Fife Chamber – Defence Employer Recognition Scheme Gold Winner 2021

Proud is an understatement as to how I felt last Thursday evening while attending the magnificent Edinburgh Castle with Colin Brown, Vice President and Director, Sheena Doyle, to collect Fife Chamber’s prestigious Gold Award as participants of the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS). The scheme encompasses bronze, silver and gold awards for employer organisations that pledge, demonstrate or advocate support to defence and the armed forces community, and align their values with the armed forces covenant. The process of winning a gold award involves a lot of hard work and layers of scrutiny at the judging stages with very few of these awards being made so it is a fantastic achievement for Fife Chamber and so well deserved!

The evening itself was an impressive closed door reception in the Great Hall where our principal host was Major General Alastair Bruce OBE – the Governor of Edinburgh Castle with Lieutenant General James Swift OBE, the Ministry of Defence’s HR Director handing us our gold award. Interesting, it was predominately public sector organisations also receiving gold awards on the night so the fact we were one of the few private sector organisations to receive a gold award to me demonstrated the hard work that had been invested by our team to achieve this award.

A massive well done to Alan and the team for all their hard work and also for the support received from Roy McLellan, Regional Employer Engagement Director at Highland Reserve Forces and Cadets Association throughout the process.

At Fife Chamber we think it is important to advocate support where we can for the military and to help facilitate and encourage recruitment of ex-military into Fife businesses particularly at a time when skills shortages are so prevalent. So if you would like to hear more please get in touch.

Please also don’t miss out on Alan’s award news message – it really sums up how we feel!

Janet McIntyre, President Fife Chamber of Commerce