Bright future ahead for mechanical and engineering consultants

Laura completed the course at the William J. Clinton Leadership Institute at Queen’s Business School in Belfast in 2023 and has found the lessons she learned within it invaluable. 

“One of the main things I wanted to get out of it was having a bit of a mentorship for me, to grow and develop as a person. The imposter syndrome was one of the main things I was able to work on with my mentor.” 

Like all Help to Grow: Management Course participants, Laura was given the opportunity to select a mentor – an industry expert who could use their experience to help and guide her through challenges in her own business. 

She benefitted from 10 hours of 1-2-1 business mentoring. 

“He was absolutely brilliant. Every week I found something that I wanted to talk to him about. He was really able to bring me out of myself and get me questioning some of my beliefs. If I said I felt like I couldn’t do something, he would ask me ‘why not? What’s holding you back?’ 

“He gave me the belief in myself and made me see that I am good at my job, and I am very valuable to this company.”  

Paul’s mentorship also helped Laura get more comfortable with the ups and downs of business leadership. 

“It’s something I’ve massively struggled with over the years. He helped me see that business is not always going to be smooth sailing but that’s what makes it exciting. I’ve realised I don’t need to get super-stressed about everything and there’s no point running myself into the ground.  

“Now, if I get a worry into my head, I just write it down and try to come up with a plan to fix it, rather than dwelling on it, because 99% of your worries never actually come true.” 

As well as the personal development benefits for Laura, the course has  proved hugely helpful for the business itself, which has its headquarters in Holywood, just outside Belfast. 

“Probably the biggest thing I wanted to get from the course was to have a growth plan in place and to be clear on how we’re actually going to do what we say we want to do.  

“The 12-week course really helped me understand, and work towards, a plan for the future, and put those improvements in place. I loved the way the course was structured so that you’d be working on a different element of your growth plan each week. 

“The end result was a really actionable plan that I could take forward into the business and talk through with Steven and the senior management team. It’s great to have some realistic goals and a sense of how we’re going to achieve them.” 

One of these goals was to grow to a team of 25 within 10 years to allow the company to expand their reach into the rest of the UK. They have already made significant progress towards this with the total number of staff now standing at 17, compared to 13 in 2023. Financial growth has increased too, with turnover rising from £694,000 in 2023 to £1.3 million this year.  

Another of the key goals was succession planning. 

“We wanted to make sure Steven was successfully bought out of the company and, while he is still very much a part of the leadership team, we are now a fully employee-owned company.  

“We knew we really needed to get a plan in place to allow Steven to step away while keeping the business the way it is. An Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) was the best way for us to be able to facilitate all our goals, and now the whole team benefit from the company being profitable, so it's worked out really well for us.” 

Laura acknowledges that a clear Mission, Vision and Values – something taught on the course – was crucial to being able to transition from an owner-led firm to an EoT. 

I realised we needed to go and work out what ours was, and make sure the team understood that as well."

“Now we're employee owned, we're focusing on quality more than ever, and we’re looking to review our values again in line with this.” 

A better understanding of their clients and wider market, gleaned from the work Laura did on the course, has also helped provide a clearer focus for future growth. 

“Understanding our clients and understanding our competitors has helped us be a bit more agile and diverse. We were mostly working in Northern Ireland but it really pushed us to start looking for more work in the Republic of Ireland. And now we're even looking to move more into Scotland, England and Wales too.” 

Key goals for the future include continuing the focus on quality and staff development, helping the team to begin to think more like employee-owners. 

“I want to be the leading Mechanical Engineering & Plumbing (MEP) practice in Northern Ireland not just for recruitment, but for clients as well. We want to be the go-to place that people want to come and work, and also the go-to place that clients want to use.” 

Laura is also keen to use her position to raise the profile of careers in MEP to help address the shortfall in talent that the industry is facing. 

“I have so many concerns about our industry at the minute. There’s already a serious skills shortage, and there's going to be a huge amount of people retiring in the next 10 years, so there are huge skill gaps coming.  I would like to be more involved with getting into schools early and telling them what we do, maybe being a mentor, showing people what we do on a day-to-day basis.”  

Her advice for anyone considering the Help to Grow: Management Course is clear. 

“If you’re thinking of doing it, you need to commit to putting the work in. I didn't think I’d have the time. It was a really busy time at work but I’d go home at night and put the hours in. 

"You can go to the course, and you can sit and listen all you want, but if you don't apply any of the learnings and create that action plan to put into practice in your business, nothing's going to change. 

“Help to Grow: Management taught me the importance of taking that time out to review the business and make plans, instead of just getting caught up in the day to day. I’d highly recommend it to everyone.” 

Find out how the Help to Grow: Management Course can further your business here.