Multi-award winning PR, social media and content marketing agency, Prohibition PR, has upskilled its staff through The Skills Service

Chris Norton, founder of Leeds-based Prohibition PR, spoke to us about the training they’ve had through The Skills Service and their experience with training provider, Calderdale College:

"We specialise in telling stories online and offline, in the media, in social media and in clever content. We get people and brands talked about! That’s what we do for clients of all shapes and sizes, from high-street names to public sector organisations. We’re committed to training and developing our people, because we are a people business.

“We allocate a budget to training every year but the 40 per cent ESF funding we can access through The Skills Service means that we can look at even more courses. Training helps us to attract and retain staff; everyone here has their own objectives and development plans, so we work this into our training plans.

“The most recent training we’ve had through The Skills Service included account management and people management. The six members of staff who attended this training needed to learn how to manage people, as this is a very different skill to managing clients and projects. It’s one of those skills where if you’re not taught it, you don’t necessarily know it. It’s best to get the learning in early so that, in future, people will be better managers and better at delegation.

“This isn’t the only course we’ve had through The Skills Service, we’ve had a few and we’ve been really happy with it. The previous course was arranged through Calderdale College and we are hoping to work with them on a senior leadership course too. We had Graham Pitchforth deliver the last management course and he did a fantastic job, he really has a passion for writing and delivering the training. The staff on his course said he was great and we’re already seeing a positive impact, so I asked him if he could help with more senior level leadership skills.

“I think that if we’re investing in people in the Leeds City Region, our people are only going to get better and the region will become more efficient. If more businesses invest in upskilling their teams, it can only be a good thing for the area as a whole. If it keeps people engaged and enjoying their jobs, that’s fantastic. It’s good for morale and it’s even better for efficiency!”

Chris runs social media training himself and has a blog with loads of helpful information for social media users of all levels, visit his blog to find out more.

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