Auger Site Investigations are the winners of the 2022 Good Youth Employment Awards for DEVELOPING PEOPLE. See their case study below for best practice.
About the Good Youth Employment Awards
Every year, youth employment experts Youth Employment UK hold the Good Youth Employment Awards at the Good Youth Employment Symposium. It’s an annual opportunity for HR leaders and decision makers to gather to achieve best practice with regards to youth attraction, engagement and retention.
Every year, organisations are invited to enter for the Awards in five categories relating to the core principles of good youth employment:
DEVELOPING PEOPLE Winner 2022:
Auger Site Investigations
What activities have you undertaken to improve your business practice?
At Auger, we sincerely believe in investing in the personal and professional growth of our team – ‘creating an employee oriented-culture’ is one of the four pillars of our mission. Developing young people forms a huge part of this, with 20% of our team under the age of 24, and a further 38% under 34.
Our passion for the development of young people inspired us to establish our ‘Auger Academy’ in 2016, a nationwide initiative designed to develop the next generation of Auger engineers and help those without experience to build a career in our industry. The Academy provides opportunities for our team to access further training, qualifications, and skills development, including apprenticeships and higher education to help them excel. To date, 33 Academy Engineers have graduated our Academy as Lead Engineers; 28 are currently enrolled in the programme, 18 of which have joined us within the last 12 months. Engineers joining our Academy are paired with a Senior Engineer in their location, who will be their mentor and principal trainer. Their progress is recorded via our in-house developed training platform, ‘The Hub’; each competency level, ‘toolbox talk’ and industry ticket is signed off by our Senior Engineer via the app. The ‘Hub’ allows all employees to set goals and monitor their progress. It also displays employees’ Personal Performance Dashboards, and features a range of training materials and e-learning courses.
Once ready, Academy Engineers ‘graduate’, join our team of Lead Engineers and begin independent work, still maintaining full access to their mentor’s support. Over 60% of our office team have accessed higher education or qualification, including 4 members of our Finance Department working towards CIMA or AAT qualifications, technicians studying to become Chartered Engineers, Surveyors or Loss Adjusters, and several others undertaking certified courses in Marketing, HR, Data Analysis, Business Management and Supply Chain Management.
We hold monthly refresher training through our ‘Breakfast Club’ and ‘Toolbox Talks’, as well as interactive learning sessions via ‘The Hub’. On average, all 150 Auger employees took part in 54 hours of training in 2021, despite the pandemic (8000+ hours of training in total).
Our apprentices at Auger HQ join the team four days a week, attending university or college on the fifth day to study a course that supports their chosen career path, with additional time arranged to study for assessments. They are mentored by a Senior Manager in their department, who provides a helping hand with their studies and ensures their role is delivering the experience needed to contextualise their learning where possible.
We currently employ 8 very successful apprentices, one of whom has progressed into a Junior Management role before graduating university. 55% of our colleagues have benefitted from the Academy by accessing external training and qualification. This does not include those who have gained Industry Certifications such as StreetWorks, Confined Space Entry, Moling, Jetting, WIAPS, Water Hygiene, Mechanical Excavation and First Aid at Work. When taking these into account, the figure reaches almost 90%. This investment in young peoples’development is the reason 85% of our leadership team began in entry-level positions, and 86% of our Deputy Managers are under 30.
All members of our leadership team receive comprehensive Leadership Training to support those accessing the Academy programme, with most Senior Managers having completed Level 3 and Level 5 of the CMI Leadership & Management course.
All employees take part in twice-yearly reviews with their team leader, which is an opportunity to support personal and professional development. These reviews cover employee wellbeing, happiness, career growth, and encourage discussion of how we can improve Auger as a place to work.
To keep our team involved in our vision, values and culture, we prioritise regular communication about how we can make Auger an employer of choice. Although our doors are always open for our colleagues to discuss whatever is on their mind, our 6 monthly employee NPS survey gives the opportunity to anonymously provide feedback on how we can improve the experience of being part of the Auger team.
