About Advent Capital (Holdings) LTD

The Senior Management Team takes pride in demonstrating the company values through their own behaviour and leading by example. The 2014 Employee survey showed that communication of future Company plans by the Senior Management Team to all staff inspired people in the workforce to perform well. Their approach and the employee’s confidence in the Senior Management Team gets the best from their people. They have an excellent approach to open and honest communication – no-one fears voicing an opinion or challenging ‘the norm’. All Senior Managers have an open door policy. Quarterly staff meetings are held to keep everyone abreast of both Company and Fairfax group information, company performance, financial figures and other relative industry news. They also have weekly underwriting meetings to share and discuss progress, business wins, etc.

Investment in people is paramount to the organisation and its success. Having a budget to spend on staff development is as important as a budget for IT, facilities, etc. The current annual Learning and Development budget is in the region of £300,000. As part of the performance review process a learning and development plan is designed for each member of staff for the forthcoming 12 months. These plans typically include skill development, technology, professional education and qualifications, coaching and mentoring, management development, overseas secondments. They also invest in the Emerging Talent Programme and in 2014 developed and introduced the Advent Graduate Programme, which offers an 18 months placement with a structured training and development timetable which encompasses secondment in each area of the business. Financial support is given to all employees studying for all relevant professional qualifications, which includes paid study leave and time for examinations. Requests are welcome from staff for any qualifications or external training courses that they feel would enhance their personal development and/or the business. The company pays for annual professional membership fees and training courses are regularly held and run by external providers for development of the Managers. At the beginning of each year the Senior Management team goes off site for a three day strategic business planning and objective setting seminar which ensures that business and personal development objectives are aligned to support the overall business objectives and goal.

As well as being embedded in day to day culture and work life, employees are aware of the company ambition and primary purpose from the first day that they join the company. They are advised of the company values at their first day HR induction session, and again when they have a meeting with the Head of HR within their first two weeks of employment, where they are talked through the guiding principles and values of the company and the background of how they were derived. They celebrate actions that embrace these values by sharing news of such successes throughout the company, either in person at staff briefings, or by email communication from a senior manager. These help to reiterate and promote values and principles on a regular basis.