Our Business Support Spotlight series highlights the wealth of support listed on Boost’s Support Hub and available to Lancashire businesses. Today’s spotlight shines on Lancaster University Management School's Productivity through People programme.
At Lancaster University Management School (LUMS) we deliver a wide range of offerings to SMEs and businesses in Lancashire and wider North West. We’ve been working in this space for over 20 years, drawing together our academic expertise and our deep understanding of the real business world – helping business leaders to innovate, develop and grow their businesses. What we offer businesses is more than ‘just another management course’. The depth and delivery style of the content, and the powerful way it empowers delegates to think differently and then act differently, leads to more confident, effective leaders, clear on their vision and able to engage their teams. They are not management courses, but development programmes. One of our long-standing development programmes available to businesses in the North West is Productivity through People (PtP). This ten-month programme is a unique collaboration of three world-class manufacturers: BAE Systems, Siemens and Rolls-Royce, who have co-designed this innovative programme with LUMS. The fifth cohort of PtP is due to start April 20, 2021.
Many businesses have been hit very hard by the pandemic. For some it has created a stressful and chaotic environment for leaders and staff as they responded to the changes, accommodating increased production or pivoting their business models. The Productivity through People programme provides businesses with a structured approach to creating a sustainable business, which will offer crucial support that is particularly important during these challenging times. We want to support and invest in the Lancashire of tomorrow – to give them access to the latest techniques, thinking and research. Four years’ post-launch of PtP, and we’re still surprising business leaders with the transformational results they achieve from this leadership development programme. Participants get results from day one. It beautifully blends practical learning with academic theory, meaning our delegates have walked back into their businesses and started making changes and improvements straight away. This might be in communication methods. Or reviewing business strategy. Or, and this is often the case, it can be based on a lightbulb moment, a mindset shift, where a better way to engage their people becomes clear. As one delegate said “Very quickly, the penny dropped, and since then, it’s been eureka moment after eureka moment!”
One of the reasons for the success of our programme is not just what our delegates learn, but the range of ways we deliver this knowledge. Yes, content is delivered by academics and specialist facilitators. But we also include site visits and one-to-one mentoring provided by our high-profile industrial partners (including BAE Systems, Siemens and Rolls-Royce), where delegates see first-hand latest best practice around productivity and employee engagement. Many delegates regard the input they received from their mentor as instrumental in guiding them and building their leadership confidence. But the icing on the cake of the expertise supplied by the programme is the creativity and problem-solving capability we see when our delegates learn from each other. Peer-to-peer learning, which includes action learning sets in small groups, is a place where delegates learn the skill of actively listening, challenging each other and finding their own solutions. Often these groups become extremely close and evolve into a mutually supportive network, long after the programme has finished. Over the last year this has been greatly valued by our delegates, as they support each other through grappling the ups and downs, technology challenges, pivoting and people management issues caused by the pandemic.
From the pandemic and it’s resulting consequences, the Climate Crisis, digitalisation of processes - to the fall out of Brexit, we name but a few of the challenges that Lancashire businesses are facing at this time. One potential challenge that is relevant across all sectors in these current circumstances is isolation of the workforce and working from home. In a world where there are so many working from home with limited contact, the need to unite teams, ensure issues are addressed, challenges overcome and for staff to feel empowered, could not be more important. Businesses need to include their teams in their vision, ensure their values permeate company-wide as they grow, develop a durable company culture and inspire and truly trust the talent they have in the business. As well as addressing challenges with staff, business leaders themselves may also feel, in many ways, isolated. Our Productivity through People programme enables businesses to work through each of these challenges and form a close-knit peer network. It enables business leaders to share challenges, impart knowledge and experiences and develop a strong community of trust. This is and has been one of the most valuable aspects of the programme.
We believe in the huge potential of the Lancashire leaders of small and medium sized businesses. During the global crisis of the past year, they’ve shown resilience, creativity and innovation like never before. Harnessing and boosting this talent, giving leaders the time and space to shape their business vision, and helping them drive performance and success through a motivated and engaged workforce, is what we are all about. Taking a step away from the day to day to invest time to focus on your strategy, and on your people will only add value to your organisation. And if you do, like all the 65+ delegates who’ve passed through our programme, you’ll return to your business brimming with ideas, confident in your leadership capability and ready to inspire and motivate your workforce. 
As well as offering the Productivity through People Programme, we also have a wide range of offerings for businesses in the North West.
Visit our website for more information: lancaster.ac.uk/lums/business/sme-programmes
Pictured above: The LUMS Productivity through People workshop four year celebration (pictured before COVID-19 restrictions)
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