We recently established an ‘Auger Council’ with representatives for Wellbeing, Sustainability, Charity, Social, as well as each department, to allow even more opportunity for feedback, collaboration and engagement. A combination of these ideas shape future changes, and communicating these developments lets everyone know their voice is heard. It is because of our commitment to our people that we were accredited in Investors in People Gold in 2020; this puts us in the top 2% of accredited UK organisations for our approach to leading, developing and caring for our team.
Our Auger Academy was shortlisted for the ‘Learning & Development Award’ at the 2021 Investors In People Awards, and Auger was shortlisted for the ‘Best Employer’ and ‘Outsourced Partner of the Year’ awards at this year’s British Claims Awards.
We have recently joined The 5% Club, committing to 5% of our workforce being in ‘earn and learn’ positions including apprentices and degree placements. As we currently have 30% of our colleagues working towards these qualifications as part of their role, we’re going to achieve the Gold Accreditation.
Our Auger Academy is a true reflection of the values our organisation is built upon and an integral part of the vision we strive to achieve: an employee centric environment where every individual feels valued, supported and encouraged to develop in the way they choose. The programme provides a pathway for young people with no experience to pursue their chosen career by taking their learning into their own hands with the support of industry experts.
By investing our time, attention and funding into our colleagues’ personal and professional goals, we are able to continue to sustainably grow our strong and talented workforce, and ensure Auger is a great place to build a successful career.
What improvements have you seen?
Our focus on development through the Auger Academy has had an exceptionally positive impact across our organisation, most importantly increasing employee engagement, satisfaction and retention, as well as elevating service levels, encouraging innovation and growing expertise amongst our team.
Our anonymous 6-monthly employee NPS survey (eNPS) provides employees with an opportunity to feedback on their experience via our leading HR package, Bamboo. Asked how likely they are to recommend Auger as a workplace, respondents score us 1-10, with those choosing 1-6 classed as detractors, 7-8 neutrals and 9-10 promoters; this is followed by a chance to give details of what they believe we do well and the areas in which we should improve. The final eNPS reflects employee satisfaction and engagement, and analysis places the spotlight on areas where we can make positive change.
In our initial 2019 survey, we were scored 29 with 57% of our team participating and 24% of respondents being detractors. In August 2022, after consistent commitment to expanding the opportunities and support being provided via the Academy, our score reached 53, with 92% rating us 7+. An impressive 75% of our team took part, with only 8% detractors and 70% promoters. During this time, the score given by those aged under 35 rose from 25 to 41.
At the time of establishing the Auger Academy in 2016, our employee turnover rate was 47.1%, with 33% of leavers being terminated due to performance standards. Having endeavoured to reduce this since by investing in a strong employee development strategy, we have reduced this to 27% for 2022, with only 5% being let go due to performance concerns.
In 2017, when we began measuring employee sentiment, only 40% felt ‘highly valued’; as of June 2022, 98% of our colleagues told us they felt ‘valued’ at Auger, and 67% highly valued.
The benefits of higher engagement and lower turnover have been far reaching and our service levels have increased across the board. Since the beginning of 2022, we have maintained our exceptional NPS of 90 and a 98% customer satisfaction score (average), and customer compliments have increased from 8% in 2017 to 30% in 2022. In our view, our investment in development has driven these service improvements in 3 ways:
- Employees feel empowered to propose innovative ideas, stimulating improvement of our service
- Employees accessing further education have developed and spread knowledge, resulting in a wealth of expertise
- Employees feel more confident to pursue additional responsibility, strengthening our leadership structure, with 85% of the leadership team having joined in entry level roles
Have these activities helped provide employment and/or learning and development opportunities for young people facing barriers to employment?
Our Academy is dedicated to training young people with no formal qualifications or previous experience in our industry and equipping them with the skills they need to excel; we have to date trained and mentored 33 engineers, with a further 28 currently in the programme.
Over half of our engineering workforce is now made up of former or current Academy members.
Through eliminating the need for prior experience in order to join our Auger Academy, we believe we are lifting the barriers young people can often face when seeking employment within their chosen career. When it comes to recruiting applicants, the only requirement is that they are willing to learn and have the ‘whatever it takes’ attitude.
