University Centre Somerset Media Production degree students spent the morning with Taunton-based Claims Consortium Group, embarking on a new video project to introduce the company’s new initiative, Claims Consortium Foundations.
The project will require students to work with Claims Consortium to create engaging content for its social media channels, introducing the new Claims Consortium Foundations initiative. Claims Consortium Foundations will provide tailored training to local businesses, designed to engage people and empower them to grow and become better leaders. Its principles have been used by Claims Consortium internally, and have helped it become one of the Sunday Times 100 Companies to Work For in the past two years.
The students had an in-depth tour of the company’s claims handling operation in Taunton, and discussed plans to create a series of short films. The films will focus on how the training promotes a balanced work/life approach, and how engaging employees leads to fulfilment in the workplace.
The students also had the opportunity to interview Damian Walker, Assistant Operations Manager at Claims Consortium, about his involvement in the Claims Consortium Foundations initiative and the impact it has had not only on himself, but others around him.
The college has a long history of working with the company. The college started covering the Somerset Business Awards in 2009, and one of the first winners filmed was Claims Consortium’s CEO, Jeremy Hyams.
“We have films of Claims Consortium’s award nominations, as well as footage of Jeremy receiving awards from 2009 through to 2016. The company then started sponsoring the awards,” explained Alan Hardcastle, Media Production Course Leader. “So when they contacted us about this latest project, I jumped at the chance to work with them more closely.”
The first event to be covered by the students was a training session with local charity, ARC (previously Taunton Association for the Homeless). Stuart Baldwin, creator of Live Big – a leadership development methodology embraced by Claims Consortium as part of the new Foundation initiative – facilitated the event on 15 May with Claims Consortium’s Learning and Development Team Leader, Rob Chilcott.
The students documented the event as the first of many across the summer, leading to a bigger project at the start of their second year.
Naomi, a student on the course, said: “The whole point of the course is to train people up to work freelance making films. One of the biggest markets is local business, and what better place to be than working with an award-winning company to help tell their story!”