WEST Devon children's charity CHICKS (Country Holidays for Inner City Kids) has been learning important skills from a south west insurance firm.

Earlier this year, team members from insurance firm Cornish Mutual spent two days with workers at CHICKS, passing on their skills and explaining how to run a successful appraisal system that evaluates and rewards staff behaviour patterns, rather than just productivity.

Alan Goddard, chief executive of Cornish Mutual, decided to help after meeting staff from CHICKS at a business course in Cornwall, and realising his company could help improve the way they operated as an organisation.

Mr Goddard said: 'We have some of the best skilled trainers in the country right here in Cornwall, and it's fantastic to share that with a prominent local charity.

'CHICKS wanted to adopt a more behavioural style of management. We were happy to share our successful methods, and help a vitally important local charity to run more efficiently as a result.'

Elanor Hoskin, chief executive of CHICKS, said: 'We were really impressed by how the systems at Cornish Mutual were implemented, and we were eager to benefit from their experiences to improve our own way of working.'

Last summer, Cornish Mutual scooped the top honours in the UK Customer Service Training Awards 2012 for its customer service training programme.