Lantra

You don't have to get your hands dirty if you work at Lantra, but it helps if you enjoy the great outdoors. The not-for-profit organisation develops training and qualifications for land-based industries in the UK and Ireland. That includes agriculture, forestry, horticulture and the environmental sector.

Lantra's aim is to ensure that training and development is industry-led and meets industry's needs. It also provides advice on training and development, careers information and funding to support the delivery of training. Once known as a sector skills council, the mid-size organisation is based in Coventry. Staff there can work flexible hours, receive relevant training and are supported in their professional development.

Lantra works with training provider and instructor partners to deliver its courses, of which there are more than 350. Providers run specialist, accredited courses with the support of the organisation's network of skilled instructors and assessors. Instructors play a hand-on role delivering the skills, training and qualifications required.

Like every other organisation, Lantra has been challenged by the pandemic over the past year. One consequence is that the organisation has updated its internal communications, with the use of Microsoft Teams becoming commonplace, including for staff briefings. Intranet posts have also increased.

Many staff were furloughed for part of 2020, which restricted their usual charitable activities. However, the virtual social committee encouraged people to donate the money they would usually spend on Christmas cards for colleagues and secret Santa to their local food bank or homeless shelter.