Wesleyan Assurance Society

Craig Errington is the Chief Executive of Wesleyan Assurance Society based in the Midlands. He is also the Chairman of the National Skills Academy for Financial Services (NSAFS) Regional Employer Board for the Midlands and in that capacity, sits on the NSAFS National Board. Wesleyan provides specialist financial advice and tailored products to selected professional customer groups, primarily doctors, dentists, lawyers and teachers.

Craig views working with the NSAFS as beneficial on many levels:

‘I started off from the basis of what’s in it for Wesleyan? I looked at that from two perspectives. First, from an employer’s perspective; was the work and the initiative likely to benefit our organisation and was it going to help in some way to achieve our long term objectives? I then looked at it from the perspective of our employees – is it likely to add any value to them, would they appreciate the NSAFS providing support to them, is it likely to help their careers and their professional development?

‘‘We get a lot of different organisations offering help and support, and quite often that takes up a lot of senior management time and isn’t always worthwhile. The NSAFS convinced me that they are able to save me a lot of time because instead of having to find out who can provide supported training or how apprenticeships might work or what funding might be available and so on, I am able to explain to the Regional Director what the needs of the business are and then she talks to all of these other organisations and brings us back a package. That saves us a lot of time and ends up with us operating in more efficient manner.

‘There are number of bodies that work with the NSAFS, including Birmingham Metropolitan College (lead training provider for the NSAFS in the Midlands) and other training providers. That’s one of the greatest appeals, because it takes us a lot of time to talk to all of those organisations and the NSAFS can save us that time and effort.’

The NSAFS’s work around Financial Capability projects for further education colleges is another area which can be valuable for industry employers:

‘The project starts off working with some of the schools and colleges in order to educate young people about managing their finances and that does two things- it helps our future customers to have a better understanding of the sorts of products we provide, and that in itself will create demand. Secondly, it causes a greater interest in the financial services industry and some of these students will be interested in going further and learning more about the sort of jobs we can offer and it may encourage them in terms of their education or applying for positions with local employers.

‘From the student perspective, the fact that employers endorse this activity and it has the stamp of the NSAFS means they are more likely to be able to get employment, given that we understand the quality of the training that they have received.

‘It is not a threat to their internal training programmes and trainers. In fact quite often, the training itself can be carried out in the way it was before but perhaps some funding can support that activity and maybe it can carry the badge of the NSAFS which gives it more value to their employees. It can also provide a great resource, particularly for a CEO, where someone is going to go out there, find all the materials, look for the solutions and come back with a package which may add extra value to the training you are already providing, or find a way that gives you access to different types of funding to support that.’

Craig talks about the long term benefits of supporting the NSAFS in their work around delivering new talent to the industry:

‘In generating interest for younger people in the financial services industry, the NSAFS will give employers a stream of people who will be interested in employment in the future, and that can only be of value to both individual organisations and to the region as a whole.

‘If customers score the quality of our service higher as a result of being served by more qualified people, and if our sales results increase on the back of that then there is no doubt we will be able to call it a successful initiative. This is a long term activity and employers should be looking at what their workforce is going to look like in the next three, five, 10 years and thinking about ways in which the NSAFS can support them.’

http://www.wesleyan.co.uk/