23 November 2011

Lucketts Travel receives HR award for its Training Academy

Fareham based Lucketts Travel has received an award for developing the skills of its people through its dedicated Driver Training Academy.

The leading coach hire and travel company picked up the employee development accolade at the Strategic HR Awards that recognises the best performing HR executives in the South East.

A unique quality of the Strategic HR Awards, which are sponsored by leading Hampshire law firm Moore Blatch Solicitors, is that no company can put themselves forward or be nominated. The winners were identified from research commissioned by Moore Blatch which was based on independently validated criteria.

Lucketts Travel was selected from 5,000 companies in the south as a leader in people management and development from evidence that showed it was a company whose approach was driven by being pro-active and embracing rather than reactive and compliance box ticking.

Lucketts Travel impressed because of its investment in its own training academy. Every year the company invests £100,000 in driver training and have seen over 200 courses completed in the last 18 months. Lucketts set up the Academy in 2007 when it noticed a shortage of drivers who would have the right customer service ethos.

Katherine Maxwell, partner at Moore Blatch, said: "With most SMEs, the so-called soft skills are usually delivered on an intuitive basis. But Lucketts Travel, which operates some 80 vehicles, decided that the only way to sustain standards that reflect how they wanted the company to be perceived was to invest in their own training academy."

Lucketts director, Ian Luckett, said: “The Lucketts Travel Academy takes a progressive approach to the training and development of the 150 drivers it has in its fleet. This award recognises the commitment Lucketts makes to its staff’s development and the safety of its customers and we are honoured to have received it.”

An invited audience saw the award being presented at Chineham Business Park, Basingstoke.

Caption (l-r): The employee development award was presented to Ian Luckett by Katherine Maxwell.