Training the team at Fowler Welch
People Development / Training
Overview
Our people development specialists created and delivered a nationwide soft-skills training programme for managers and line supervisors at one of the UK’s leading logistics and food supply chain specialists.
Tell me more
Fowler Welch is a UK logistics and food supply chain specialist that handles more than 150,000 pallets and 1.5m cases of food and fresh produce every week. It works with some of the biggest food manufacturers and retailers in the UK. Following several years of expansion the HR team recognised that very little soft skills training had been carried out to equip mangers with the skills needed to do their jobs as effectively as possible.
Senior managers and directors were asked to identify the ‘key areas’ of development for their managers. Pelican was asked to take these key development needs and create a suite of one-day workshops to a cohort of around 54 managers from first line supervisors to middle managers. Some participants had never undertaken training during their career whilst others had varying degrees of experience. The training therefore, needed to be pitched at multiple levels and dovetail with an established in-house suite of essential training. The desired outcomes were:
- To develop all managers to become more effective in their roles
- To increase performance management
- To improve staff engagement.
In addition, Pelican believed the training would contribute towards improving the overall culture, increase the kudos of the organisation and so attract and retain staff, helping promote Fowler Welch as an employer of choice.
The Pelican approach
We created a series of five tailored one-day modules to address the following areas: leading and delegation, personal effectiveness (in terms of confidence and communication skills), motivating and engaging staff, influencing and negotiating and finally, managing change and conflict handling.
Every module included an element of pre-course work including self-assessment and objective setting as well as some pre-workshop preparation. The workshops were designed with a very collaborative approach to encourage ideas and experience sharing between group members, leading to peer support and learning.
At the end of each workshop personal development planning time was provided, where participants were required to consider how to apply their learning into the workplace and give specific examples of the changes they would make as a result.
A buddy network was created to encourage cross organisational contact amongst participants and create an increased motivational and teamworking culture.
The results
Modules were extremely well received, with more than 95% of delegates finding all aspects of the content and delivery either ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ and relevant to the workplace. The participants benefitted from the training and all were interested and engaged during the workshops and a camaraderie was built across the business. In addition the module on Personal Effectiveness was also provided to the HR team due to its popularity.
Don’t just take our word for it…
Some of the comments taken from delegate end of workshop feedback forms speak for themselves:
“First class tutor and very knowledgeable with a thorough understanding of the subject. Very worthwhile course.” Phillip Garner, warehouse shift manager
“Very enjoyable. Great engagement. Lots of helpful information and topics I will find useful in the future.” Christopher Marsden, stock & systems manager
“Now we have competed sessions I see the relevance to my personal improvement. Understanding myself more and realising or noticing the triggers i.e. delegation, passive-aggressive, bureaucratic. Thought provoking and helpful.” Nikki Packman, supervisor
Find out about our award-winning PR campaign for Fowler Welch.
Pelican Communications is a specialist in the environment & CSR, food, packaging & logistics and trade association sectors and offers a range of services such as strategy, design, content creation, public relations and people development. Contact us for marketing and communications expertise.
Photos by Clem Onojeghuo UnsplashDylan Gillis on Unsplash
