases published on this page are from key opinion formers who promote their organisation's activities by subscribing to a campaign site within politics.co.uk. politics.co.uk does not endorse, edit, or attempt to balance the opinions expressed on this page. The content of press releases are wholly the responsibility of the originating company or organisation.