Rising Star Development Programme

What is Rising Stars?

Rising Stars is a new, exciting development programme aimed at ambitious individuals with a keen interest in developing and progressing within their careers. Employees are nominated by their line managers as high potential performers and we provide them with the building blocks to motivate and encourage their progression.

This is a six-month programme, and the training content is a mixture of e-learning, workshops, on-the-job training and supplier in-house training. We are a fun-loving family business, but we take our colleagues’ progression very seriously. We want our colleagues to build a career with us and we will support them with this to the best of our abilities.

We can see from our Rising Stars success that with hard work and determination you can get to where you want to be and become a role model to the rest of the team. We have recently had Team Leaders promoted to Assistant Manager roles and Chef de Parties’ promoted to Sous Chef roles after completing this programme. Dedication is key to unlocking potential and our Rising Stars have shown us that!

Team Stories

Being on the rising stars program is an opportunity to expand your knowledge and promote growth within Wells & Co. It enables an individual to gain confidence in themselves to be able to move forward in their given roles. The course itself is varied, and gives you new understandings not only about yourself but how other see you. Everyone would benefit from being given the chance to seek their own personal goals.

Helen, Deputy Manager, d'Parys, Bedford.
Rising Stars has really opened my eyes to how the company runs as a whole and has helped me gain a more business-centric mentality as I move up within Wells & Co. As well as thorough and detailed training it has given me some fantastic experiences and days out. These including; Brewery tours, brewhouse and kitchen tours and the opportunity to see some more of our fantastic pubs!

When I started with Wells and Co, I was simply just a bar member but in a very quick 1-and-a-half years I have climbed up to the position of Training Assistant Manager. I wouldn’t of been able to make such a fast and efficient climb and transition without Rising Stars. It has helped me adjust my working style and attitude with training courses such as; Communications, Complaint Handling and Emotional Intelligence. These have helped me become a respectable and skilled manager.

Thom, Assistant Manager, Holly Bush - Pizza, Pots & Pints
The Rising Stars Programme was pitched to me during my first few months of being with Charles Wells, and it was definitely something that I was interested in getting involved with. No other company has offered an internal enrichment and development programme to me before in such a short space of time.

The Rising Stars course incorporated skills and traits I used regularly in my day-to-day working life and hone them to being an excellent tools that make an active difference in my establishment. The training schedule was well laid out for group discussions and incorporation for several different roles to get different perspective, and individual training was worked around my schedule.

When I started the course, I was a supervisor/Assistant Manager new with the company. I am now a General Manager who incorporates what I learned regularly into my staff training, and have helped pass along the training to new Assistant and General Managers who have come to me for training.

Duncan, General Manager, Salisbury Arms - Pizza, Pots & Pints

As well as the Rising Stars programme, we also have a number of apprenticeships running through our partner Lifetime. We currently have Apprentices completing Senior Chef in Production Cooking Level 3, Hospitality Supervisor Level 3, Hospitality Team Member – Food and Beverage Service Level 2 and Finance Apprenticeships at our head office. We always ensure that they are relevant and specific to each individual and really want to encourage more apprenticeships across the business.

Apprenticeships usually take around 12-18 months on average and hugely benefit our employees. They provide role-relevant training, it’s a recognised qualification, it shows a rise in customer service and job satisfaction and it encourages new skills, knowledge and behaviours.

We are very proud of our Apprentices and Rising Stars and all of the hard work and time they put in to ensure they are consistently improving within their profession.