1. Organisational Challenge
LUC (Land Use Consultants) is a specialist environmental, planning, design and management consultancy. The company employs around 120 skilled professionals with a very high percentage of their staff having graduated with technical expertise. The company also hires in specialist subcontracted expertise for in projects so many of their staff have management responsibilities.
Their clients include building contractors, energy providers and government and much of their work is conducted at a strategic level across the UK.
HR Manager Helen Ash was given a clear directive from the board to deliver a management development programme which would reward managers the an accreditation and improve the core skills of the business’ leaders, many of whom are highly skilled technically but have been promoted based on this expertise rather than their abilities to be good managers or leaders.
The programme needed to deliver core management and leadership skills to managers across the UK and be a long-lasting programme rather than a one-off purge.
2. Choosing Impellus
LUC decided to look at specialist providers of management and leadership skills rather than a generalist provider. A shortlist was prepared after initial investigation.
“Impellus looked favourable on many counts; UK-wide, directly employed trainers with senior management experience, personable approach and a clear but flexible offer of qualifications, training and procurement,” said Helen Ash.
“My next step was to trial one of the courses myself along with one of my senior colleagues. We attended a Leadership Skills Development course and found the course to be everything we were hoping for from the booking experience to the quality of the venue and the training environment. We were also impressed with the way the course challenged us to consider the effects of what we do as managers and leaders of our teams, and what we could do to improve it.”
LUC used the multi-place booking discounts to maximise the advantage of pricing, funding and administrative ease.
“Purchasing and organising the training is extremely easy and we buy bundles annually which meet our annual requirements and keep things very simple. Using Impellus in this way has proven to be excellent value for the quality of the courses delivered”, Helen continued.
“Our Managers see Impellus training as an important part of their development. Their feedback consistently tells us that they feel the courses to be relevant, polished and challenging. They also enjoy being around Managers from other environments outside of our field of expertise.”
3. Results Achieved
Importantly from the perspective of Helen Ash, the HR Manager who chose Impellus to deliver against her objective, Impellus has proven a great recommendation.
“We’ve noticed a cultural change in our management and leadership team since we first started using Impellus – the value of good management and leadership is clearly seen.”
“In fact we’ve recently created a Junior Director grade within the company and we put the initial team through the ILM Level 5 training. It provided a formal induction into their role and it has supported us in launching a new strategy and values throughout the organisation.”
Helen Ash, HR Manager
