Righttrack Press Release

Business Strategy and Training are Key to Investing in Tomorrow

Understanding Business needs and giving managers the tools to deliver is key to moving a business forward, particularly in times of change.

One organisation that has realised the importance of this is Pluss, a social enterprise that evolved in 2005 from an amalgamation of local authority services, meaning substantial organisational change. Pluss offers high quality employment and training opportunities for disabled people, through recruitment services and direct employment.

With around 500 employees and a turnover of £24 million, Pluss is one of the largest employers in the South West, and one of the most successful of its kind. Moving away from local authority control, the Company has seen a lot of change. Working under a social enterprise model, managers have the task of balancing complex issues such as providing social outcomes whilst being commercially competitive. The Company therefore wanted to recognise achievement and empower managers to manage performance, deal with change, be better equipped to problem solve and take decisions, whilst improving leadership skills, and looked to develop some bespoke, recognised training.

Righttrack Consultancy, the international learning and development specialist won the contract to design and deliver a modular management programme that was approved specifically for Pluss by the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM).

The brief for the training was to create a structured management programme that was fast-paced, high impact, and extremely practical, whilst at the same time giving their managers recognition for their learning from a recognised body. It was incredibly important to Pluss to commission the management programme as they not only wanted to up-skill their managers and give them the confidence to continue their important work, but also to show company and senior management’s commitment to employee learning and development and the future of Pluss.

Lorraine Greenslade, Pluss’s HR Manager said, “Investing in the current and aspiring managers to take the company forward at this challenging time is investing in the future. The programme links into our new Company Training Plan covering all 5 of the company strategic aims. We had the full support of our Board, and one member has become a sponsor for training, and plays an intrinsic role in our organisational business strategy.”

To celebrate the success of the development programme, Pluss held a graduation ceremony, where managers collected their ILM certificate and gained recognition by the senior board for their achievement. The management development programme has created massive positive ripples throughout Pluss with employees not involved in the programme requesting to participate when the next programme runs; a direct response to the positive feedback.

One manager, Mik Belcher said this of the programme, ‘I found it very impressive and useful. I learnt a lot that I’m beginning to implement into my practices; with varying degrees of success, but that’s the point of learning’ – brilliantly summing up the concept of development, and why business strategy and training go together like strawberries and cream.

-End-