David Hosking

In less than three years, Tusker—the leading UK-based contract hire and fleet management company—has more than doubled its workforce from 65 to over 150 people. Such a fast pace of growth presented a number of challenges. In particular, the company needed to maintain the high levels of customer service and enthusiasm within the current team, while ensuring that new employees were well trained, highly engaged and knowledgeable. As a result, the Tusker Academy was born.

CEO David Hosking says the initiative, introduced in October 2015, was a somewhat strange investment for an organisation like Tusker. "I think it is probably fair to say that it is the norm for employers with 1,000-plus staff to have their own in-house training program; however, for a company of our size it is rather unusual. And it means a massive annual investment, not only in time, resources and money, but also in people. We are all focused on making it work."

The Tusker Academy provides a welcoming learning management platform for staff to engage with. It uses bespoke software called Tuskerville, incorporating internal and external courses, and encourages staff to work toward superhero status.

David explains, "We encourage our employees to move through the ranks—from a rookie, to a side kick, to a hero, and then ultimately to a superhero. We have put together literally hundreds of learning modules that the team can take. They are fun to complete and staff gain various ‘experience points’ and badges. It can get very competitive because everyone is fighting to be at the top of the leaderboard".