Management development at Chatsworth
Chatsworth House, the home of the Duke of Devonshire, is a premier visitor attraction in the Peak District in Derbyshire. The business is focused around the historic house but also has a thriving retail business and derives income from managing the Devonshire estates.
The organisation is a charitable trust with a high profile and traditional brand which is embracing change and adapting its business model to match the demands of the challenging leisure market. The economic downturn presents challenges to the leisure market with a reduction in personal disposable incomes.
The challenge
Chatsworth House is a successful and complex business with a traditional culture. It has ambitious growth plans which will require dynamic change in all aspects of the organisation. The directors of the organisation have recognised that the managers of the business will be key drivers of change in the organisation and approached the University of Derby Corporate to develop a management development programme.
The organisation is a very diverse and complex business with many managers being quite specialist and operating in a very demanding environment. The key challenge was to develop a programme which was flexible enough to embrace all of the managerial specialism and also to be operational efficient so that it didn't take all the key managers out of the business at the same time.
The solution
The programme was launched with a focus on personal professional development and is supported with an online portal specifically designed for Chatsworth.
The purpose was to allow managers to explore and reflect upon their own management skills. The remainder of the programme will revolve around individual work based assignments - these assignments will be projects that identify aspects of the business that can be developed and the intention is that these development plans could be implemented in the business.
The outcome
The cohort fully engaged with the professional development programme and, supported by a UDC tutor, all delegates have developed a good understanding of their current skills and capabilities which is being used as platform to drive their development plans.
The programme has generated great enthusiasm amongst the management cohort and a number of excellent project ideas that will be of great value to the business have been developed.
