Our stories
Throughout my eight years at CC, the learning and development opportunities have massively evolved. I have progressed through a few job roles and am now head of global L&D. When I joined, the department only concentrated on technical training but now we focus on the many different learning and development aspects. There are a range of ways that individuals can enhance their career here, but before I explore this, let me dive into how our team has grown.
Three years into joining Cambridge Consultants, we started to work more closely with the HR function and I began to lead the project of implementing our new training system. This allowed more people to log onto their own training courses and manage it themselves.
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In 2018, I took on the job role as training manager when I was pregnant and led a team of three people. After coming back from maternity leave, I found evidence to turn the team into a L&D function and investigated ways that could help people excel in their job role. This led me to reshaping our learning offer and creating a more personal led approach.
In 2020, I became a qualified coach which allowed me to mentor anyone around the business. I was able to see what employees needed to push their career in the right direction, the challenges around conducting this for a range of individuals and how to successfully implement this throughout the whole company. It was important for me to work closely with department and divisional managers to figure out what their requirements were.
As the team grew, I started to develop lots of collateral that involved diversity, equity and inclusion as well as a focus on unique job role demands. Some of this involved continued professional development (CPD), a mentoring programme and a well thought out L&D offer.
It has always been important to me to create a coaching culture. I enjoy taking my knowledge learnt through external networks to make sure it has impact and business focus. Instead of just short term upskilling, it’s good to be able to direct our efforts into what will make a real difference.
Opportunities for new starters at CC
Every new starter has an induction programme that is designed to get everyone up to speed with relevant colleagues around the company. A buddy and mentor will be assigned before joining us and will be on hand for any questions or queries. All courses are dependent on specific job roles, as well as any external training too. We always encourage L&D conversations and these allow people to see how they can succeed in their career.
All employees have access to the L&D offer every year. There are roughly 200 – 250 internal training courses given by technical experts from around the company. Each new starter has predefined and prescheduled inductions to learn core CC knowledge about who we are and what we do. There is also focus on the progression of soft skills and personal development. The core training offer targets all methods of upskilling, all dependent on internal and external courses. Business requirements sit within this and include mandatory training. There is the continuous opportunity for people to amplify their own development, whether that’s with professional memberships, specialist forums and lots more.
We empower everyone to take control of their own career and we have so many mechanisms to support this. Active encouragement is also given to attend specific trade shows or conferences to influence colleagues to perform better.
Working at CC gives me so much freedom to talk and engage with lots of people. Individuals across all divisions are willing to help and guide others. Ranging from corporate through to the technical divisions, we are all interested in what each other are working on and that’s what makes CC such a collaborative and interactive place to be.
We have had many amazing team members who have been promoted through positions and even moved internally through the technical divisions. It’s great that we aren’t just from an admin background, everyone in the team has a variety of experiences and skills. And this highlights the level of choice and unlocked potential that CC promotes.
If you are looking for a workplace where you can constantly progress and succeed, then find out more on our careers pages.
Expert authors
Heidi has been at CC for over eight years and has worked through multiple job roles during her time here.
