Cognitive empowerment now integral to Rentokil’s employee journey.

The context

Rentokil Initial provides services that protect people and enhance lives, employing around 45,500 people and operating in 87 countries.

Rentokil is the world’s leading commercial pest control services provider, and for over 90 years has led the UK market in pest control and property care solutions for commercial and private customers.

The company is renowned for its supportive training programmes for new and existing employees. It has Technical and Sales Academies and offers higher-level apprenticeships that provide continuous personal development opportunities.

As with all organisations, talent attraction and retention are central to success, but it didn’t take Rentokil long to realise that the ‘one size fits all’ approach to learning and development isn’t necessarily effective.

The challenge

Rentokil is a prime example of an organisation looking to reap the benefits of an in-house learning and development apprenticeship scheme.

However, according to Paul Blackhurst, Head of Rentokil’s UK Technical Academy, internal research found that several individuals were “consistently falling behind or struggling with some aspects of the learning processes, affecting their progress.”

The data also found that some were unable to complete functional skills training despite several attempts.

It was clear there was a problem that needed to be solved, and fast.

Paul and the UK Rentokil team went looking for a solution to ensure they had the best support in place from an equality perspective and to prevent certain employees from falling behind.

Rentokil’s research into tailored support and reasonable adjustments led them to Cognassist.

The solution

Paul Blackhurst described Rentokil’s process:

“We chose Cognassist because of their background, the support they provide, simple pricing structure and the external reviews from other users.”

After initial conversations, Rentokil in the UK officially signed up with Cognassist in March 2021. Two months later, they were ready to get started.

“Cognassist has been very supportive throughout the implementation programme. They were extremely helpful and patient with us during the initial setup and have been engaging at every step.”