A year to learn and celebrate

Well, that was another year!!  We still can’t quite believe how fast it’s gone although as each year goes by, they seem to go faster and faster!  As always, as the year draws to a close, we’ve been reflecting on the highs and lows, the successes and challenges, the wins and the learning and giving some thought to our hopes for the business, team and our clients in 2022. 

Well, that was another year!!  We still can’t quite believe how fast it’s gone although as each year goes by, they seem to go faster and faster!  As always, as the year draws to a close, we’ve been reflecting on the highs and lows, the successes and challenges, the wins and the learning and giving some thought to our hopes for the business, team and our clients in 2022.

Here are a few of my personal thoughts

The importance of getting a work life balance

I’m going to start with a big learn from me which is how important this is.  I know what you’re going to say!  We talk about this all the time and with our clients but this year, for me, I didn’t get this right!  Coming out of the pandemic at the start of this year, I was not in the best place.  I was tired from doing long hours, had lost a bit of my mojo, felt unhealthy and was genuinely struggling to get myself in the right place.  Lesson learnt!  The second half of the year has seen a big improvement with me taking time for me.  I started singing lessons (which I’m loving), have enjoyed a retreat, invested in some coaching for myself and even had some Fridays off.  This is a work in progress but I’m feeling set for 2022, bring it on!

Always looking for new opportunities

Another big success for us has been the ability to access the 40% ESF funding through both the West Yorkshire Consortium of Colleges (WYCC) and Calderdale College.  Together we have accessed the grand sum of approx. £292.5k in 2021 which has resulted in a massive contribution for our clients this year of £117k!  Definitely worth celebrating.  We were really sad to see the funding for Leeds City Region end in September and we have loved working with the team at WYCC. We are enjoying our new relationship with the team at Calderdale College who have funding now into July 2022 so we hope to continue to help those in York, North Yorkshire and the East Riding to keep accessing this.

Making time to celebrate success – our 10^th Birthday

Still can’t quite believe we have done 10 incredible years.  It has been an absolute rollercoaster, but I would not change a single thing!  Our blogs this month are all about taking the time to celebrate and we have done a lot of that.  We’ve had fizz, bonuses, birthdays, anniversaries, a new grandchild (our lovely Juan’s), a day at York races, a team away day and a Christmas party to name but a few.  We also made the move to our new lovely new office across the courtyard at Forest Farm and purchased our very own fizz fridge!

Supporting our local business community

One area I am very proud of is how much Pro-Development supports our local region with voluntary roles, both me personally and some of the team.  I have loved my role as Chair of York Professionals for the last 3 years and this has been a huge success for me personally, particularly due to the impact Covid had on our not-for-profit organisation which relied on membership and events.  We thrived in the end and although I was sad to step down and hand over the reins to Elliot Rich in November, I was pleased I was able to do this with York Professionals in such a great place.

I also took up the role of Area Network Ambassador Yorkshire and the Humber for Engage for Success this year and that has been one of my big challenges.  Pulling together people from across the region to help support such a fantastic movement.  We are still in the early days, but it has been great to see the support and with the help of a wonderful core team who have volunteered to help me, we are starting to make some headway and look forward to what 2022 brings.  This brings me nicely onto another big learn.

The power of networking and collaborating

Covid has been very difficult for so many of us and we are no exception.  But one thing we know for sure is how much we have valued our networks, suppliers, partners and friends through this year.  With never-ending support for each other, our People Panel which we set up in lockdown and various other peer to peer groups, it has been wonderful to see the genuine support and opportunities to collaborate over the year.  I know we would not be where we are today without such amazing people around us and we are grateful for each and every one of you.

Having the right people to help you Grow

It was through these collaborations, where we had one of our greatest learns through the year.  Someone saying to me that you will never grow your business unless you truly believe it!  I spent some time reflecting on this and started working on living in faith, not fear.  It is too easy to worry about all the things that could go wrong.  I have learnt to plan for these and then put that aside and live in faith that the very best could happen.  And it has worked.

Those wise words have seen us have the most incredible growth this year.  We have doubled the team and our revenue and since May, have welcomed Jackie and Juan, followed by Joanne in August and then more recently Will who has joined us last month.  We also welcomed back our lovely Kath who has come back as our Operations Manager.

Having the right clients who want to thrive and grow despite the challenges

As always, for us, the highs are getting to work with so many incredibly talented and amazing businesses in our region.  Making a difference is always something that is at the heart of what we do, and this year has been no exception.  We have seen so many of you taking the time to value and care for your people.  You have developed and coached individuals, teams, managers, and leaders.  You are working on creating a great place to work with high performing and engaged teams.  You have implemented performance management frameworks to help support development of talent and succession plans and of course lots of you have embarked on employee engagement projects and are working on your action plans.  The list goes on – you are the reason we do what we do and why we love it, thank you 😊

Our feedback and testimonials are always glowing which makes us happy to know that we are helping you.  Our Net Promoter Score currently stands at a whopping 93% which is definitely something to celebrate and shows what happens when you love the clients you work with.

So, why not take some to reflect on 2021 and give some thought to your hopes for 2022:-

• How are you going to ensure you have a good work/life balance next year?
• What are your opportunities for 2022 and how will you make time to seek them out?
• Have you made enough time to celebrate success in 2021 and if not, what will you do in 2022 to put this right?
• How have you supported your local business community this year? What more could you do in 2022 to help others?
• How can you extend your network in 2022 and find opportunities to collaborate with other like-minded people and give to your network?
• What are you doing to ensure you have the right people in your team to support your growth plans.
• How are you supporting your people and making sure they are as developed and engaged as they can be?
• What are you doing to ensure you have the right clients who you love working with?
• Have you made some time to reflect on 2021 and celebrate all you have achieved and all that your team has achieved?

Remember we can help you work through many of these questions with coaching or if you need help to address any of the challenges ahead, we have a whole range of learning and development solutions which we can tailor to your needs.

Visit our website for more details or call us for a chat.