Digital agency, Access, has this week been awarded the IPA’s Gold Accreditation for Continuous Professional Development.

Despite the challenges of a remote working agency team, Access ensured that ‘workplace’ learning remained at the heart of its business and has demonstrated how this has not only benefitted its team’s wellbeing but also supported the success of the business.

In the past 12 months Access has attracted more than five new clients into the business and continues to be the digital development partner for major brands including WaterAid, SC Johnson Professional and Edrington Distillers whose brands include The Macallan, The Famous Grouse and The Glenrothes.

“Home Learning may no longer be the UK-wide social buzz word it was a couple of months ago when schools were closed, but it very much needs to be embedded in a business’ culture”, says Simon Landi, managing director at Access.

Going for the Gold CPD Accreditation in a year of lockdowns has given the agency a huge step up and has cemented the team’s firm belief that learning and wellbeing lies at the heart of business growth. 

“It was already a strategic objective to be an agency with a geographically diverse workforce prior to Covid – and our recruitment in the 12 months prior had in the main been remote workers. The pandemic just accelerated this further." 

Access created a CPD team to drive through and evidence the agency’s processes. "Investing heavily in training and development is a long-term strategy that sits at the heart of our agency," adds Lani.

Throughout the course of the year, it centrally recorded its training endeavours from across the agency in categories ranging from UX training and commercial qualifications to webinars, tech events, internal training and skill sharing.

The team measured what it had achieved in terms of a business objective against the contributing factors, where training played a part at helping to achieve success against the business objective.

"Achieving IPA CPD Gold actually means more to me than any award we’ve ever won because it shows that we have a fantastic culture of supporting individuals," adds Landi.