Meet the team: USS Training
This month we spoke to Jill Galvin who heads up the USS training team. Many of you will have already met Jill but did you know how the training team work with employers? Now you can learn about the work of her team, why she came to work at USS and how you can sign up for employer training!
What team do you run?
I run the training team that supports training for the USS Pensions Business and our participating employers.
We work in partnership across USS and with the employers to support employer, member and staff engagement, and any Scheme changes.
Can you tell us what you like about working at USS?
I love that we are in a service-based company, here to support our members and that we work in partnership with the employers.
I used to be a lecturer and this gives me a deeper understanding of the challenges they face and how important it is to support our members on their journey with USS.
To me, it’s all about the people I work with, at USS we have a team of good people, we are all experts in our specialist areas and it is a delight working with teams across both Liverpool and London.
Working in the Liver Building, I feel proud coming into such an iconic building every day, in my home town.
What is it that excites you most about your role?
Having worked in learning and development for 30 years for a range of financial services companies, plus other sectors including utilities, retail and manufacturing, this role is unique.
Never have I known a role where you have the opportunity to train and educate your clients!
It’s so interesting and rewarding to do that.
It’s a privilege to provide six training courses for our clients to attend, in Liverpool and London. If you’re interested in finding out more, or joining us for one of the courses there’s lots of information on training page of the employer portal or you can contact the team.
I’m looking forward to 2020 as we are going to work, in partnership again, to design and deliver new online modules for the employers.
Tell us about the role of the training team, what do they do?
Working in partnership with USS colleagues and employers we support:
- Employer engagement, by sustaining and improving employer/member education through our bespoke USS training courses.
- Member engagement by designing and delivering a training programme for Pensions Operations that enhances their client focus skills and approach.
- Staff engagement through providing learning and development that equips our colleagues to fulfil their purpose at USS and activates their potential and career goals.
- Scheme changes - Supporting the training of scheme changes effectively and thereby enhancing service to members.
Who is on your team?
We have two Senior Training Officers in our team who between them have a wealth of experience:
Dave Stevens has been with USS for nearly 32 years – the ‘Yoda’ of our team with a wealth of USS and pensions knowledge.
Seb Cloherty is an invaluable member of the team with over eight years’ experience in USS and Pensions Operations knowledge and he’s a wiz at all the technical stuff.
What’s it like this time of year like for you and your team?
This is a very busy month for our team, our main focus is employer training as we deliver our autumn training plan.
Pensions managers and administrators have been registering to attend and spaces are filling up. There’s still time for you to join us so please take a look at our courses and come along. It’s a great opportunity to meet your colleagues as well as to learn more about USS!
We are well underway with the delivery of a Member Focus programme for Pensions Operations. All staff will participate in this programme over the next six months. We’re giving our new staff a warm welcome with the USS Inductions this month, too.
Diversity and inclusion are very important to us here at USS and we are moving into implementation of a robust plan across both sites.
We work in partnership with employers, tell us about how you designed the employer training courses…
It was essential that the courses were exactly what the employers needed and that they made a genuine difference to their work with USS. So we approached the IAP to invite them to take an active part in an IAP training sub group.
We had about 20 key participants who worked with us, they were a delight to work with. They had their sleeves rolled up, giving their experience and understanding of what should be in each course, co-designing the six courses to make sure they hit the mark.
We then ran a pilot on site at University of Leicester to make any final tweaks.
All courses were signed off by the IAP Training sub group and most of the participants attended the courses as we commenced delivery, they were delighted.
After 12 months of delivery we got back together to evaluate the outcomes, the courses were a huge success!
We are constantly looking to improve the training offering that we have, so we undertook some modifications to the courses for 2019, again in partnership with the IAP Training Sub Group.
We are looking forward to meeting with them at the end of this year to agree a modular training approach and plan for 2020.
We are looking at different methods of delivery and specific subject areas to focus on moving forward to meet the needs of our clients.
If our clients have any particular queries, who should they contact?
If you need any information at all please contact usstraining@uss.co.uk
We welcome all enquiries and feedback to support your learning journey.
And finally, in all our ‘Meet the Team’ interviews we ask the Quick Fire Favourite Five:
Film: Shawshank Redemption – means a lot to me personally
Musician: Gregory Porter – love his voice
Drink: A Pimms on a summers day, or a vin chaud on the slopes
Food: Love tapas
Holiday destination: Skiing in the French Alps, with the sun shining and the apres ski!