It has been another busy start to the year for Team Risk Evolves, championing and supporting the Armed Forces and its community.

Q1 saw us:

Submit our application for the UK Ministry of Defence’s Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS) Silver award,
Contribute towards an article on Veteran talent in IIRSM’s member’s magazine, The Sentinel and,
Continue to support Service Leavers with our Military Mentorship Scheme, having Jimmy spend a week shadowing the team, as well as employing another Service leaver within our Information Security Pillar

The Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS) encourages employers to support defence and inspire others to do the same.

In 2022, Risk Evolves initially demonstrated its support by signing the Armed Forces Covenant, achieving the ERS’s Bronze award, whilst at the same time, employing three Veterans.

Fast forward to 2023 and newly employed Veteran Alex took on the role of Armed Forces Champion and ran with the ERS Silver award application. Alex gathered evidence from a broad arc of criteria that demonstrated support to the Reserves but also showed that Risk Evolves consistently advocates its support to the armed forces community. Submitted before the 19th April deadline, the team should find out if Risk Evolves has achieved Silver award status by the end of June. Fingers crossed!

Shortly after Silver ERS submission, two of Risk Evolves’ Veterans appeared in April’s issue of IIRSM’s members magazine, The Sentinel, in an article titled “Britain’s Veterans Have Got Talent”. The article’s content focuses on Risk Evolves’ Military Mentorship Scheme that it has been running since 2022. The initiative, initially set up by Risk Evolves’ Managing Director, Helen Barge, and Lead Information Security Consultant Barri Graham, provides valuable work experience to military Service Leavers to help ease their transition into ‘civvy street’. This opportunity allows soon to be Veterans to shadow Risk Evolves team members in several disciplines across risk and compliance. This has shown Service Leavers that they have the transferable skills, acquired through years of military experience, that are adaptable to roles in the commercial world. The initiative has been mutually beneficial to both parties.

Unfortunately, our Service Leaver initiative organiser, Barri, has moved onto another role. Barri will be sorely missed but we wish him all the best for the future. However, with every cloud comes a silver lining! This silver lining comes in the form of John, Barri’s replacement, who is also an Intelligence Corps (Army) Veteran. In traditional Army style handover-takeover, this one-for-one swap has meant that the Military Mentorship Scheme has continued seamlessly. John was also one of the first to go through the Risk Evolves Military Mentorship at the start of his resettlement period.

Consequently, during Barri’s penultimate week in office, we had our most recent mentee with the team for a week of shadowing. Jimmy, also a Sergeant Major in the Intelligence Corps, had the opportunity to spend some time on a live audit with one of the team’s senior risk, compliance and environmental experts and was able to join Risk Evolves’ information security and health and safety SMEs at The National Cyber Security Show which exhibited at the Safety & Security Event Series at the NEC, Birmingham. Jimmy’s words sum up what the week meant to him.

The five days I spent with Risk Evolves during my resettlement were invaluable. Helen and her staff could not be more accommodating and all those I met gave their valuable time to give me insights into the daily workings of a Cyber Security Consultancy. The breadth of work they undertake is impressive. It provided me with confidence that I have many transferable skills whilst also identifying some training gaps so I could focus my efforts as I moved forward to life outside the Army. I’ll be forever grateful to them and recommend this scheme to any future service leaver'.

Jimmy

Risk Evolves’ Managing Director is fully supportive of the initiative: “The military has a pool of resources who would both benefit from the type of experience that we offer, and who, in turn, would potentially be an asset to organisations such as ours. I believe that we are pioneering the way to make this talented resource pool more visible to a wider audience, and hopefully this approach may be replicated by other businesses.”

Moving forward, Risk Evolves has placements organised for the second half of 2023, with Chloe planning to join the team in June and John in September. We look forward to welcoming and working with Chloe and John soon and opening up more opportunities into 2024 and beyond.

Interested in signing the Armed Forces Covenant or our Military Mentorship Scheme? Please contact the team on 01926 800710 for a chat or send us a message https://www.riskevolves.com/get-in-touch