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It’ s essential for us at WestSpring to create a culture where our team feel valued and empowered and they see tangible support. For us this is not a tick-box exercise or a policy which gathers dust. To that end, for the next few years, we have set aside at least £ 100,000 to invest in training and development.
We’ ve recently undergone a DISC training programme with some of our team to start to understand our own personalities and how we fit into the business.
We’ ve got a lot of positive change happening with people who have been promoted into management, or into senior roles so we want to make sure that we are equipped to work together as a team.
For those who are new line managers it’ s essential to understand different styles and the way in which they need to adapt their style to talk to other people.
This also impacts how we talk to clients, we want people to feel good about contacting
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us. We always ask things like‘ how was the weekend?’ Now some clients want to discuss their holiday and some do not. Picking up on those cues is so important, some clients value small talk and some do not. We need to be flexible and tuned into that.
We’ re now committed to doing that for every one of our 34 employees before the end of the financial year.
We are also investing in upskilling for both junior and more senior staff members. We’ ve got some managers who have never managed before, we’ ve got some who have managed but have never been formally taught anything and then other managers who are very experienced. We’ re working with our HR partner to roll out a management programme between now and Christmas, so we all have the same standards.
We’ re also including things like domestic abuse, perimenopause and menopause training and neurodiverse training.
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As Good Employment Charter members, we’ re also able to tap into some additional training and some professional qualifications where the West of England Combined Authority will pay for 90 % of the fees. Other companies in the area can make similar applications.
We run ten company days a year where we have structured training alongside personal individual training. These days are to ensure everybody gets upskilled to the correct level for the roles that they’ re doing.
We currently have half of the workforce on development plans for their own personal growth. This helps them see the road ahead and how to get their next pay increase and their next job title.
We want to offer an inspiring place to work, and we want to be known within the industry as a good breeding ground for talented people. We want to grow, we want our people to develop their own careers, even if that means they’ re not staying with us.
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It’ s difficult to recruit in our industry so we have really considered how to make ourselves an employer of choice.
The average age of our team is 27 years old and it requires us to have a culture which speaks to that. We know that some younger people don’ t want to come and work for the same company for a decade or more. We know it’ s, on average, a three year cycle. We need to plan with that in mind and ensure that our team are happy in their work – some may stay longer or they may go and then come back to us later on.
To find out more about Westspring IT visit: www. westspring-it. co. uk
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