Reskill and Recover offers fully-funded courses, meaning it is available without any cost to participants. This is possible thanks to funding from the European Social Fund and our delivery partners, which include the University of Derby, Nottingham Trent University, Derby College, Nottingham College, East Midlands Chamber of Commerce, Enable, and the Workers’ Educational Association.
The programme aims to help participants learn about growth and productivity especially following the challenges of the past few years.
Who is Reskill and Recover for?
The Reskill and Recover programme is for anyone wishing to learn how to improve their productivity skills.
How will I learn?
All the modules in the programme are stand-alone and participants can choose the areas they’d like to focus on and will gain a Certificate of Completion for each module completed.
Participants are also offered a blended learning approach through online and in-person teaching. To find out more, please email reskillrecover@derby.ac.uk.
What you can learn
Reskill and Recover aims to help participants upskill by learning about productivity, growth and efficiency. The fully-funded courses will cover:
Customer Relationships
The more you appreciate customer value, the better customer satisfaction and performance will be. This leads to more profit and a higher market share and of course, more loyal customers that will help your business thrive.
Session
- 24 and 31 October - 9:15 am - 3:00 pm
- 28 and 29 November - 9:15 am - 3:00 pm
In this unit, you will cover
Valuing customers as investments
- Lifetime value of customers
- Cost of acquisition vs retention
- Strategies to increase the value of customers
Creating a customer-centric business
- The importance of customer insight
- Customer relationship management
- Customer experience management
Delivering customer value add
- Defining a value proposition
- The value proposition framework
- Isolating customer pain and gaining points
Digital Marketing
There are lots of channels or touchpoints through which you interact with your customers. Today more than ever, digital channels are becoming an increasingly important part of how you interact with customers and deliver value. In this course aimed at those with a beginner/intermediate digital marketing skillset, you will learn which tools are worth adding to your digital marketing mix and how to leverage them better.
Session
- 21 and 28 November - 09:15 am - 3:00 pm
In this unit, you will cover
What is digital marketing?
- Leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and websites to connect with current and prospective customers
Creating a digital marketing strategy
- Planning and establishing an internet presence through online channels such as organic search, social media, paid ads, and other web-based mediums such as your website
- Goal setting for your online activity
LinkedIn Masterclass
- Enhancing your personal business profile and growing and managing your contacts
- Sharing valuable content, increasing engagement and generating leads
Project Management
This unit is designed for participants who need the practical skills to manage projects as part of their day job.
Session
- 21 and 28 November - 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
In this unit, you will cover
Introduction
- What is project management, who can use it, and how can it be applied to small projects?
- The project life-cycle and key techniques and tools
- The importance of linking your project to the organisation’s strategic direction
Project Initiation
- Identifying and analysing the project stakeholders
- Agreeing on the ultimate project objective and benefit
- Documenting the project business case
- Kicking off the project
Project Planning
- Identifying the detailed project requirements behind the objective
- Documenting the project scope, and everything the team will have to do
- Utilising best practices for estimating the project resources and budget
- Building a reliable project schedule laid out across the calendar
- Proactively identifying the schedule and budget needed to deal with project risks
- Finalising the project plan and briefing management to ensure expectations are properly set
Project Execution
- Assembling the best project team for the job
- The importance of team delegation and motivation
Project Implementation and Control
- How to manage scope to ensure you don’t miss anything
- How to manage your schedule to keep your project on track
- How to manage costs to keep your project within budget
- How to deal with surprises
- How to constructively brief management on progress and request assistance when needed
Project Closing
- Closing contracts and delivering the project result
- The best ways to gather project lessons learned to ensure continual organisational improvement
- Preparing a concise and complete final project report for the stakeholders
Responsible Finance
Financial management helps a participant to determine what money their business needs to spend as well as where and when it should be spent. It also gives employees an overall view of the financial status of the business, helping to determine business strategy and direction.
Session
- 16 and 18 October - 9:15 am - 12:45 pm
- 4 and 6 December - 9:15 am - 12:45 pm
In this unit, you will cover
- An introduction to financial management and consideration of the difference between financial accounting and management accounting, key financial statements and understanding how to make sense of them
- Discover the difference between maximising profit and building wealth/value in an organisation - how to be responsible
- Explore pricing strategies and how we must understand our cost base and how costs behave to ensure that we maintain profitability and sustain our operation
- Examine the importance of cash flow management. We will consider the use of financial ratios to see how the financial statements can be pulled together to provide insights into our performance that are otherwise less visible to us
- Look at the importance of developing our understanding of problem-solving, cause-and-effect analysis and the fusion of financial and non-financial information
- Review a number of strategic management accounting techniques that pull together all the threads that will drive the opportunity to help with making our businesses sustainable and profitable
Writing for Business
Crafting engaging messages to promote your business is an essential skill that can help you to sell your products and services more easily. But do you know where to start? This creative course from Reskill and Recover will get you to sharpen your business copy and use language more effectively for all your business promotions and material. From long-form copy for websites and blogs to short snappy straplines and email subject lines that pack a punch - this unit will give you all the tools you need to write like a pro and start selling your business across any medium.
Session
- 20 and 27 November - 9:15 am - 3:00 pm
In this unit, you will cover:
Who are you writing for?
