ABOUT ZODEQ

Zodeq is an invoice finance business, part of the Praetura Group. They are focussed on the recruitment industry and work with SMEs with a turnover of up to £15m from their Chester City Centre base. Now in its sixth year, Zodeq employs 30 people to support its national client base.

Supporting a growing business…

The business experienced rapid growth in the last few years and so to sustain that continued development, Managing Director Paul Cooney identified the need to put into place a company structure that would see certain key employees develop into a Management Team of the future which could lead and shape our business and help to instigate our future business strategy.

Paul recognised that, for these individuals to be successful in their new leadership roles, training would be a key requirement.

Identifying the right training…

As a supplier to TEAM, Paul consulted with associates within the network and was introduced to Kirsty Craig Associates (KCA).

Following an initial meeting to discuss the requirements, KCA recommended bespoke modules of the Clarity 7 Management and Leadership training programme.

Paul Cooney commented: “From the first conversation we felt that KCA had fully grasped our situation and vision for the future, and that was evident by the training plan they created for us”

Tailored face-to-face workshops were held over a period of three months at a training centre in Chester.

Rachel Hough, Director of Operations at KCA explains “Based on my understanding of what Zodeq wanted to create for the future, I used particular aspects of our accredited management development programme and added other elements that were key to their particular challenges to create a very personalised programme in order to achieve the desired result.  Central to our workshops is the creation of a fun and interactive space which inspires people to apply their newly acquired knowledge and skills, creating positive change for the future.

The overall feedback from the six attendees was that the course was perfectly positioned to capture everyone’s level and perspective.

Paul commented “everyone returned enthused with the overall feedback being that they felt the time out of the office focussing on what it is being a manager was extremely well spent and that they were now more well equipped to put this into practice to manage their own teams.

One task that stood out for the team was about understanding their individual personalities, what their normal traits are and how they would then deal with situations.  The view was that the results were well matched and would be very useful going forward.”

Going Forward…

“We didn’t want our new managers to make any sudden changes following the training, but to use their knowledge as and when.

Since the initial training, the team have been busy preparing for the March launch of our company plans.  This has involved the setting up of our new HR function, so the team have been supplementing their new skills to develop one-to-ones, appraisals and client questionnaires as well as working on individual plans.

This part of the programme may be completed but we will look at other elements later in the year to further develop our management team.”