BaxterStorey is paving the way for the future of its employees

Overview

Built on culinary expertise, BaxterStorey is the UK’s largest independent hospitality foodservice provider, employing over 6,000 people at more than 400 different sites. Since their start in 2000, their portfolio has grown to include over 400 clients across the hospitality, education, retail and banking industries. BaxterStorey specialises in bringing high-quality, sustainable catering and hospitality services to clients in a way that fits their needs, budgets and facilities.

During their 21 years of operation, 13 of those years have involved a rewarding collaboration with the UK’s leading apprenticeship training provider, HIT Training. BaxterStorey is striving to cultivate an atmosphere with motivated, highly-skilled employees by including nationally recognised qualifications as a part of their employment package.

Baxterstorey’s Training Manager, Stephanie Cadogan said: “We’re delighted to offer a joint learning experience with HIT Training for our employees. The inclusion of HIT Training’s apprenticeship programme as a part of our own propels us to another level. Due to the incentive to gain nationally recognised qualifications, our staff have increased motivation and more structured goals. Additionally, apprenticeships have given a sense of prestige to our training programme.”

The problem

With a workforce in the thousands, having a team of employees who feel valued, purposeful and equipped for their career is at the heart of their employment structure.

BaxterStorey strives to uphold these values by running training programmes in catering, leadership, and customer service. However, despite giving their employees the skills to succeed in their roles, they recognised that the lack of any formal reward in their training programmes presented risks of low motivation, staff retention and the absence of creating career paths for their employees.

Stephanie said: “We delved deeper into the purpose of our training programmes and although we offer fantastic opportunities to learn and refine skills – we felt there was a lack of incentive to learn. So we offer company-wide access to earn formal, nationally recognised qualifications to help the careers of our team members.”

The solution

BaxterStorey worked in partnership with HIT Training to implement apprenticeships within their training programmes. This supercharged their training by giving employees the opportunity to learn from industry experts in HIT Training, gain nationally recognised qualifications, and provide clear career paths.

Stephanie said: “The introduction of apprenticeships and co-delivering our workshops with HIT Training has yielded so many positive results! Employees now have twice the amount of training resources without any added stress. We offer opportunities for employees to specialise in their area of work. Most importantly, our collaboration has produced a confident group of employees, motivated to gain external and nationally recognised qualifications.”

Spread over 400 different sites throughout the UK, BaxterStorey recognised that implementing a company-wide training collaboration faced its challenges. Luckily, HIT Training’s team of Training Consultants are based in every area of the country, providing specialist training to every business they work with, no matter where they’re based.

Stephanie said: “HIT Training’s large team of Training Consultants are based throughout the UK, closely mirroring our own locations, allowing all our staff the opportunity to work with expert trainers locally.”

The results

Starting in their catering team, HIT Training and BaxterStorey began their collaboration focussing on their culture of culinary expertise. HIT Training delivers their Chef Academies country-wide, providing a variety of industry experience, culinary craft and skill-centred learning through practical cookery workshops for professional chefs. Through the co-delivery of HIT Training’s Chef Academy, Baxterstorey were able to produce immediate results, fitting with their values as an organisation.

Stephanie said: “Thanks to HIT Training tailoring their delivery model to fit the values and goals of the businesses they work with, we’ve delivered Chef Academies on sustainability – one of our core values. Our staff have received comprehensive training on utilising ingredients, resulting in a reduction in food waste in our kitchens country-wide so far.”

Following the success of the Chef Academy, BaxterStorey and HIT Training have co-delivered a wide range of hugely successful staff development projects. Stephanie said: “HIT Training has helped us put training at the core of our employment model. We’re now continuing our success, by co-delivering service, leadership and senior management academies. In all, over 600 BaxterStorey employees have benefitted from attending these academies so far.”  

With a look towards the future, BaxterStorey and HIT Training are striving for more success. Stephanie said: “Despite the harsh circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, HIT Training has fully supported learners through online learning and interactive online workshops. We’re excited for the future and internal communication projects underway across all BaxterStorey teams, as we’re looking to increase accessibility to apprenticeships at all levels in our business.”