Well, that was an interesting visit to Sandfords this morning.
Yes,
I'd really like to get the contract with them,
they'd be an excellent company for our portfolio.
Absolutely.
Talking to the department manager was extremely useful.
How did you get on in discussion with the senior management team?
Mm, a similar experience,
very informative.
I was impressed.
They're operating in a highly competitive market,
yet they're totally committed to investment in training.
Not all companies take that view, of course,
especially when the economy is on a downturn.
Quite. Sandfords' view is long-term.
Instead of being satisfied that they're already known as a good company to work for,
they want their management programmes to create an established, committed team
and keep those people in the company.
The staff I spoke to had plenty to say about the training they received in the past.
So did the senior managers.
As you probably found out,
they're always tried to run their own in-house programmes before,
using the knowledge areas of a number of their own personnel.
They were very keen for management training to be attended by all managers.
Of course, they rarely succeeded in getting everyone together at the same time.
Sessions kept getting cancelled
and people were generally irritated by the changes to arrangements,
though those sessions that did take place were well received,
especially ones on the more specialist topics.
Yes,
the middle managers I interviewed commented
that they'd like training to cover more specialist areas.