Inductions

Upon joining Hodge, employees are taken through a comprehensive welcome and induction in their first month. This gives employees a chance to understand who we are as a brand and what our values are. It also gives a great opportunity to meet people from across the business, which is especially important when working remotely.

All employees also get the chance to take part in a session called ‘Meet the CEO’, where they get an hour with our CEO David Landen to ask questions they have about Hodge.

Personal development

We encourage all colleagues to work with their line manager to draw up personal development plans, both short term and long term. This helps employees identify skills they want to improve upon as well as where they want to go in their career, and the steps that they need to take to get there.

We have many resources for colleagues to use for personal development. Internally we have Hodge Learning, but we also offer many specialist external qualifications through external partnerships, such as with Cardiff and Vale College.

L&D officer

Our learning and development officer is responsible for ensuring all colleagues feel supported in their careers, so everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential.

This involves meeting with new starters and making sure they know what is available to them, as well as catching up with colleagues and gaining feedback on where we can improve.

Graduate schemes

We have been an active member of the Welsh Contact Centre Forum Graduate Scheme for several years. This offers the opportunity for graduates to explore the financial services sector.

There are many colleagues with us now who started as part of the graduate scheme, all of which have grown into new roles and taken on additional responsibilities over the years. In fact, managing director for Mortgages, Ryan Davies, started out on the graduate scheme.

Financial services compulsory modules

Working in banking comes with a lot of responsibility, as well as many different rules and regulations which we need to follow to ensure we support our customers effectively. All our employees are required to complete structured learning throughout the year. These topics include cyber security, vulnerable customers, conduct risk, money laundering and many others.

Qualifications

At Hodge we’re committed to developing the skills of our employees and recognising development and education can benefit everyone. It’s our policy to support employees in receiving development and educational appropriate to their role and future career aspirations, whether this be an academic or professional qualification.

Hodge Learning

Hodge Learning is a platform that puts the power of learning & development in our employees hands and is available to all our employees to utilise via the intranet. We have 83 online modules which includes e-learning modules/virtual workshops internal and external training, for our colleagues to explore. These include:

  • Leadership skills
  • Business skills
  • Innovation and change
  • Customer experience
  • Personal effectiveness
  • IT skills
  • Wellbeing

Cardiff and Vale College

We have a direct link to Cardiff and Vale college to offer external training courses to staff. This includes ILM courses for staff to improves their leadership and management skills as well as others.

Last year we had 50 colleagues sign up for external leadership qualifications through Cardiff and Vale college.