“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” -- W.B. Yeats
Training within the relocation industry is not only to set quality standards but to maintain our enthusiasm for this fascinating business. As the ARA’s training programmes have developed over the years, so has our members’ dedication to becoming the most professional industry in Europe.
The ARA has been the biggest provider of relocation training in Europe over the past ten years and was instrumental in the formation of the European Academy of Relocation Professionals in 2003. The EARP now sets the standards for the provision of relocation training across Europe and the ARA uses the syllabus of the EARP to provide relocation training in the UK.
The EARP is a jointly funded venture of the ARA, the EuRA, the SNPRM in France and ABRA in Belgium. Annie Panton, who was on the original steering group, explains the idea behind the inception of the EARP:
"When the original steering group met for the first time, it was obvious to us that our industry was expanding – both globally and within Europe itself, especially with the advent of an EU enlargement and that this in itself demanded a greater need for a more structured basis for training. We felt that the industry’s best interests would be well served by setting up an EEIG to streamline the education side of the industry.
We wanted to see that the development of a training and education programme would have the effect of making our industry both well-regulated and professional. At the same time, this would provide corporate and private clients with first class service.
We devised a Mission Statement – To establish a series of benchmarks that denote best practice within the European Relocation Industry and to create standards of excellence by which individual relocation professionals and relocation service providers can be measured."
Before the EARP, the ARA was the biggest provider of relocation training in Europe, indeed many people from countries outside the UK would attend London based training days. Jane Craggs of Valencia Relocation in Spain told us;
"Obtaining a professional qualification in the subject relevant to one's work can only be beneficial. .. Relocation, as a service industry requires high levels of personal understanding … I am pleased to have participated in so many of the early ARA Seminars and intend to continue, confident that the EARP qualification will become an asset in the industry. It was interesting to listen to modules outside my daily sphere of influence and to country specific issues, which may be relevant to clients’ pasts and futures if not to their present with us. Professional gatherings always have the useful networking opportunities and exchanges of views, not to mention the advantages of the well-chosen dates and venues so convenient for shopping and the theatre so participants can really make a day of it!"
The ARA’s training programme began with the development of the "Fundamentals of Relocation" seminar which was introduced as a compulsory part of the process of applying for full membership of those companies who had been operating for less than two years. In 1990, the first Fundamentals seminar was provided to set a benchmark in service provision for companies and employees new to the industry. The next chair of the ARA, Mima Hillier of TTH Relocation Management and the ARA’s EARP Board Member, attended the Fundamentals seminar as a newcomer to the industry in 1996;
"When I first set up my company in the UK, being able to attend training provided by the professional relocation body in the UK was a huge advantage for me. I have made it a priority that all my staff attend regular training and this is a way for me to ensure my company maintains quality standards in service delivery. I feel that ongoing professional development is vital for our industry to continue to provide the quality of service demanded by our clients and this is why I have become involved in the EARP. This is a great initiative and I am proud of the way the ARA has placed such an emphasis on high quality training."
It was obvious within two years of the provision of this seminar, that further training was essential to both set a benchmark of professionalism within the industry and to enable relocation to separate itself in the minds of both corporate and private clients, from the property industry. The ARA quickly established a set of seminars which could be delivered both nationally and regionally in response to local need while still reflecting the ideal of national quality standards.
The formation of the EARP has been central to the growth of the ARA as a training provider and has added value to membership. The ARA has provided ten training days since the EARP’s inception last year and this has enabled eleven of our members to obtain their Level One EARP certification. Approximately another twenty-five will go on to qualify at Level Two in 2005.
The EARP is a European Economic Interest Group (EEIG). This type of company formation allows for interest groups in more than one European country to come together to form a body to represent their interests. It allows for greater flexibility in finance and has become the way that national bodies can form an effective group to lobby the EU. One of the long term goals of the EARP is to give the European relocation industry a voice in the EU in order to have a specific industry designation for relocation professionals. The most effective way to do this is through a professional qualification.
The EARP works as a supervisory body responsible for the development of the syllabus and the implementation of pan-European assessment procedures. The syllabus of the EARP covers three levels of complexity. Trainees progress through each level by attending a required number of seminars and sitting assessments. At Level One, people who have experience in the Relocation Industry can apply for points to exempt them from training. These can total 160 points and equate to 8 out of the required ten days of training. For more information on applying for exemption from Level One, contact Dominic Tidey at info@earp.eu.com. The EARP itself does not provide training; this is left to the Industry Associations. The ARA therefore has a training group as part of the main council, who draw up an annual programme of seminars using modules taken from the EARP syllabus. Edna Smith of SIRVA Relocation serves on the Training Group;
Quote from Edna
One of the recent moves by the ARA with regard to training has been to meet with the Relocation Users Group (RUG), a panel of twenty HR directors from differing industry sectors in the UK with representatives from companies such as Unilever, The BBC, Marks and Spencer and HSBC. The Group told us that would be very interested in their staff attending specific relocation training aimed at HR professionals and gave us useful insights into what HR professionals would like to see included in a training syllabus for Relocation Professionals.
The Executive Board of the EARP is made up of four individuals from each Industry Association. The Board has recently invited a group of experts from training and HR to form an Advisory Panel who will assist them in the future development of the EARP syllabus. This Panel will meet for the first time in September and a full report of their recommendations will be published on the EARP’s website at www.earp.eu.com.
The next ARA training will take place in London and will focus on changes to the UK property legislation and the immigration issues which face international relocatees. This will be a full day of Level Two EARP accredited training and details of this will be emailed to members in the coming weeks. For full details please contact the ARA office on info@relocationagents.com or 08700 73 74 75.