Furness Training South Cumbria's Largest Training Provider

Simon Hulbert has just been promoted to manager in the decorating section of Barrow’s Wardgroup business after joining the company almost four years ago. Before that the 39-year-old was a manager designate.
Simon says Wardgroup has always been supportive of him as his employer, gaining extra training and qualifications to help him improve as a manager – and therefore benefit the company. This led Simon to study towards a Management and Team Building Diploma at Furness College.

The course is a year long and, as part of this, he joined his fellow students on a challenging leadership and management residential weekend under the eye of Julian Billinghurst, lecturer in business management at the college. Smion studied the course and go on the reseidential weekend because he felt it would be of benefit through adding to his skills at work and dealing with staff and customers. It would also help him get to know the other members of the class in my course at Furness College.

The weekend was part of one of the modules and the weekend was at Kepplewray near Broughton. It is based on outward bound and is a large property which is used for team building events. Split into two groups, they took part in a range of activities includuing canoeing and kayaking and then a treasure hunt and map finding puzzle, as well as rock climbing and orienteering. The activities kept to the same groups but all members took turns at being team leader for different exercises. Both groups got on really well and it was very good for team building.
I did not really know other people on the course because in the classroom you are listening to the tutor.

Julian explained everything when the course first started and he picked the best modules to suit the year’s course. Simon said, "We felt very comfortable and safe because there was Julian and a colleague as well as two people from the centre."

Taking part in the residential made Simon more confident and he really got to know my classmates better. It also opened his eyes a bit about his work and taught him not to be so hurried and rushed – to take things a bit slower. Simon said; "From solving the puzzles I learnt not to rush into things, especially when you are team leading, you need to think about things first. It was good to watch someone else team leading as well and see how they handled things. You can take that to your own work and I hope that Wardgroup, and the staff I work with, will now see a difference in the way I manage. On the weekend we had some puzzles to solve and we were given a card by Julian which was a sign to say you were team leading this particular part. You were taken aside and told what they wanted us to do. Team leaders then had to convey that to the rest of the team and assign different tasks to members and any decision making I had to do. At first I took an approach which was quiet and soft, but once I got into it I had my own ideas and was more ‘that is the way I want it done. Let’s try it this way’ and then listened to the feedback."

Simon's course will finish in July and he would quite happily carry on training. "I have a family but if it will benefit me and the company I will definitely do it. It was a bit funny coming back to college at first because it makes for long days, but the classes are really good and I am learning a lot. I would definitely recommend it to other people. There is a lot of work involved but there are so many benefits that come out of it."