Apprenticeship Case Study on Leadership Challenges – How to overcome them? by Apprentice Charlotte Barrington
Meet Charlotte
I am a General Manager for New Forest Hotels working in the heart of the New Forest near to Southampton.
I have worked for New Forest Hotels for 3 Years now. I lead a team of around 40 Employees to ensure the smooth running of our Hotel.
Over the past year I have also been studying a Level 5 Learning and Development Business Consultancy Apprenticeship, all while navigating the business through a pandemic. I am due to complete my End Point Assessment in June.
New Forest Hotels is made up of 5 Hotels and 1 Pub, I have been General Manager of 2 of the hotels during my time working for the chain. Once I have completed this course I hope to complete my Assessors qualification and then eventually move into a training role with the company.
I am a big supporter of Apprenticeships, I have actually completed three: level 2 team leading, level 3 management and most recently level 5 learning & development consultant/business partner.
You might be asking the question why?
I wanted to do an apprenticeship because I could do it alongside work, I also wanted to understand the learner experience in my training manager role to know how to better help my colleagues (I was actually training the apprentice group on other topics when I was not sitting with them as a student), develop my skills and knowledge to grow as a manager and leader and help me take on more senior roles, and my higher apprenticeship also helped me embed consulting and business partnering in my toolkit and take more of a transformational role rather than a transactional one.
Biggest Challenges I had in the past year.
I would say one of the biggest challenges I have faced as a leader over the past year has been team engagement. With the majority of my team on furlough for most of the year, keeping them engaged with the business and their personal development has been extremely hard.
We have kept in contact with all members of the team on a regular basis to check in on them and just talk if they need it, but to also try and encourage them to get involved with the changes we are making to the business.
For the short period we where open, due to the demand of the business we struggled to find time to focus on developing the individuals within in the team which could have had a negative impact on their moral and motivation.
What did I do to overcome these challenges?
I kept in regular contact with my team not only to keep them up to date with the business but also to check in on them and make sure they where ok.
With the country being in lockdown on many occasions over the past year, our employee’s mental health and wellbeing has been at the forefront of our approach and we, as a company, have tried to ensure we are there for them from providing support through our EAP, Action Hospitality, and through open and consistent communication.
Through the short periods of time when the business was open, I did my best to support the teams with navigating through the new standards and changes we had to make to adhere to and COVID restrictions set out by the government. This meant I had to provide new training for all departments as well as ensuring I didn’t forget about their individual development.
How did your apprenticeship support you as a leader?
Through my apprenticeship I have learnt a lot about the different ways people learn and how to support my team so they can get the best out of the training/personal development programmes I have been providing them with.
I have also found it has helped me develop new ideas to keep then interested and engaged in their roles through L&D.
It has also helped me gain more confidence in my abilities as a manager and I cant wait to get back to work and share my new ideas with them all.
