SUN, FUN AND HOPEFULLY.. AWARDS
The sun is shining and I have to say it’s been the most
amazing week across the board at thebigword. One of the major challenges
of our business is the length of time from receiving a tender document to
awarding the contract which can sometimes be many months and even longer so
it’s great news that, especially in the last week, some really exciting
contracts have come together. It’s during this early time of the contract
that we rely so heavily on our team of in house and contract linguists - 12,000
people who work from 73 different countries.
Over the coming months we will be offering free online
training to our linguists to help them cope with the technology enabled
processes that we have been developing. I’d like to take this opportunity
to thank many of our freelance workforce for helping us with the testing of
these new processes.
This week we celebrated the graduation of our apprentices
who had gained their National Vocational Qualification which formally
recognises the training and work they have done whilst at thebigword.
thebigword was listed in the 100 best companies in the UK to work for as an apprentice
and tonight we are attending an awards ceremony by Investors in People and the
category we have been nominated in is Best School and Business Participation.
Fifteen of our full time staff at thebigword have been
working as volunteers in a local school. The feedback from the school has
been amazing but what has pleased me more has been the enthusiasm that our
volunteers have displayed. They say that by mentoring young people it has
helped them in understanding their own ambitions, so fingers crossed for a win.
There has been a lot of discussion over the last few years
about home working versus office based work. My opinion is that both
situations can work but one of the great disadvantages about home working is
the lost opportunity for corridor and staff canteen conversations. For
me, one of the great motivators for coming to work is the social aspect of
spending my time with such a varied range of people of different ages and from
different backgrounds.
I’m attaching photos today of our summer barbecue which was
held on Friday, it was great fun and the sun was shining for it. I’m also
attaching a photograph of our apprentices who now play an integral part in
running our business.
Fingers crossed that we’ll have a great evening tonight and
maybe even win an award. Even if we don’t, nothing can take away the
pride I feel for the staff at thebigword, throughout the world, who participate
in so many of our volunteer programmes in the communities where they live.
Enjoy your week.
Larry
