Here at Howarths, we enjoy nothing more than sharing our knowledge of all things HR, employment law and health & safety. Well actually, we do; helping others to become more confident in these areas, too.
So, we were delighted when Express Bi-Folding Doors got in touch and asked us to deliver a training programme to help their management team deal with HR issues more effectively and efficiently.
Who are Express Bi-folding Doors?
Express Bi-folding Doors is based in Leeds and run by a father and son team. The company has four sites across the country, and they’ve been a client of ours since 2010 when they had 50 staff. We’ve seen them grow tremendously over that time to a team of around 200 people – and we’ve been delighted to support them along the way.
How did Howarths help the team?
We invited 14 members of the management team to our head office, got them a brew (naturally!) and started on the session.
Our head of employment law, Charlotte, and managing director, Gavin, delivered the session. We covered areas including:
- An outline of what it takes to be a manager (to set the context for the day)
- The fundamentals of a contract of employment and staff handbook
- Discipline and grievance
- A brief summary of performance management
- How to manage sickness.
To put everything into context, we also covered a case study to flesh out the knowledge the Express team had learned around discipline and grievance and had a great group discussion to bring to life the concepts the team had discussed.
What was the feedback from Express Bi-folding Doors?
We were delighted to receive an email from Charles Thompson, General Manager at Express, who told us:
“I found the day really interesting and informative. I always dread training courses and sometimes find them nothing but a distraction to my job, but the course delivered today was the complete opposite.
“The way in which it was delivered and presented by Gavin and Charlotte made the topics interesting and has certainly made me want to develop and further my knowledge in this field.”
What’s next for the Express team?
Going forward, we hope the team has that little bit more awareness and an increased level of confidence in handling HR issues, which should stand them in good stead as the company continues to grow.
And as with all our clients, we’re always on the other end of the phone should the team need any further support.
