Teesside and Sainsbury’s at Bells – a new learning partnership

Managers at a local chain of convenience stores are combining their work with learning, thanks to a University of Teesside accredited course. Since September last year, the university and Sainsbury’s at Bells have been working together in the delivery of a new qualification, designed for managers in the business.

Darren Bodycote is the manager of the Sainsbury’s at Bells convenience store at Dormanstown in Redcar. He is one of eight managers taking part in the pilot course, the focus of which is managerial skills, in particular people management.

The managers join in in-house training workshops followed by written assessments and presentations, all of which are work based and relevant to their day to day role.

The workshops and assessments are designed in partnership between Sainsbury’s at Bells and the University of Teesside. On successful completion of the course, each manager will earn an accredited University Certificate in Advanced Professional Development.

Darren, 27, from Brotton, has been with the business for two years and has so far found the programme to be challenging.

He said: “The first assignment was based on opening a new store and planning how we would develop a new team. We had to explore every element from recruitment through to ensuring we trained the team and evaluated the process. It was a real challenge and something that I had never done before.”

Darren also faced an extra challenge while writing his first assignment – his wife Gemma gave birth to their second child!

“Managing my store and juggling a new baby, nappies, sleepless nights, our three year old son as well as my course work was quite a challenge, but I got there in the end.”

David Filmer, Sainsbury’s at Bells training and development manager, said: “We’ve always had a strong commitment to training and development and this course will be a major part of our management programme. We’ll have 8 - 10 managers taking part every year and as well as helping them do their current jobs better, it will also be useful for their own career development.

“Hats off to the managers though – not only are they each managing a busy convenience store, which can be extremely demanding, on top of that they have had to handle a significant amount of coursework. It’s designed to be a stretch but not to be overwhelming. I was really pleased that they all passed the first assessment and I’m confident that they will all work hard and do well in their next assignment.”

This new scheme, believed to be the first time a chain of convenience stores has offered a University accredited training to its staff, is funded by Aimhigher.

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