1. Organisational Challenge

Virgin Atlantic is one of the UK’s largest and best-known long haul airlines and one of the largest businesses within the Virgin group. Nearly all of the company’s 7,500 staff are based at Head Office in Crawley and at the two main London airports; Heathrow and Gatwick.

Ongoing organisational challenges around shift workers, the sheer number and variety of roles required, as well as dealing with policy and regulation means that there is additional pressure on managers to ensure compliance and efficiency.

Health, Safety & Environment Manager, Emile MacDonald-Williams, had identified that some of the Senior Managers had become particularly focused on helping their staff. Whilst this was born out of good intention it meant that they were spending too much time doing things for them rather than empowering them. In turn this was not encouraging staff to grow and was leaving the Managers stressed.

2. Choosing Impellus

Emile had had experience of using Impellus in a previous role and was quick to get back in touch. He also checked and found that Impellus had successful relationships with other parts of the Virgin group.

I have been impressed with the quality of training delivered by Impellus previously as well as the overall integrity of their trainers.

Being reasonably new in the role I wanted to ensure that if I was going to put a training organisation in front of Senior Managers, I was selecting a trusted pair of hands

Emile MacDonald-Williams
Health, Safety & Environment Manager, Virgin Atlantic

3. Working with Impellus

Organising and booking the training was very easy and we were able to have a good choice of dates.

Impellus courses avoid the slightly artificial feeling of many management training courses. The examples and case studies are relevant and the courses feel like they challenge you rather than try and tell you what you ‘should’ do.

I had confidence in putting Impellus and their trainers in front of my team and my colleagues responded very positively to their work.

Emile MacDonald-Williams
Health, Safety & Environment Manager, Virgin Atlantic

4. Results achieved

The initial feedback from the Managers was extremely positive which was a great sign. More importantly they felt that the course had challenged them to find the right solutions for their own people and situations. This has led to them being able to use the right skills and techniques to better empower their teams and give them time to do the things that are more important to them.

Emile MacDonald-Williams
Health, Safety & Environment Manager, Virgin Atlantic