Wilson Vale chefs celebrate success at College Court

The Wilson Vale catering team at College Court Conference Centre at the University of Leicester has been named overall winner of the Wilson Vale Achievement Awards 2015. The team of thirteen, led by chef manager, Riccardo Corbinzolu, competed with 85 Wilson Vale catering operations nationwide to receive the award.

Judged under several categories including food, innovation, marketing, financial performance, customer care and training, the winning team received a trophy and a bonus each.
Ashby-based Wilson Vale provides a breakfast, lunch, dinner and hospitality service for delegates and visitors at the residential conference centre, as well as catering for a large number of private events including weddings, christenings and award dinners.

Formerly a hall of residence, College Court is a member of the Conference Centres of Excellence (CCE) and is the only dedicated residential conference centre in Leicester. Food has played a big role in the centre’s success since it opened in 2013, with an emphasis on fresh, seasonal dishes cooked in-house by Wilson Vale’s team of craft-skilled chefs.

Commenting on the Achievement Awards, Carolyne Vale, co-founder and managing director of Wilson Vale, said: “The standards get better year-on-year across the entire business and on every level.  In fact, the standards were so exceptionally high this year that there was just one point between the winning team and the runners up. This is a great reflection of our people – from kitchen porters up to managers – who go that extra mile to make a difference and whose passion has made Wilson Vale what it is today.”  

Wilson Vale’s chef manager at College ” I was in complete shock when Carolyne called to say that we had won as I never thought with all the amazing things going on in the company that we would take the top spot. We are our own biggest critic and that’s what drives us to keep evolving and developing our style of food and service to be the very best at what we do. We have had a great year as a team and this really is the icing on the cake.”
Court, Riccardo Corbinzolu, who lives in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, said:

The runners up were the Wilson Vale catering teams at NewDay (Leeds) and Amgen (Cambridge) and finalists included SERCO (Wiltshire), SCA Hygiene (Dunstable) and Amgen (Uxbridge). Other awards were given to the Wilson Vale catering teams at The Beacon School in Amersham, Kellogg’s in Kings Langley and The Ryley’s School in Cheshire.

Steve Crawford, conference centre director of College Court, said:“ I am delighted for Riccardo and his team to have been recognised as Wilson Vale’s top site. Very well deserved and is great recognition for the key role that they have played in developing the brand and reputation for the new business of College Court. Customer feedback has been excellent and has been a key factor in the ongoing growth of sales and increasing level of repeat customers. “

Eat the Elephant Improve Engagement and Performance at CEME Conference Centre

CEME Conference Centre is an Award winning, ‘Gold Accredited’ Events and Conference venue in East London and part of the Centre for Engineering and Manufacturing Excellence – a Regeneration Charity focusing on business growth, education, skills and learning in the Thames Gateway. The Conference Centre has enjoyed enormous success in the past few years growing the business by 250% in under three years; achieving Accredited In Meetings gold standard with the MIA – the only venue in East London or Essex to do so; being accepted into Conference Centres of Excellence; becoming a World Host venue for exceptional customer service; achieving an NPS score in September 2015 of 94; and, in October 2015, winning the Havering Business Awards for outstanding Customer Care.

Much of this success is down to the quality and commitment of the conference centre team and their level of employee engagement achieved, in no small part, through the partnership enjoyed with Eat The Elephant. At the beginning of 2105, CEME appointed Eat the Elephant to undertake their team development with the assurance that bringing them in would contribute substantially to making a good team even better by improving not only individual performance and engagement, but also team achievement, customer satisfaction and business development.

To this end, CEME embarked on a Team development programme over the course of a number of months with Eat The Elephant that began with employees completing on-line PPA profiles followed up with individual employee evaluation sessions, ‘1 to 1’ coaching and team development days. There were two key statements adopted to underpin the development and drive participation – ‘Engagement, Ownership, Performance’ and, for the team development day – ‘Responsibility, Action, Achievement’.

The results of the programme have truly been phenomenal with the engagement of all employees rising to the highest echelons comparable with any ‘high performing’ team; quality standard compliance improving to over 95%; the achievement of an NPS score for the business of 94 and ‘exceeding expectations’ at 66%; and financial targets for the year not only met, but substantially exceeded.

All in all, the employee engagement programme undertaken with Eat the Elephant has proved enormously successful and a guaranteed route for our organisation in improving employee engagement and business performance.