An L&D Consultant at Aegon UK, Mark made the most of his quiet time in lockdown to gain his Level 5 qualification, which normally takes up to a year to complete.
Described by his Reed Learning adviser Joseph Grech as an “exemplar candidate”, not only was Mark able to juggle a busy job with his CIPD studies, he managed the distraction of adopting a rescue dog as well!
“Mark’s professionalism and sheer dedication was evident from our first meeting when we set goals together and discussed how he wanted to progress,” Joseph recalls
“His written research report around the implementation of a chat function for the company’s sales team following the shift to home working along with the training requirements associated with this, was timely and insightful. He has been a pleasure to work with,” he adds.
A former secondary school teacher for ten years and head of year for five, Mark joined the financial services company 18 months ago. Although his transferrable teaching skills enabled him to move seamlessly into his first L&D role, he wanted a professional qualification to back up his experience and to improve his employability in the future.
The programme linked perfectly to my job which brought the learning to life. Having the qualification has broadened my skills and made me think of other solutions to support people rather than just doing a classroom session,” he says.
When working from home, Mark was able to use his former commuting time to study. “And at weekends, there really wasn’t very much else to do during lockdown so it was easy to crack on with the course,” he explains.
“The VLE was great for accessing all the resources I needed to write the assignments without needing to flick through hundreds of books. The fact that it was all set up and available online whenever I wanted was really helpful. The webinars were so useful and allowed me to prep for each assignment. My adviser Joseph was a one-stop shop as he also led all the webinars. He was brilliant at getting across all the academic theory and really supportive throughout my learning. He always came back to me very quickly and his feedback on my assignments helped me to produce better work,” Mark adds.
Now Mark has completed his qualification he feels he has the knowledge to improve in his current role and is more prepared for new opportunities in the future.
