Britam unveils innovation centre to up employee skills

From Left: Education CS George Magoha, Britam’s Managing Director Benso Wairegi and Britam's Director Peter Munga unveil the plaque to officially open the Britam Leadership and Innovation Centre at the Britam Centre, Upper Hill, Nairobi.

Britam Holdings Plc has unveiled a leadership and innovation centre, where it will train staff.

The move seeks to transform Britam into a learning organisation that encourages staff to increase knowledge, competence and performance levels, on an ongoing basis.

Speaking while opening the centre, Education CS George Magoha lauded the move to build capacity for workers.

"Educators are increasingly aware of the integration between physical spaces and the learning environment. The new facility will be a place where Britam’ employees build their capacities and aspirations with support of facilitators and supervisors,” said Prof Magoha.

Britam Group Managing Director Benson Wairegi said the company has invested heavily in learning and development processes to ensure constant improvement of employees’ skills, knowledge and quality of work.

"Learning and development promote continuous improvement and support the achievement of business goals, innovation and ability to deal with change,” said Mr Wairegi.

The training centre will also operate as innovation hub, housing the company’s newly recruited innovation team who will conduct brainstorming sessions, customer focus group discussions and other innovative activities.

The company will focus on developing leaders through leadership, management and technical skills development and workplace coaching and mentoring. The development programmes are divided into leadership and management skills and technical skills.

The programme is based on findings of a recent needs assessment exercise carried out by Britam to determine its organisational learning and development needs. The staff will be trained on leadership behaviour (competencies) that define and promote organisation effectiveness.

The mode of learning will be delivered by Britam staff trained on how to develop and deliver technical skills training. The facility is located on the first floor of Britam Centre in Upper Hill and can accommodate 150 employees at a time.

Britam currently has about 900 employees and over 2,000 financial advisors will benefit from the centre.