The Ideal Academy – your career, your way
At Ideal, we always look to employ ambitious people. To keep them happy, we therefore have to ensure that each person has a pathway that enables them to learn and progress in a way that suits them. That’s what the Ideal Academy is all about.
How does it work?
Everyone has the opportunity to join the Ideal Academy, where we work with the individual to understand their starting point and where they want to go.
Emily Bignell, Head of People & Culture, says the important point is that every learning pathway is tailored. “We’ll look at the role they are in as well as the skills and abilities they already have, before helping them to understand what they’ll need to get to the next level.”
Investment in three core areas
What’s required will depend on the capabilities of the person and the demands of the role, but typically, training and development input will focus on three core areas:
- Certifications – these may be vendor-specific qualifications like a Cisco Network qualification (CCNA) or Fortinet cyber training, or other qualifications with relevant industry bodies or institutes.
- Behaviours – this will be training and experience around soft skills the individual will need to develop if they want to progress into a more senior role. This might include attributes like proactivity, communication or teamwork.
- Skills – these will relate to the chosen role. For example, for someone working as a Service Centre Engineer, troubleshooting, understanding ITIL key concepts and incident management will be core skills that need to be mastered for progression.
“What really appealed to me about Ideal’s academy programme was the idea of working with a dedicated mentor who can aid with my personal development in a learning environment. Learning alongside being mentored by an experienced Account Director will enable me to gain invaluable insights into how I can improve my communications in complex client dynamics – supporting me to grow in my role.”
Account Manager, Ideal
Mentoring as a key component
As well as working closely with their Line Manager, everyone in the Ideal Academy also gets to choose a mentor from anywhere within the business. This gives them someone who’ll take an interest in their progression and will encourage them along the way.
Emily says it brings accountability too: “As most of us know, the intention to learn new things and progress can easily be forgotten when everyday life gets busy. Being mentored by someone in the business provides a level of accountability. We also find the mentors get a great sense of satisfaction from the role too.”
Support from day one
Once the individual’s pathway has been defined, the Ideal Academy creates a flexible learning plan for each person. The company will help with internal training sessions and fund external examinations. Participants have access to the Udemy learning platform and CBT Nuggets too, which are particularly useful for developing both technical and soft skills.
“It helps us to understand where each person wants to go. That’s good for resource planning and makes it easier for us to align individual employee ambitions with company growth. It’s a win-win.”
Head of People & Culture, Ideal
A clear ambition that everyone can get behind
Lots of Ideal employees are benefiting from the Academy. They appreciate the investment in themselves, are enjoying learning and feel motivated.
Emily explains that the Ideal Academy benefits the company too. “It helps us to understand where each person wants to go. That’s good for resource planning and makes it easier for us to align individual employee ambitions with company growth. It’s a win-win.”