Broker Case Study - Spannerworks
The Company
Spannerworks is a company which helps other companies find customers on the internet. That could mean boosting the Google ranking of your website, or identifying the blogs and message boards where your target audience hangs out. It's a service for which demand just keeps growing - and in ten years, founder Arjo Ghosh has taken the company from his back bedroom to a staff of over sixty and a growth rate of 70% per annum.
Spannerworks is part of a cluster of interactive business which now exists in Brighton and Hove, comprising largely web design companies, although other sectors are represented, including IT software and services, corporate media, e-learning and digital learning.
Most of the company's staff are graduates, many with Masters qualifications. Spannerworks believes that enjoyment at work is part of its success. With a staff turnover rate of only 5%, it aims to be an "employer of choice". A culture of training and development starts with a standard induction programme, backed up by a developing e-learning programme and one-to-one reviews with all employees.
The loyalty and motivation of those staff is recognised by the company as a major strength. At the same time, Arjo's team know they could become victims of their own success, if the rate of the company's expansion means it loses its cutting edge. In a field like this, it is difficult to recruit experienced staff, so the quality of in-house training is vital to a company's future.
The Visit
Train to Gain broker, Helyn Soud, and Jo Cassey, Skillset's Regional Manager, were given the tour of the company's Brighton headquarters, recently expanded onto an extra floor. Now, in a coffee shop round the corner, they sat down with Business Planning Director Ray Richards and HR Manager Caroline Parisy to talk about training.
As an industry leader in "natural search", Ray explained, Spannerworks finds itself pioneering new skills. He and Caroline had tried bringing in external trainers, but found that their staff knew more than the people brought in to train them. Instead, they decided to focus on mapping the competencies that already exist within the company, so that skills are passed on more effectively. To this end, they recently restructured the organisation into two teams: Account (Project Management, Client Facing) and Product (Natural or paid search media).
Jo was impressed by what Spannerworks had achieved - she felt there was plenty for other companies in the sector to learn from. Beyond the process of mapping competencies, the Spannerworks team had identified the next step as packaging the knowledge so as to make it useful to new employees. By getting this right, the company should be able to maintain the quality of its service as it continues to expand.
The Outcomes
For Spannerworks, the training generally on offer through Train to Gain was of no appeal. What the company did need, however, was a consultant who could collate the specialist knowledge the company is mapping and turn it into an in-house bespoke training package. It was agreed that Helyn would follow up by putting the company in contact with some suitable consultants.
As a broker, Helyn's contacts were with generalists (for example, used to working in a retail context). This was where Skillset's knowledge of the industry came in. While Helen got back to Roy and Caroline with post-visit information, Jo arranged a follow-up meeting for herself and a Skillset Sector Manager to provide Spannerworks with more sector specific options.
For Train to Gain to work in an area as specialised and highly skilled as digital media, it will take this kind of partnership between the broker and Skillset.