How PREMIER MARINAS set sail for success with WELL Training
Working with WELL Training, leading UK marina company Premier Marinas has made strides forward to realise its goal of becoming “the finest marina operator in the UK”.
BACKGROUND
Premier enlisted WELL to help deliver the company vision to be “the finest marina operator in the UK”, based on providing customers with “quality marinas in good locations and superb customer service” as well as investment in their sites and staff training. Its core business is the wet and dry berthing of leisure craft, with more than 5,000 berths plus storage ashore for a further 2,000 boats.
ABOUT THE CLIENT
Established in 1994, Premier operates leading marinas, from Sovereign Harbour in Eastbourne and Brighton Marina, both in East Sussex, to Chichester Marina in West Sussex, Southsea, Port Solent, Gosport and Swanwick marinas in Hampshire, as well as Noss-on Dart in Devon and Falmouth Marina in Cornwall. The acquisition of a tenth site, Universal Marina on the River Hamble in Hampshire, was announced in 2021.
OUR WORK
As part of their future strategy, Premier identified an opportunity to enhance their people learning to support the development of their services. Working with WELL they created the Premier Academy, which gives a comprehensive development pathway for staff as they develop through the organisation from boatyard operative level right the way through to strategic leaders. WELL have created a completely bespoke online Premier Marinas Academy which now includes over 22 different courses bespoke to Premier. In addition WELL have blended this with virtual live delivery of their Manager Academy delivering 6 modules in addition to one to one coaching to support Duty and Marina Managers accross the business.
Drawing upon extensive online teaching experience built up from working with leading brands the WELL team designed the online courses to be highly effective and engaging to deliver maximium impact. Live delivery of the Management Academy has now been completed with 100% feeding back positively on the impact of the training on their day to day leadership practice.
A live “Train the trainer” programme was also delivered which has built the internal capability and capacity to run future training through the creation of a pool of highly effective Learning Ambassadors.
client verdict
Tracey Jefkins, HR manager at Premier Marinas:
“We value our partnership with WELL as they offer practical solutions to our learning needs. Our staff are encouraged to be active learners so working with WELL helps us build staff development at all levels.
“We had planned the courses before the pandemic but moving to digital learning, based on WELL’s experience, proved a great success, allowing us to support staff development at a time when colleagues were working from home.
KEY OUTCOMES
At a time when staff were at home, the digital programmes not only allowed WELL to teach but also create break-out rooms for colleagues to discuss shared experiences and build stronger links. Following this WELL built the Premier Academy development pathway, building on previous experience to create an online digital learning academy for all staff to use. This now includes development modules which take staff from induction through to manager level with bespoke modules built entirely from scratch for Premier.
HR manager Tracey Jefkins said the partnership with WELL was solid. She said: “Working with WELL has increased the confidence of the staff who took part. Using the digital training, they received training and had the opportunity to offer feedback and develop new skills. We would recommend working with WELL and will continue to build on this success in shaping our partnership in the future.”
AS A RESULT OF THE PROGRAMMES:
Lessons completed
Bespoke online learning modules created
Marina locations across the UK
Staff trained