Investing in individuals to grow your business

Our new training programme is set to empower employees in York, North Yorkshire & East Riding

Having successfully delivered business support programmes across the North of England over the last 10 years, we are thrilled to begin delivering a training programme to support individual employees in York, North Yorkshire & East Riding. We’ve been appointed by Calderdale College to share CDI’s experience and knowledge with multiple team members from local businesses.

We know that people are the biggest cost but, also the most valuable asset for businesses. Therefore, it’s well worth investing in developing their skills, building their confidence, and knowledge to help them achieve their own potential, and in turn, the company’s success.

Richard Branson, CEO and founder of Virgin Group, once said: “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”

Indeed, staff who can work collaboratively, innovatively, and efficiently are the driver of an organisation’s success but to achieve this culture and this way of working, employers must first invest in their people.

• Do your team know how to work well together? Educating them on strategies to use when working with people of different personality types can resolve conflict and make meetings more meaningful.
• Are your managers equipped with the skills to look after and guide your team? Proper people and project management training can make team leaders much more effective and fulfilled in their roles.
• Could your employees be collaborating on your marketing strategies? Sharing insights on how to use tools like LinkedIn with all members of staff, can dramatically impact the results.

By first developing the skills and behaviours of your colleagues, you naturally support growth in all other areas of your company – sales, marketing, team management, leadership, project management, etc. Since we started delivering business support programmes across the region, our experienced team have helped grow business leaders’ skills in all these areas and we continue working with local growth hubs in Lincolnshire, Humberside, Yorkshire and Lancashire today.

Additionally, we recently delivered our Ultimate Guide to Digital Marketing for individuals working in the visitor economy on the East Lincolnshire Coast. We had a great response and fantastic feedback to this bespoke series of interactive masterclasses. We are proud that we educated double the learners we were tasked to train and supported more businesses too.

Over the next 18 months we start focussing on York, North Yorkshire, and the East Riding. We will be giving employees from businesses across various industries the opportunity to refine their skills through Calderdale College’s funded training programme.  That means that not just business leaders, but everyone from a junior assistant to a manager to a director can develop in the areas that benefits not only the individual but supports the business grow.

What’s the benefit of training multiple members of your team?

First, sharing insights with more than one employee increases the chances that individuals will act on what they have learnt. Working together, they can put into practice the strategies they have picked up and reinforce each other’s understanding.

Furthermore, training multiple team members gives knowledge longevity. If someone leaves, their learnings won’t be lost with them. There’ll be another person to share information with others.

Finally, as your business scales up and colleagues are promoted, you can ensure that the same culture, skills, and behaviours that they’ve learnt through training gets disseminated through the teams they lead. Having knowledge instilled in multiple future managers means cohesiveness in how your organisation operates. This strengthens the chances of meeting your business objectives.

How can I put forward members of my team for the training?

If you’re in York, North Yorkshire or East Riding, then you can join the Specialist Skills programme on the Calderdale College website:

We are delivering alongside organisations like the University of York, and businesses can access grant funding to support their training needs for their teams.

Our CDI team will be delivering a wide range of training packages, our experienced trainer, Holly Arden, will be delivering the specialist skills such as building confidence, communication skills and resolving conflict, whilst the CDI directors will be delivering the strategic skills in sales, marketing, business planning, growth, leadership, and management, etc.

Also if you are located in Cumbria, you can put colleagues forward for the Digital Tech Cumbria programme which we are delivering with Winning Moves. Find out more on their website.

Our associate director Deborah Goodall is sharing insights on marketing, website development and social media alongside our associate Liam Lally from Zaddle Marketing. These sessions are free to register.

If you’re located elsewhere in the North, please email us at enquiries@cdialliance.co.uk and we can point you in the right direction.