Honest Conversations

Happiness in the Workplace: More Than Just a Perk

When you think about happiness at work, what comes to mind? Free snacks? Casual Fridays? Maybe even the elusive four-day work week? While perks like these might bring a smile to our faces, true happiness at work runs much deeper. It’s not just about the surface-level perks it’s about how we feel, how we connect, and how we grow in our roles. Let’s take a closer look at what makes happiness in the workplace more than just a buzzword.

We’re Proud to Be Recognised by the Good Business Charter

We’re delighted to share that Pro-Development has been accredited by the Good Business Charter (GBC) – a national initiative that recognises organisations committed to responsible business practices across key areas including employee wellbeing, ethical sourcing, environmental responsibility and customer care.

Getting it all out in the open, out in the open

“All Truly Great Thoughts Are Conceived While Walking” (Nietzsche)

Will’s last blog gave an honest account of the benefits of walking, and you saw for yourselves how walking visibly changed her from frazzled to focused!
We don’t just talk the talk here at Pro-Development, we also walk the walk! Last year we were lucky enough to work with some great clients and their teams, senior leadership teams, directors and business owners to focus on their business needs, visions, goals and objectives and help them build relationships through our bespoke experiential Team Walk Days. Where better to do this than across some incredible locations all around our favourite county of Yorkshire?

From frazzled to focused

I sat here at my desk this morning for longer than I dare to admit, tearing my hair out because I’ve been asked to write a blog and in my usual style, I’ve left it till the last minute.

The BEFORE and AFTER pictures tell a story…

How to Create a Winning Training and Development Plan for 2025

A new year isn’t just for setting personal resolutions and getting clarity on your Vision as Sue O’boyle talked about in our last blog – it’s also the perfect time to plan how you’ll develop and support your people. Once you have a clear vision that provides a roadmap and a sense of purpose for your team, you will need to think about upskilling and developing your people to meet those needs. We do quite a lot of work with businesses on talent and succession planning and having a robust Training and Development Plan and Budget.

Is your business Vision giving you clarity or blurring the issue for 2025?

At Pro-Development, we love to help both individuals and companies identify and explore their core values, we can then work with them to ensure that everyone lives by these values.  It is a joy to work with an individual to help them clarify their own values and therefore lead themselves according to these (you can read more about that in Abi’s blog earlier this month) or an organisation who wants to identify and embed values to help them set their culture, to recruit people aligned to these values or ensure they work with clients who align to these values. We have worked hard on living and breathing our values from the day we set up in 2011 and know only too well the power and benefits that Values have brought to our business.

The Power of Values: Knowing Yours (and Others)

At Pro-Development, we love to help both individuals and companies identify and explore their core values, we can then work with them to ensure that everyone lives by these values.  It is a joy to work with an individual to help them clarify their own values and therefore lead themselves according to these (you can read more about that in Abi’s blog earlier this month) or an organisation who wants to identify and embed values to help them set their culture, to recruit people aligned to these values or ensure they work with clients who align to these values. We have worked hard on living and breathing our values from the day we set up in 2011 and know only too well the power and benefits that Values have brought to our business.

It Starts with you: Lead yourself first

At Pro-Development we strongly believe that employee engagement and a happy productive workforce is supported by great leadership and that begins with an important factor – leading yourself. If we lead ourselves well, we will inspire and guide others.
If we think about it, how can we expect to inspire trust, confidence, or motivation in our teams if we’re not walking the talk ourselves? When we lead ourselves well, by sticking to our values, holding ourselves accountable and managing our behaviours, it sets the standard for those around us.

Nightmare on Scary Street

Imagine this, you are entering a dark building where the only light is a flickering bulb at the end of the corridor. The building is empty except for yourself and the fear now building inside you. As you walk cautiously through the once crowded office, the sound of your heart beating is so loud you’re unable to hear the banging of the open window caused by the icy cold wind. Suddenly a stark realisation comes over you, this is your office, and all of your colleagues have left you. Your mind races to make sense of it all, then it comes to you – they’ve gone not through being consumed by a zombie virus or a werewolf invasion, no they left because your place of work has become…….toxic!!!!