DriveSpeed Group provide tailored vehicle solutions to clients across a range of industries from a base in North Yorkshire. The business has grown significantly since its incorporation in 2011, and has doubled in size in the last three years, with over 20 staff at their office on Fishergate in York.
In 2020 the dental industry was shut down for a couple of months, but Swallow Dental Supplies adapted its PPE product range and are now growing rapidly through their sales of bone regeneration material and other surgical dental supplies.
“I would recommend this process to every business owner/manager. It’s amazing how much insight we got from a questionnaire which literally took each team member about 2 minutes to complete. The feedback is very clear, easily understood and massively impactful. On digesting the findings I went through a range of emotions (including fear and anger) but these very quickly subside as you realise how valuable and important it is to understand exactly how your team is feeling during these very unusual and, for some, frightening and stressful times. Michelle’s findings have instantly become the foundation of our communication plan with our team. We will still be using the knowledge we gained long after the current crisis ends. Thank you Pro-Development”.
“On behalf of Leeds City Region Skills Network, thank you very much for your contribution to our tenth conference, The Power of Communication. As you can appreciate this year’s conference has been particularly challenging in the light of COVID-19 restrictions. We were particularly grateful therefore, that you could contribute to the virtual event. We had three hundred delegates registered to participate, the highest level yet. Thank you once again for your input and we look forward to our continued collaboration with you”.
“We hugely enjoyed working with Michelle. What we asked for was some support to facilitate some ‘moving on’ for our SMT after some staffing changes, and to help us set out what we wanted to achieve as a team going ahead. Michelle provided us with a thought provoking and constructive route forward, that not only supported us as a team, to listen and appreciate one another’s differences, for me personally, it also allowed some personal reflection that will support my development as a leader.”
“Access to the help and funding made the decision to get assistance developing our team a no brainer. All teams need nurturing to get the best but unfortunately the pressure of the day to day business can mean this is something that can be neglected. Knowing that a happy functional team means we can do the best for our clients we appointed Pro-Development to run a team building day which was a big success. We found that getting someone from outside the business was a positive allowing people to be more open in discussing the issues and opportunities. We will defiantly be using Pro-Development again to help rebuild the team spirit after so many weeks of remote working during lockdown.”
“We came to the team at Pro-Development because we wanted to improve working relationships within the senior leadership team. Remote working meant the whole team had to re-learn how to work together again, and added into the mix were new-to-role managers. Michelle listened to our challenges and provided ideas and advice on ways to tackle it. The whole senior leadership team have had two sessions with Michelle so far. These sessions have brought us all closer together by providing a safe space for us to open up and share our values, strengths, areas for development and vulnerabilities. In particular, the conversations around what ‘trust’ means to each one of us has really helped us all understand how we can best work together. The DiSC profiling was a real eye-opener, and for all of us we realised why we each act and react in particular ways. We have found the sessions valuable, and our middle leadership team are going to be joining us for future sessions too. Thank you Michelle (and your team)! ”
“The Working Remotely online session that Michelle delivered at York Business Week was so great. It was my highlight of the week and gave me such a boost personally and professionally. I’ve put Zoom coffee catch ups in the team’s diary following this, and we had a virtual lunch break together last week. I really can’t thank you enough; those of us who attended were quite evangelical about making positive changes together after that session.”
“We identified we had a need to improve our facilitation skills and having met with Michelle before, knew she would be able to help. The whole experience working with Pro-Development has been a pleasure, from the pre meetings, the delivery and through to the follow up. All the delegates who attended the training, commented how much they enjoyed the experience and how their confidence has increased together with their ability to run brilliant, facilitated sessions. Many of the delegates quickly put their skills to good use and delivered effective sessions of their own. The one thing I value about working with Pro-Development is how quickly they understand our business and therefore how they ensure the service they provide fits in seamlessly with our own development initiatives.”
“Our team had six online sessions with Pro-Development. I must admit to being a little apprehensive to begin with, but Michelle soon put us at our ease, and I began to look forward to the sessions. We learned a lot about each other, and this has helped us communicate more effectively amongst ourselves, and there has also been a lot that we have been able to use with our respective teams. Copies of all the course materials were sent to us, which helped us prepare for the subsequent sessions, but are also useful in rolling out some of these ideas amongst the wider company. As a result, we are all a lot more comfortable in asking for, and receiving feedback on our own performance.”
Doing a ‘Yorkshire Peak’ with the Intandem Communications team has been on my bucket list for a while. Thank you Pro-Development for throwing yourself in wholeheartedly to the challenge and for making it such fun! Your thorough planning, thoughtful preparation and amazing insights meant we absolutely got the most possible out of our day. We LOVED every minute and we’ll remember it and what we’ve learned forever!
We identified through the Employee Engagement process done with Pro-Development that we had a very dated performance management process. After going through some training with Sue, we literally turned this process into what was very time consuming in preparing and delivering from my perspective, into a very interactive process which put most of the ownership onto the employee which resulted in AMAZING results… I had never known staff talk so much and be so engaged in their performance review process. They came prepared with what they felt their objectives should be, what was working well for them and what they had achieved…the conversations were just mind blowing. Michelle and her team have taught us how to do succession planning based on the feedback from the performance reviews, which has enabled us to plan for the long term, create a clearer structure for movement within the business, and highlighting our high-risk areas. Having been involved in performance management for over 22 years, this has been one of the best learning experiences I have had the fortune of encountering. If I speak to people now who say ‘performance management is a thing of the past, I don’t bother with them now’….I have to say I don’t agree!
