Giles Nunn, Head of People and Innovation at Ellacotts tells us about the firm’s long working relationship with Reed Business School and why the unique learning environment makes us their first choice for educating their trainees.
When did you start working with Reed Business School and why did you choose us as your learning provider?
We’ve been working with Reed Business School for a long time. Ellacotts had the relationship with Reed before I started in 2007, so our relationship has lasted more than 20 years.
Over the years I've always had the opportunity move away to another provider, but we've never had need to and never wanted to. The reason being that the relationships and service is excellent and it works really well.
How many students have you sent to Reed Business School and how does training tie into your recruitment strategy?
More than 80 students have attended Reed whilst at Ellacotts, maybe up to 100. We usually send around 7 to 10 trainees every year.
Apprenticeships are a big part of Ellacotts recruitment strategy. One of our key selling points for Ellacotts is that we develop people as individuals. We have a strap line which is “Enabling Success” and what we try and tell people is enabling successes means the same for our clients as it does for our people. Everything we do is enabling the success of our clients, our people or both!
We’ve got a really good, structured plan for our people. Trainees might have a particular path in mind; they may want to become a manager, or they might want to become a partner. They tell us what success means to them and then we make that happen. We try and demonstrate that we love our senior people to be homegrown. We obviously recruit externally as well, but of our nine partners, six are developed from within. Anyone can say the words, but then we can demonstrate it.
Reed’s a big part of this process for us because when trainees come in, we explain that we’ve got this fantastic place to learn, it’s unique to any other provider. We sometimes say it’s a bit like Hogwarts. We get Reed to come and present at the recruitment events that we do for our trainees, so it's all part of the whole thing.
How does Reed Business School help develop your trainees?
It’s a great environment and the good thing is because we’ve been going with Reed for so long, all of our managers who are counselling our trainees - they've all done it too. They can say “Did you have the great food? Did you share or did you have a single room?” It's all shared and lived experiences, so they can talk about exactly the same place that this person's going to next week. And usually it's the same tutor or it'll be someone that they'll see that is familiar.
That's why we love the relationship. Everybody's used to it and so it works really well. There's changes in apprenticeships, all the rules keep changing, but actually Reed is the constant. So, it makes everybody feel very comfortable and it trains people in a standardised, consistent way.
What do you think the benefits of learners staying at The Manor are?
I think the residential stay is important. In recent years, we've had a few people learn remotely and a few people travelling back and forth, but we always say our strong preference to stay in The Manor. There's a couple of reasons for that.
One is you gain relationships that last your entire life. The people you meet are other accountancy professionals who might stay in practice, or they might go into industry and as a practice we've won business off the back of people who went to Reed. That person became a finance director as opposed to working practice and then they've gone, “Oh, I know you. Let's work together.”
It's a really safe way to start networking. You're all in the same boat together, so it doesn't feel like networking where you're thrust into a room and told to go and talk to these people - that's terrifying.
Instead, you're all learning together, and you've already got these connections that at some point will blossom in later life, and either you'll just go out to dinner with them from time to time, or you'll work together professionally in some way.
Another reason is staying at Reed is that it help keep everyone focused. If you’re at Reed, you’re there all the time and you're talking about the learning. “What did you learn today or what was good about that? What did you struggle with?” And you're talking to all people in similar positions who are doing exactly the same thing. This is then repeated and cemented over an intensive period. It's a great way of distilling all of that learning into one space.
And at what other training provider can you play croquet between lessons? It just doesn't happen. It's really good.
Do you think Reed Business School gives apprentices the social aspect of the university experience without having the debt?
We have a mixture of both A level students and graduates, so some have already gone through that experience and they've already got all of that.
My wish is that apprenticeships become more and more commonplace for people leaving A Levels, I think they're the right thing to do.
I would strongly encourage people to do apprenticeships as opposed to go to university for things like accountancy.
Some subjects do need university exposure and that's absolutely fine, but I think apprenticeships are underutilised.
Reed gives the social element that maybe a general apprenticeship wouldn’t, although there are plenty of apprenticeship employers where they create that social environment themselves as we try to at Ellacotts.
Would you recommend Reed Business School to other businesses? Why?
Of course. I talk to lots of other accountancy practices all the time at conferences and group forums. We do talk about training and I do talk about Reed and say that it is a great provider.
It’s the unique style that Reed has, the competitors find it hard to differentiate. Whereas Reed has got this unique set up just because of who you are that it can be done differently.
Your pass rates help as well!
Do you think Reed offers a more personalised customer service than other learning providers?
100%. It's just a very different service. I was on the phone to Johanna [Niehues, Performance Coach at Reed Business School] this morning, talking about a trainee who she knows, and she gets personally involved with. I can talk about an individual and talk about what their learning looks like, we can tailor it to what we want. It just wouldn't work that way with some other providers.
Reed is just a much more tailored service. It is unique and the service is excellent.