Bespoke Training

Codel are manufacturers of emission monitoring equipment for power generating plants. They also produce road and rail tunnel monitors, selling via a global distributor network – with 95% of their turnover coming from export markets.

As a small business, we are keen at developing younger team members and allowing them to grow and develop. The Chamber offers a range of courses and support that allow us to offer these career development benefits to our team in a formal and recognised format.

We have taken part in several different forms of training, from bespoke team-building sessions and help with sales direction to enrolling people in the Director Development Programme. These have been in-person and virtually over the past two years, both of which were delivered very well.

Exposing the team with the range of business aspects, allows me as a leader to ensure they are all aligned with business aims and objectives. It has been very valuable in getting everybody pulling in the same direction for the business.

These have proven very useful and successful for Codel as having the ability to tailor training sessions allows the team to relate specific sessions directly to their own role. This seems to keep our team members more engaged and keener to do more.

United Rental Group Ltd manage and operate a network of more than 600 independent vehicle rental businesses, which are licensees of United Rental System. It’s similar to a franchise network, except they each trade under their own name and they provide them with everything they need to run their business.

We have an internal leadership team and I wanted them to benefit from understanding leadership versus management, along with all aspects of getting the best out of colleagues through example and motivation. It needed to cover a broad range of business areas, which as a group they’d all be responsible for at some point – and ensure there were common approaches towards achieving similar goals.

It was a little more complicated than normal in that everything had to be delivered via Microsoft Teams one afternoon each week – over an eight-week period. The trainers were great – even splitting the delivery between them depending on their specialism. After each session, I was sent an update and summary so I could see what they had been working on. I found that extremely helpful and thoughtful.

Most importantly, it bought each section leader together as one unit, highlighted some common objectives and brought home to everyone that although they all have different areas of responsibility, they were one team – and should endeavour to work to the same principles. I was more than pleasantly surprised at the enthusiasm with which each trainee greeted the opportunity to participate each week – testimony I think to the quality of the training and delivery.

One of my concerns was that our leadership team is already really good and mostly very experienced. I didn’t want to insult those people or look as if we were teaching them to “suck eggs” – so it was important we pitched the content at the right level. Because we got that right, we came out of it with an even more enthusiastic set of leaders who had all learnt some new skills.

I also had the chance to speak to the trainers beforehand and describe our culture, which gave them the opportunity to tailor the delivery and content of each section of the course to match our business and ethics.

We now have a clear indication on where we need to go next in terms of investing more time in educating our teams – and which areas we should focus on. I think it’s easy as a business leader to drive a company forward and forget that what you’re “driving” needs some maintenance or a “service” now and then. Our people are our greatest assets – offering bespoke training that makes clear sense to them is key to ensuring a more secure future for the business.