Senior Plant Leader Darren Houston has taken the next step in his career with Ideal Standard as he has passed a level five management qualification.
The Level Five NVQ in Operational Management follows on from the level three course he completed in 2020.
The latest course included studying and completing assignments on leadership, coaching teams, communication, self-awareness and finance.
As continuous improvement is a critical aspect of the course, he selected a project to improve the yields on cisterns following design changes brought about by the AUK1 water regulations.
After successfully implementing the improvement, Darren had to prepare and deliver a 20-minute presentation to an assessor, with a 40-minute question and answer session afterwards.
The course ended with an hour-long professional learning review with an external assessor in which he had to demonstrate the knowledge he had gained during the qualification, how and where it related to his role and examples of where he had applied the learning.
Darren said: “I feel that the course has helped me to relate a lot of the theory into practice, which I use most days, in particular time management.
“I would like to continue my learning by undertaking a more advanced strategic management course in the near future, hopefully putting me in a good position to progress further within the business and become a better leader in every aspect of my role.
“I’m really grateful to Ideal Standard for putting me onto the course and for my colleagues for helping me to achieve the different modules I needed to complete.”
Darren started with the business in 2002 as a member of a team working in production, mainly in clay inspection and placing after firing.
In 2009, he was promoted to the position of team leader in the process section before becoming senior leader in 2020.
Plant General Manager Mark Barrett said: “Congratulations to Darren on successfully completing this programme. It is important that we recognise over the two years 75% of the time Darren spent researching the topics, producing assignments and presenting project outcomes took place outside normal working hours in his own time.
“The real value added from this learning is when you can apply it into your day-to-day activities, supporting the achievement of goals and objectives. The whole team have recognised how Darren has been able to achieve this in his personal development as a leader and the positive operational performance improvements made in the cistern production process in the last 12 months.”
Senior HR Business Partner Vikki Atkin said: “Congratulations to Darren on this amazing achievement. It’s wonderful to be able to invest our Apprenticeship Levy in supporting the people of our business in achieving their career goals.”