The Virgin Vision
March 21, 2008
Virgin trains has launched a training academy in Crewe, to serve as the learning and development centre for the company. A 23 strong ‘talent team’ will be based at the academy, tasked with looking after recruitment, training and career development for the company. Facilities at the centre will include training for new starters, new managers, and delivering emergency response training to enable staff to deal with major incidents. One of the main purposes of the academy will be to deliver a cultural change programme through ‘vision workshops’ – designed to change employee attitudes and behaviours to encourage them to realise their potential. These will be led by a team of industrial psychologists.
Having company ‘vision’ and ‘values’ can be really important in establishing a shared identity and culture within the organisation, and research has found that companies with shared values tend to perform better as a business. The company vision can be translated into loads of HR practices such as performance management – as the value words can be developed as competencies, and also for training purposes; like what’s being done at Virgin. I’m quite a believer in this sort of thing and in the future I’d probably like to do some work on it where I work. However it’s not just about having a vision and developing values – it’s no good having words if they’re not embedded in the behaviour of all employees, and this is something that has to start at the top. So, as Virgin has done, a company needs to make a commitment to driving forward the vision through the way people are managed and the way managers behave, which can come through effective recruitment, performance management and development opportunities.
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