Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
From strength to strength with Help to Grow
At Leeds Beckett, we have been running the £220 million, government-backed, Help to Grow: Management programme for a year now. George Lancaster, SME Programme Manager, looks back over this first year, at all of the successes we have seen and things we have learnt as we move into our second year.
In our first year, we have supported a huge 60 businesses through the programme across three cohorts. We have attracted a really diverse group of businesses - from smaller micro enterprises with less than 10 employees, to larger SMEs of over 50 employees.
What has united all of the businesses on the programme so far has been a desire to grow, to improve resilience and to enable change through improved leadership and management practices. Many of the businesses joined the course with common aspirations and faced the same key challenges.
The greatest obstacles to growth, we learnt, were successful recruitment, management capability, and digital adoption. These directly line up with three of the modules on the programme. One of the benefits of the programme is that we get businesses working together in these sessions – and, through their feedback, businesses have let us know that their peer groups were where they made the most vital learnings – from each other.
At one of our recent Help to Grow alumni events, Peter Dixon, Director at Dudleys Consulting Engineers, shared a fantastic example of the programme’s impact on their company. The programme prompted Peter to carry out a review of the company, which has resulted in the decision to open a second office and bring in dedicated office and account managers as key enablers of growth.
Oliver Kauss, Director at Hodson & Kauss, revealed that a combination of the peer groups and mentoring available on the programme gave him the push needed to develop a new side to the business un-seen before the programme started.
David Taylor, Leadership Programme Developer in the Leadership Centre at Leeds Business School, told us: “It's been a privilege to facilitate a number of peer groups as part of the Help to Grow programme and engage in some rich and varied discussions about growing a range of businesses in the light of the material from the programme itself. The depth and range of experience in the groups has been a valuable resource for the people participating and I know everyone has taken ideas and identified action to implement in their business plans to support successful growth for their own business.”
You can read more about the programme through a business’s eyes in this interview with Emma Heaps, Director & Head of Client Solutions at business consultancy Primeast.
Testimonial from Edward Mason, Director, Whitelock's Ale House
About Help to Grow: Management
Help to Grow: Management is a £220 million government-backed programme which was created to boost economic recovery from the impact of COVID-19. In total it aims to provide over 30,000 SME leaders in the UK with the skills they need to improve business performance and resilience to future crises – helping them bounce back and achieve long-term growth.
It is delivered by business schools who have been accredited by the Small Business Charter and follows on from the successful pilot, the Small Business Leadership Programme, which was launched in 2021. It is 90% funded by the government – so the total cost to the business is only £750.
Leeds Business School has been involved since its inception – helping to create some of the key module content as well as delivering the pilot. The 12-week programme is designed to be taken alongside full-time work through a combination of online sessions, weekly peer groups and face-to-face learning. Each business can also access 10 hours of one-to-one mentoring and is guided throughout to create a business growth action plan.
Testimonial from Peter Dixon, Dudleys Consulting Engineers Ltd
With Help to Grow: Management being advertised nationally, it has acted as a great shop window into all the ways Leeds Beckett University can support businesses. Following the Help to Grow programme, 14 businesses have gone on to participate in our #WECAN project (Women Empowered through Coaching and Networking) and four businesses have gone on to start a Knowledge Transfer Partnership project.
Join our next Help to Grow: Management cohort this November!
We are now already halfway through the first cohort of our second year - and our next cohort starts on Wednesday 30 November. If you’d like to get involved in either attending or delivering the programme, please email the team.
George Lancaster
With over a decade of experience in business support at Leeds Beckett University, George brings a deep understanding of the needs of SMEs and the value of academic collaboration. His work is driven by a strong commitment to delivering meaningful impact and fostering innovation across the region.
