November is National Career Development Month – a month aimed at encouraging employers to inspire and empower their staff to achieve their career goals. To mark this, we’re taking the opportunity to reflect on our commitment to the personal development of employees at Copart.
The personal development of our people is something we actively encourage at Copart. We’re committed to supporting our people in growing their skills, knowledge, and experience so that they can maximise their true potential.
Copart Apprenticeships
We’ve made a significant investment into apprenticeship schemes, offering our employees the chance to learn new skills in areas which interest them, gain industry recognised qualifications, and potentially progress within our business.
To date, we have invested in over 41 apprenticeships across our business in a range of areas including Customer Service, Team Leading, LGVs and Vehicle Damage Assessment.
Back in 2017, following the 2017 Government introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy, we took the opportunity to invest into apprenticeship schemes within Copart and piloted an LGV Apprenticeship.
The scheme, which offered our employees the chance to gain the recognised qualifications and develop the essential skills to become LGV Drivers, required a minimum of 12 months training with provider WTTL and included 12 physical days of attendance at a training centre.
Any Copart employees, regardless of their current job role, were able to apply for an LGV Apprenticeship if they were over 21, with a clean driving licence and a good attendance and disciplinary record.
We were delighted to support four Copart employees in successfully completing LGV Apprenticeships and, as a result, these graduates have all now progressed into LGV Driver roles with Copart.
Following the success of the LGV Apprenticeship, we went on to develop further apprenticeships for our employees in Customer Service and Team Leading, producing another six successful graduates by the end of 2019.
We were pleased to provide these opportunities to people from a wide range of job roles within our business, giving them the opportunity to learn new skills and improve their prospects for future career opportunities.
Two of our Team Leading Apprenticeship graduates were promoted into new supervisory and management roles, as a result of their newly acquired skills and training.
In 2020, we’ve continued to explore different areas within our business where we could potentially invest in training and development opportunities for our people and help them to maximise their true potential.
At the beginning of 2020, we started the new year with the commencement of ten Customer Service Level 2 Apprenticeships.
Then, in July 2020, we announced the launch of two new apprenticeship schemes – Level 2 Customer Service and Level 3 Team Leader/Supervisor. We’ve fully launched the first cohort of Team Leaders with 22 participants and the Customer Service apprenticeships will be fully launched by the end of November.
We currently have a Vehicle Damage Assessor Apprenticeship level 3 running with 6 participants and we anticipate a further 17 participants to commence in June 2021.
And, also in the pipeline is the launch of the Operations Management Level 5 apprenticeship, which we hope to announce more details on by the end of the year.
“Copart apprenticeships are a fantastic opportunity for our employees to grow their skills, knowledge and experience and will result in a formal, industry recognised qualification. We are delighted to be able to continuously expand our apprenticeship offering and look forward to supporting many employees in achieving their learning and development goals.”
Jay Honour, Human Resources Manager
Engineers of the Future
We’ve made a significant investment into engineers of the future and we’re very proud to say that 90% of our engineering force is either fully qualified, or in the process of studying towards, AQP standard, ATA VDA or IMI NVQ VDA 3/4 qualifications.
The rising number of electric and hybrid vehicles, alongside ever-more complex technology, means it is essential for engineers who are responsible for damage assessment to have highly detailed levels of knowledge and competency in handling and categorising an increasing number of specialist vehicles. So, we’re pleased to say that 95% of our engineering team have achieved IMI Level 2 in Electric/Hybrid Vehicle Routine Maintenance Activities.
We recognise the importance of continuously upskilling our engineers to ensure that our insurance customers receive professional, accurate reports which enable them to process the claim correctly with quicker turnaround times.
We are proud to be able to offer a clear and solid career path within engineering at Copart, which provides ongoing personal development and the opportunity to gain recognised and professional qualifications. We are not only ensuring that as a business we are providing the highest levels of service and expertise to our insurance customers to allow accurate, quicker settlement of claims, but we are also investing into the Copart engineers of the future.
