Overview

Greensleeves Homes Trust is a not-for-profit organisation managing residential care homes for older people.  The group owns 16 residential care homes for older people across the south and east of England and Focal Point have been working with Greensleeves to help develop their management teams for 3 years.

The Need

As part of the Management Development Programme we have been running with Greensleeves, the senior managers identified that the Home Managers needed some help developing their confidence in dealing with day to day financial activities such as budgeting, forecasting and business planning.      

Solution

Focal Point designed a workshop in conjunction with Geoff Almond, the Financial Controller, to focus on demystifying the finance part of a manager’s role. We took a practical, down to earth approach with clear, jargon free explanations and practical exercises which bought the training to life and made the learning accessible. We also tied it into the group’s internal policies and procedures, to ensure it was highly relevant and would have an immediate impact. The workshops were run just ahead of the budgeting for the forthcoming year, so skills could be put into practice straight away.

The workshops have made a huge difference to the Home Managers’ ability and confidence. Mike Sole, Manager of Croxley House commented…"As a home manager you don't always feel in control of the accounts of the home as you have a book keeper to do a lot of it for you.  So it is helpful to be taught all aspects of running my home including the accounts”

Geoff Almond was also delighted, commenting that the budgeting process “was a lot less painful this year.” He added “the meetings went very well, with Home Managers able to argue their proposals more efficiently than previously. We had more background information submitted with the original proposals and some managers also prepared detailed PESTLE and SWOT analyses - a part of the training they found particularly useful. The September quarter end’s reports were much improved too. I think we can safely say the training was a success!”