Skills for Growth helps the numbers add up for Benson Wood
A Bellshill business has been able to pursue their growth ambitions with the help of Skills for Growth.
Benson Wood, an accountancy firm for almost 90 years, got in touch with Skills Development Scotland (SDS) following a recommendation from a business associate. The company has 14 employees, with more people due to start in the near future.
John Moffat, Chief Executive of Benson Wood said: “We were talking about the development of the team as we've got a fairly young team who are all still learning and developing their skills.
“Although we were encouraging them and talking to them all the time, there was no structure in place for development. We wanted to get systems and structures in place so that we could have a purposeful way of developing the team, including the leadership team as well – I wanted them to become leaders as well as managers.
He continued: “Something else that’s important to me is AI. I feel that we need to be at the forefront of that because our industry is changing and will continue to change rapidly over the next few years.
“Automation is becoming more prevalent, and AI bots will be able to help the team with bookkeeping, compliance and accounts. We want to remain competitive and be the number one business advisory firm in our area. We want to be more than accountants; we want to upskill the team to be business advisors.
“A business associate recommended Skills Development Scotland to us as she’d engaged with them for support previously and found them really helpful.”
The company got in touch with SDS and Neil Cunningham, Employer Engagement Executive, came out to meet with them.
Skills for Growth is a fully-funded service for companies with between five and 250 employees and helps employers identify and understand their skills needs. A detailed Employer Action Plan is developed with guidance towards the most relevant training, funding and local business support which is based on their identified skills needs.
John said: “When we met up with Neil, we laid out all of our issues with him – it was a bit like a therapy session! We talked about our weak points, things that we were looking for help with, and he said he could help. He came back with a people skills action plan.”
“Part of what we were looking for and was included in the plan Neil developed was recruiting for some more staff. He was great at providing advice on recruiting and how best to go about that.
“He helped us pull together good job descriptions, and we promoted our vacancies quite a lot on LinkedIn. The quality of candidates we got this time was really quite positive.
“We also reviewed our interview process. We’ve had someone start with us this month, we’ve got someone starting with us next month, and we took on an accounting intern over the summer, and have taken her on full-time as well.”
As a result of working with Neil, the firm have also started to formalise staff development and upskilling.
John said: “Having new staff on board is helping free up some time to help us move forward with upskilling staff. We’ve introduced a skills matrix that the team complete on a quarterly basis. It helps identify any gaps that staff have or the team have as a whole.
“We’ve started to hold regular lunch and learn sessions, which concentrate on areas that the team need support with, like help with reinforcement of systems and processes.
“Having more staff on board have allowed our leadership team to delegate more work and free them up to prioritise leadership strategy stuff. We can take on more actions in the plan with more staff.”
“Most important of all, it’s about quality resources, changing our recruitment style has meant a better quality of staff coming into the business.”
Staff wellbeing is a further area which Benson Wood is keen to prioritise.
John said: “We talked about wellness with Neil, and as a result we now have a quarterly social activity and a quarterly wellness activity. Last week we had a yoga, posture and stretching workshop in the office, and on Friday we had our social event in Glasgow.”
As part of the plan, they also identified that they only had one person dealing with payroll for clients, and it would be useful to have other people trained in payroll to cover holidays or sick leave.
John said: “Neil continues to support us through the plan. He’s really proactive and stays in touch and asks how we’re getting on, and he sends me lots of information on AI and other stuff.”
Neil Cunningham, SDS Employer Engagement Executive said: “It was a pleasure to support John and the team at Benson Wood as they developed and embraced the opportunities presented by the adoption of new technologies.
“This is all done while never forgetting the benefits to both staff and customers of continuing to develop a great workplace culture and a people-centric approach to the team's development.”
John said: “I can’t recommend Skills for Growth highly enough to other businesses looking for support.”
Find out more
Visit the SDS Employer Hub for more information on Skills for Growth, or call 0800 783 6000.