The West Yorkshire Consortium of Colleges (WYCC) is the lead organisation for a number of skills contracts funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) (part of the European Structural Investment Fund). These contracts will help to achieve the objectives of the Leeds City Region Employment & Skills Plan (2016-2020) and increase growth prosperity among businesses.

Through collaboration between employers and colleges, we're looking to explore wider opportunities for improving the skills of your workforce. We aim to shape training solutions for higher skilled workforces and create opportunities for those facing barriers to training in low paid roles as well as providing solutions to support economic growth for businesses.

Huddersfield Business School is pleased to be a partner within WYCC. We are part of the Higher Performing Workplaces project which aims to help SMEs poised for growth through training programmes, coaching, peer to peer sessions and mentoring.

We are delivering a series of online training sessions under the heading Effective Human Resources which will help individuals to use effective HR practices to support succession planning and encourage workplace diversity and to improve workplace cultures. These online sessions will run monthly through the early part of 2021. Topics include bullying and harassment in the workplace, neurodiversity at work and wellbeing in the workplace. Details of the training sessions including content, cost, dates and booking information will be available soon.

Appreciative Inquiry: Focusing on the positive elements of change

Friday 27th November 09:30 - 10:45 via Zoom

As a free taster session, Huddersfield Business School is offering a 75 minute online training session on Appreciative Inquiry. The session will be delivered by Dr. Frances McGregor who is a Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management.

With so much change in our world of work during 2020, there has frequently been a focus on the negative aspects often leaving us speculating on what we can't do. But it's now more important than ever to move that focus to the positive aspects: what are our strengths, our successes and what are we capable of? Using the model of Appreciative Inquiry, this session will provide an opportunity to explore the elements which have supported and promoted success. Success for our people, our business and for our future prosperity.

The training session is designed for you to identify the positive aspects of the changes you and your business may have experienced and how you can build on these for the future.

Please join us.

Event information will be sent via email on registration.

Eligibility for future training sessions

The scheduled online training sessions from January 2021 onwards are funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) and managed by the West Yorkshire Consortium of Colleges (WYCC). This means that businesses can receive 40% ESF funding towards the cost of any Higher Performing Workplaces training.

To be eligible:

• The business must be based in one of the following districts: Bradford, Calderdale, Craven, Harrogate, Kirklees, Leeds, Wakefield or York
• The business needs to be an SME: employ fewer than 250 full time equivalent staff and have an annual turnover not exceeding €50 million.

This project focuses on, but is not limited to the following sectors: Creative, Digital, Finance, Business, Hospitality, Tourism, Low Carbon, Construction, Manufacturing, Engineering, Medical Technology, Transport and Logistics.