Leadership & Management Development Programme

The EWIM course was developed by Parity Professionals who have over 23 years’ experience of successfully delivering leadership and management development programmes across a number of business environments.  The focus of the programme was to raise skills and unlock potential to help women climb the career ladder specifically in the food and drink industry. The National Skills Council recognising the need to support the development of women in management agreed to sponsor the initial programme by a 100% contribution. The first cohort of female managers from Dovecote Park attended the programme in Sheffield in December 2012 which included Jo Hardy, Lynn Pilmoor, Trish Parker, Charlotte Mosey and myself.  We were joined by delegates from Greencore, Wiseman Dairies, Muller Foods and Moy Park. Due to the on-going success of the programme further funding was made available at a 50% contribution and so Dovecote Park took the decision to take advantage of this and asked senior managers to nominate any members of their team to attend this course.

We had an excellent response and the following all attended: Rachel Marston - Accounts, Lyndsay Dawson - HR, Nicola Lawrence- QA, Leann Robertson - QA, Becky Leach - Livestock, Laura Masters - Livestock, Harry Allen – Commercial Graduate and Lorna Smith - Production.  They were joined by other delegates from Dalehead, Moy Park and Stonegate (all suppliers to Waitrose).This was a four day course spread over 3 months, with 3 days hosted here at Dovecote Park and a fourth at Dalehead. The four day programme focused on the following elements: - Women into Leadership; Power and Influence; The Business Environment; Managing Change and Assertiveness;and Influencing and Negotiation. Feedback from the delegates about the course as a whole was very positive as detailed below:

• Some teething problems with Teamwork (the online portal to download materials for the course).
• Invaluable professional network of Waitrose suppliers.
  
  
• Excellent coaches, thanks to Cora Robinson, Moraig Fitzpatrick and Lesley O’Hanlan for sharing their experiences of different organisations and cultures.
• Enjoyable content with engaging coaches which facilitated the learning experience.  Delegates left with ideas to continue to develop skills and build on the learning foundations and professional relationships. My personal thanks go to all the delegates who attended all four days, some having to travel some distances to Dalehead and Dovecote; and also to the Parity coaches who travelled all the way from Northern Ireland.
• Finally excellent feedback came from Estelle King, Cepta Marchant and Sarah Gibbs from Dalehead after a comprehensive factory tour culminating in the Abattoir. They were very impressed and described the factory as ‘Fantastic’.  They were especially impressed by the racking system and made a special thanks to Simon Peters for his comprehensive explanation of and tour of the abattoir.    

Penny Marlow,  Human Resources Manager.