- You will learn how to talk to your customer with ease and creativity. Helping you to craft content that meets your customer's needs and solves their problems
What steps you need to take to become more confident when writing on behalf of your business
- You will learn how to write with enthusiasm and authority as you remove your writing blocks
Where ideas come from
- You will learn how to keep the creativity flowing and ensure you never run out of ideas for crafting copy and content for your business
When to use storytelling within your business writing
- You will learn how to write memorable and impactful copy by utilising storytelling techniques that resonate with your audience
Why creating consistently and writing with clarity is important for your business
- You will learn how to create your own style guide; this will ensure every piece of content or copy created follows your brand/business style and tone of voice ensuring your message is never lost
How to find your business voice
- You will learn what your business sounds like on the page as you sharpen your tone of voice, and you'll know how to use this to attract more customers
Workshops
There are also some shorter workshops available.
Power up with easy SEO
Do you want to learn the basics of search engine optimisation and give your website a kickstart online? This short course will take you through the necessary steps to understand and simplify search terminology and get stuck in with applying SEO to your online marketing.
Session
- 8 November - 9:30 am - 11:30 am
In this unit, you will cover
- Jargon busting and understanding the terminology of SEO
- How to use free resources to carry out keyword research for your business
- How to use Yoast to implement keywords and key phrases in your website
- Optimising your content elsewhere on the web
Managing difficult conversations
How do you prepare for a difficult conversation that is going to be challenging and tough?
Ask most people how they feel about tackling difficult conversations, and at least 90% of them will feel intensely uncomfortable, recalling a previous time when they had to deal with one. These situations happen frequently, but dealing with them is something that leaves most of us cold at the prospect.
Avoiding challenging discussions can make situations worse causing further issues by eroding trust and damaging relationships.
Session
- 31 October - 9:30 am - 12:30 pm
- 21 November - 9:30 am - 12:30 pm
- 12 December - 9:30 am - 12:30 pm
In this unit, you will cover:
- How to prepare for difficult conversations
- How to build confidence as you learn key tools and strategies to navigate more challenging communications
- How to communicate positively
- How to build relationships
- How to become effective in managing, tough and difficult conversations
Applying the workshop insights will:
- Increase your well-being
- Earn the trust and respect from those you work with
- Improve your relationships
- Enrich the overall atmosphere and productivity of your organisation
Managing difficult conversations training will equip your team, leaders and managers with the skills they require to handle a variety of difficult conversations with confidence.
Staff retention - how to retain the best of your workforce?
Whilst it is not always desirable to retain everyone, and employee turnover is not necessarily a bad thing, retention is one of the biggest challenges in modern businesses. The number one reason talented people leave organisations is that they think their career is not going anywhere, this is particularly a challenge in smaller businesses.
Alongside this, the traditional model of work has changed considerably over the last few years and employees are seeking a better or different approach to work-life balance. Offering flexible working options has become almost standard practice and is one way to retain staff however this is not always a practical or affordable solution. Flexible working, promotion, upskilling and career development all affect how employees feel about their work and employer.
Session
- 1 November - 9:30 am - 11:30 am
In this unit, you will cover
- Push and pull factors affecting both employees and employers
- Flexible working arrangements
- Career planning
- Job enrichment
There will also be a range of other options explored to assess how they can be applied to the workforce as well as the importance of measuring their success.
LinkedIn masterclass
This workshop is a must for anyone using social media for business. Aimed at beginner and intermediate levels, the session will give you a better understanding of how LinkedIn works and its algorithm, how to maximise exposure for your content, and how to enhance and optimise your profile on LinkedIn and build your personal brand. This session will allow you time to implement some of the techniques as well as provide plenty of opportunities to ask questions.
Session
- 5 December - 09:30 am - 12:00 pm
In this unit, you will cover
- Understanding LinkedIn as a promotional platform
- Enhancing and managing your personal and business profile
- Growing and managing your contacts
- Sharing valuable content and increasing engagement
- Generating leads
Generative AI and Chat GPT - a beginner's guide
Generative AI is a rapidly growing field that has the potential to revolutionise many industries. The uses range from increased productivity, improved customer experience and the generation of new business opportunities. Already businesses are using generative AI to create content, enhance customer service, for marketing campaigns and in product design. This workshop is designed for leaders who want to learn more about generative AI and Chat GPT and how it can be used to improve their practice or business. No prior experience is required.
Session
- 15 November - 9:30 am - 11:30 am
In this unit, you will cover
- The basics of generative AI and some specific generative AI tools
- The different types of generative AI models
- The applications of generative AI in businesses
- The benefits and challenges of using AI in your business
Leadership back to basics
In the noisy world of leader development, this workshop will equip you with tools and competencies to tackle the current leadership issues of knowledge and employee retention, building resilience, whilst delivering consistent results.
Session
- 27 November - 09:30am - 12:30pm
In a new-era of leadership with increasingly competitive agendas - where do you expend your time and resources? Retaining top talent and building resilience are two top challenges organisations face today. When employees leave, they take invaluable perspectives and organisational knowledge with them, leaving their organisation with the likely high cost of recruitment. New-era business challenges call for building resilience in leaders and their employees.
In this unit, you will cover:
- Where, as a leader, your focus is currently concentrated - and how to balance where it needs to be for talent retention
- Specific strategies for employee retention and capturing the wealth of current organisational knowledge and experience
- The top three post-pandemic attributes, leaders need to build a thriving working environment
- Insights of attributes to gain results in a new-era (post-pandemic) business environment
- The workshop offers real-world insights and strategies to increase retention, build resilience and achieve consistent results
How much does it cost?
The courses offered are fully-funded meaning there is no cost to participants, and you can enrol as many team members as you like. The Reskill and Recover project is part-funded by the European Social Fund.
Am I eligible?
This brand-new programme is available to employees in all eligible small and medium enterprises across Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire (D2N2 region) from start-ups to those more established and looking to up-skill. Alternatively, you could be self-employed and registered as a sole trader within the D2N2 region.