Developing Skills across Rentokil Initial
As a service-focused organisation the enhancement of colleagues’ skills remains an important priority for Rentokil Initial. This was exemplified by the company’s signing of the UK Government’s Skills Pledge in 2008.
In recent years the company has delivered accredited training to almost 2,000 colleagues across a wide range of training requirements including numeracy and literacy skills, customer service and administration.
Information about skills development in Rentokil Initial can be found within the Workplace sections of the Corporate Responsibility Annual Report. See Reports and Policies.
Accredited Training
Initial Facilities Services (IFS) has been the lead company for the development of NVQ and Skills for Life training. It provides its employees with a wide range of training schemes including:
- NVQ Level 2 and Level 3 – skills required for customer service, management and hospitality services;
- VRQ Level 2 – skills required for health and safety good practices, infection control and equality and diversity; and
- Skills for Life – helping to develop skills amongst the more disadvantaged of our workforce, including literacy and numeracy skills.
In 2009, 419 colleagues within the IFS division took part in training which delivers a formal qualification such as NVQ. As part of this programme (undertaken with the Learning and Skills Council) a training needs analysis is undertaken for each business area. This identifies skills development and qualification requirements.
The nature of IFS’ workforce, comprising a high percentage of migrant and low-skilled workers, means that providing these training courses directly benefits the business in achieving its commercial and service objectives, and supports the individual.
New Training Facilities
Rentokil Initial has recently opened two new training facilities.
- A new Rentokil training facility which is the first of its kind in the UK pest control industry and teaches technicians the practical aspects of pest control in a controlled environment.
- A new Initial Facilities Services training centre was opened in Canary Wharf, London, which has specific training environments to cover the range of possible cleaning tasks, such as in hotels, kitchens, offices, washrooms and flooring. It also provides training for the potential hazards that may arise, such as cleaning skills for dealing with blood and body fluids and sewage cleaning.
Ambius University
Building the right relationship with employees from the outset is essential for long term commitment and motivation. Ambius 
views this activity as being of critical importance. As part of its new Ambius University programme, it has introduced a “New Colleague Engagement” programme. This includes an induction booklet that is available in 9 languages.
In line with this multilingual approach, the division’s own internal newsletter, Insight, has moved from a global document to one that is produced in local languages with local news.
As one of the first elements produced by the Ambius University, the “New Colleague Engagement” programme is the building block to achieve its mission that “through building knowledge and identifying excellence, the new University will develop tools and provide support, which will empower all colleagues to deliver a consistent service experience to our customers”.
Programmes in development include the Service Experience Workshops and the Customer Engagement and Colleague Exchange programmes. The latter programme offers Ambius colleagues the opportunity to experience life and work in a completely new city or country.
In its current activity, the Ambius University is launching the Big Green Elephant initiative with two major aims: reducing the environmental footprint in Ambius and getting the benefits of interior landscaping recognized by the leading green building rating schemes around the world.