My Home Move

My Home Move was established in 2001 and has since grown to become the UK’s leading provider of mover conveyancing services. As the market leader, they offer multi-award winning specialist legal expertise.

Each year, My Home Move helps more people with the legal side of buying, selling or remortgaging their properties than any other conveyancer in the UK. Proving to be a truly national service, they complete transactions in each of the 109 postcode areas in England and Wales every year.

Their aim is to revolutionise the customer experience of conveyancing by combining innovative technology with unrivalled expertise and exceptional customer care.

In-house qualifications programme

With over 700 legal and support workers across the UK, My Home Move is one of the largest employers of conveyancers in the nation. Their learning and development strategy is central to their continued growth.

At the core of this strategy is a multi award-winning Learning and Development Academy, which enables them to ‘keep pace with demand for conveyancing services’.

My Home Move has capitalised on the growing need for residential conveyancing services (circa 20% growth 2017–18) to grow capacity through the training and retention of the UK’s top conveyancing talent. By creating a strategy to ‘grow their own’ conveyancers, My Home Move has been able to grow its business and create a scalable model that can deal with the increase in demand and become the market leader.

My Home Move works in partnership with SQA to deliver a qualifications programme which furthers its employees’ careers, as well as bolsters the company’s service-offering by creating experienced and knowledgeable conveyancers.

The Learning and Development Academy has enabled My Home Move to run a number of development opportunities for all staff, including:

Apprenticeships

As the only UK law firm to be on the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers as an Employer Provider, My Home Move has the ability to employ apprentices, as well as deliver professional qualifications in-house. They currently have 25 apprentices taking SQA qualifications – 13 of whom are studying SQA’s level 4 Diploma in Conveyancing Law and Practice (studying to become conveyancing technicians) and a further 12 who are taking Team Leader/Supervisor apprenticeships delivered through our accreditation by the Institute of Leadership and Management. My Home Move intends to increase the uptake of level 6 apprentices, with another intake planned in the future.

The Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC)

My Home Move is an approved training provider for CLC qualifications. Through this accreditation, My Home Move can train new and existing employees to become licensed conveyancers through its professional development programme. Employees are promoted through different ability levels when they are ready, allowing them to qualify at their own pace.

Working with SQA

Dedicated to developing capacity in line with company growth goals, My Home Move wanted to provide its employees with the opportunity to become licensed conveyancers, which enable employees to carry higher caseloads. In addition, a licensed conveyancer training programme also helped My Home Move to provide employees with the right technical skills and knowledge to deal with a wide range of property cases.

Offering the licensed conveyancer and conveyancing technician apprenticeship schemes through SQA gives employees the opportunity to develop their careers without the added pressure of having to source a course outside of their working environment.

Their apprenticeship schemes are a first for the industry, as My Home Move is currently the only UK law firm to be on the Employer Provider register, which in turn means that they are the only company in the industry providing employees with both the theory and the practical elements of gaining these qualifications. This status is a unique selling point to prospective employees, particularly since gaining these types of qualifications can be challenging to achieve while also in employment, as well as extremely expensive when using an external training provider.

Siobhan Connelly, Head of Learning and Development, said, ‘Their reputation, along with their high involvement with their accredited training centres and robust verification processes help us to continuously develop and improve our training offerings and methods’.

Working with SQA to provide these qualifications has increased opportunities for employees. The guidance and support provided by SQA is greatly appreciated when putting together training programmes. Not only does the SQA benefit their Learning and Development Academy with qualification support, but working with the SQA has also had a positive effect on employee retention and engagement.

Since launching the apprenticeship programme, interest in learning and development from My Home Move employees has increased significantly, with places on the programme being applied for on a 2:1 ratio. Retention is also high among employees who become qualified through the Academy, with rates 50% higher than those who are not engaged in one of My Home Move’s qualification programmes.

Future plans

After successfully launching apprenticeship schemes in 2017, My Home Move expanded the schemes further over the course of 2018, with another two intakes of 12 apprentices. In addition, they are currently developing a solution that will enable them to provide SQA qualifications on a distance learning basis. This will be particularly valuable since My Home Move has over 70 employees who work from home.

Conveyancing is an essential part of the moving home process, and My Home Move would like to be able to offer training of this nature to its network of industry partners, including estate agents, mortgage brokers, and house builders — helping to share knowledge and raise standards across the property industry.

Given their working relationship with SQA, My Home Move has also been fortunate enough to be invited by SQA to support them with developing training materials, as well as use their in-house experts as external verifiers. This demonstrates a strong reciprocal relationship which My Home Move hopes will continue moving forward for the benefit of the conveyancing sector.