Since the new Code of Practice for the Categorisation of Motor Vehicle Salvage came into effect in 2017, we’ve been committed to providing our engineers with the necessary training and support to achieve industry compliance and provide the highest levels of accuracy and quality to our insurance customers.
In line with the Code of Practice requirements, we currently have just under 50 engineers who have, or are on a pathway to be accredited with, AQP (Appropriately Qualified Person) status, further strengthening and supporting capacity across our 15 UK operation centres.
Going forward, we will also be exploring IMI Level 2 qualifications in Electric/Hybrid Vehicle Hazard Management for Emergency and Recovery Personnel. We’re also currently working in association with Thatcham Research’s Automotive Academy to provide NVQ Level 3 & 4 Vehicle Damage Evaluation.
We are continuing to prepare for the inevitable increase of more specialist and technologically advanced vehicles over the next few years and are determined to remain ahead of the game with the training and development of our people.
Learning Management System
In 2020, we launched our new Learning Management System, which has transformed the way we deliver training within Copart.
Our business has continued to grow and expand, so we knew it was important to provide the very best training tools to attract, develop and retain people to help our business continue to be successful and profitable.
The new system provides a one-stop hub of structured and consistent training modules for everyone to access, whether they are a new starter or are a longer serving employee looking to refresh or update their knowledge.
Particularly valuable to our new starters is the induction module, providing mandatory and uniform training to ensure that we are delivering one consistent message. This section includes a Vehicle Journey video explaining who our customers are and the process a vehicle goes through from arriving at one of our Operation Centres through to being sold at our online auctions.
This has proved a fantastic way for new employees to understand what we do and how all the different areas of the business fit together, giving them a good, solid understanding of Copart.
The LMS system allows the user to be in the driving seat and control their learning, at their own pace. They can access training materials that have been specifically tailored for their job role/team as well as additional self-service training modules to help support and improve their skills and personal development.
From an administrative point of view, the LMS system enables Copart to manage training more efficiently, as can store training records electronically. This means that records can be centralised, making them easier to control, maintain and access.
The LMS system has been particularly valuable during the pandemic, providing teammates working from home with a suite of Remote Working training modules. This training covers home working essentials including setting up your workspace, time management and tips on how to communicate and collaborate effectively.
“The LMS system not only opens up the opportunity for us to give job specific training, but also allows us to create self-development modules that individuals can complete due to their own curiosity or development ambitions. I’m looking forward to working with the management teams to identify what our employees would like and supporting them with their development.”
Jay Honour, Human Resources Manager
People with Potential
Our People with Potential scheme at Copart helps to identify Team Leaders and Managers of the future and is a great way for us to keep customer-facing teammates motivated by expanding their skills and knowledge.
Already a company-wide initiative used within our Operation Centres, we introduced this scheme to our Wootton Head Office in 2019.
Many of our Customer Service and Claims Settlement Advisors were involved in the project work for our CCA Global Standard and this really helped to shine a light on individuals within the business who demonstrated previously under-utilised skill sets. This prompted us to roll out People with Potential at Wootton.
The development of these teammates is structured and maintained through their annual Personal Development Plan. As well as providing relevant training courses, we encourage wider industry knowledge by taking these teammates on customer visits and to industry events.
We have already seen a success story within our Customer Service Centre, with one of our Customer Service Advisors who was identified under the People with Potential scheme having now been promoted to a Team Leader position.
This scheme also gave us the opportunity to introduce Knowledge Experts, positioned between advisor and team leader level, to provide additional levels of responsibility and accommodate further personal development. Many of these Knowledge Experts are now involved in the training of new starters to our business and the testing and implementation of new processes.
We’re delighted that our commitment to personal development continues to align with the National Career Development Month vision – ‘for all people to attain fulfilling career and life goals’.
Are you interested in a career with Copart? Check out our current vacancies at copart.co.uk/jobs.