"We are thrilled with this recognition of the efforts and achievements of our team. As a small business it is important to us that every single member of our team can directly impact on the on-going success of the business and feel the team benefit of their own contribution to continued business success." Shaun Regan, Director, Avoca Systems Ltd.

Awarded to companies that demonstrate excellence in their approach to workforce development, the Business Skills and Staff Development award was awarded to Avoca Systems On Friday 27th February 2009, at a Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony, at Pride Park Stadium, Derby.
As our business is built on a reputation for quality and knowledge expertise, people truly are our greatest and most valuable asset. In recognising this, we have made considerable investment in staff development, which in turn helped us win this prestigious accolade.

The pinnacle of this investment has been our Health Informatics Training Academy. The training programme developed during 2005, from a business need for health information specialists involved in analysing complex NHS data and information that supports migration. We had difficulty recruiting experienced health informatics professionals who had the breadth and depth of experience that our work requires. The training programme has since evolved into the Avoca Health Informatics Training Academy which is unique to our industry. The academy has been designed and developed from ‘scratch’ by our Operations Manager, Julie Waters, a highly experienced Health Informatics Professional and intuitive trainer.

The programme achieves an integrated approach to performance and learning, by ensuring the workshops and exercises are focused on the real-life work issues that trainees need to address. The programme is delivered through a finely tuned mixture of workshops delivered by in-house knowledge experts, tailored personal development, one-to-one coaching, practical exercises, ‘shadowing’ of highly skilled personnel and self-driven learning. The Health Informatics Training Academy has trained numerous team members and will keep on producing highly skilled and highly motivated staff to meet the needs of our customers. One of the common features shared by all our team members at Avoca is the desire to really make a difference which has guided us to winning the Business Skills and Staff Development award, a fantastic achievement for the whole company.