QA reviews

Hi there, I have to admit that I found this review personally very challenging to read and respond to. As a manager who was based out of the Slough office until very recently I am really upset to hear that there was a colleague I shared the office with that felt so down and demotivated but didn’t feel they could approach senior management to discuss it directly. I have spent time investigating Slough office conduct since this review was posted. I challenged Slough senior managers – going through each of the key points in this review to understand what they could be referring to and if they were aware of any issues. I have also spoken to our People Director to correlate your points to any potential HR grievances or issues that may have been raised to her team. There is no correlation. There are no reports of favoritism or known knowledge of it happening. Now, a fact that I am not disputing – is that we have a member of QA staff that feels so down and demotivated that they feel compelled to write a review such as this. That is not good and it is clear to anyone reading it that you are not happy. Something must not be right at work that is contributing to that unhappiness. I think it is worth adding at this point that our People team are always available to staff – providing the option to address concerns formally or informally, whichever you would prefer. This is to ensure that when dealing with issues employees don’t ever feel pitted against management when they want to address an issue. I would urge you to get in touch with a member of the People team directly if you believe there are real examples of favoritism or bias. We want to help and to address the problems you are having. With regards to communications – I hear you. We need to be doing more here and will be. We have already introduced new mechanisms to be able to better communicate with staff (internal video updates, new and improved staff magazine and internal staff comms roadshows). I encourage you to engage with these communications and let me know if there is more we could be doing on this.

Hi there - thanks for your review. I am very pleased that you like the team you work in and the facilities. Regarding your point regarding milestones, hopefully I have interpreted your review correctly and you are referring to apprenticeship learner milestones - and that these milestones refer to the key achievements apprentices need to hit to progress through their programme. If this is correct and I have understood correctly then by their very nature the learner and that learner's milestones are intrinsically linked. We are not trying to put the milestone ahead of the learner but using the concept of a milestone to ensure that our learners remain happy and on programme. We encourage and focus our delivery staff on supporting learners to hit the key milestones of their programme in a timely way. I can't apologise to you for doing this because we do it so that our learners stand the absolute best chance of smashing it on their apprenticeship. We know that learners have a far greater chance of falling behind and then not completing their learning programme if milestones are not hit in a timely manner. This would be a terrible outcome for the learner, their employer and not a sensible use of apprenticeship funds. However, we also know that there are always exceptions to this rule - learners that are having a difficult time at home who cannot commit to the programme any longer for example. In this case, pushing them through milestones despite their challenges would not be right. I encourage you to speak to your manager (or your manager's manager) if you feel that you are being asked to priroitise your learners progress incorrectly or you can contact me directly on the phone or via email (my number is on the internal directory) and I would be very happy to help to get any issue resolved together.