We are an SME based in Yorkshire with 10 employees working as Employee Engagement and Development specialists working with SMEs across Yorkshire and the Humber
We encourage all our clients across Yorkshire and the Humber to focus on engagement with a range of support and consultancy to help create engaging and thriving workplaces. Working across the region we are helping leaders to put employee engagement at the heart of its people strategy.
We run a range of leadership and management courses which align to the 4 enablers of Engage for Success and make sure that they are equipped to lead and manage their people ensuring they feel valued and recognised every day.
Within Pro-Development itself, we also work hard to ensure that we create a great working environment for our people. Holding quarterly team events to connect everyone to our sense of purpose and values, monthly learning events and 1:1s across the team, weekly team events and regular talent and succession reviews to ensure we are supporting our people to achieve their goals and ambitions.
Our MD, Michelle Mook, who is also the Area Network Ambassador for Yorkshire and the Humber also speaks at various events on behalf of Engage for Success to promote the work of the movement and encourage others to get involved.
Strategic Narrative
In our own organisation, we hold a quarterly event with the team where we share how we are doing as a business, share successes and challenges from the last quarter and log the learnings from this. Together, we focus on the quarter ahead and identify our priorities and finalise plans to ensure everyone is committed to achieving the gaols.
We also use the sessions to develop and bond as a team, always making sure we do something in the afternoon to support this. At our last event, we brought in a band who are songwriters and, as a team, we wrote our own song about our purpose and values. One of the team shared “this was the best ever working day of my life”.
We also encourage, design, support and facilitate similar events for our clients to help them to improve how they communicate their journey with their team. One client said “We asked Pro-Development to get involved in our culture challenge onsite. We wanted to understand more about the current culture and how we can adapt in improving our culture moving to our new site in 2025. Pro-Development managed to create an event which not only helped up understand the current culture, but also provided support in creating a better culture moving forward. The event wasn’t just sit down and listen based, it included a fun team building activity, which was described as “mind challenging” and “interactive” by our employees”.
Engaging Managers
We recruit line managers carefully, focusing as much on values and behaviours as on technical capability.
From the outset, we select people who are aligned to our vision and values and who genuinely want to lead and develop others. Once in role, every team member has a monthly 1:1 with their line manager to agree goals, review performance, talk openly about what’s going well and what needs to improve, and explore aspirations and development needs. These conversations ensure people are treated as individuals and given scope in their role, with support tailored to their situation and goals.
Twice a year, we bring this insight together in a structured talent and succession planning session with managers. As a management team, we review progress, identify future potential and risk, and agree clear, realistic development plans. This includes the training, coaching and on-the-job opportunities needed to stretch people appropriately. We apply the same approach to our line managers, so their own development, confidence and leadership capability are actively supported.
To keep standards consistent and to strengthen people leadership across the organisation, the management team meets monthly to review how we are supporting line managers and their teams, share learning and address any challenges early. Coaching is available to all employees and managers, and is used to accelerate development, build capability and help people navigate change and challenge with confidence.
Employee Voice
We take Employee Voice seriously and build it into how we lead, communicate and make decisions.
Our values – making a difference, trusted, creative and vibrant – guide the way we create space for people to speak up, share ideas and raise concerns, and to do so with confidence. We work hard to maintain a culture where people feel safe, respected and listened to. Everyone is encouraged to be open and honest, and we actively support people to be brave in sharing what they think, even when it may feel challenging. This is reinforced through everyday behaviours, not just formal processes.
Employee Voice is captured and acted on through regular one-to-ones, where managers invite feedback, listen properly and follow up on issues raised. We also use team discussions and check-ins in meetings to understand how people are feeling, what is getting in the way of great work, and what would help.
When ideas or concerns are shared, we make time to discuss them as a team and agree next steps, so people can see that their input leads to action. At leadership level, we review themes from across the organisation, spot patterns early and make improvements quickly. We communicate outcomes openly, so employees know what we heard, what we are doing, and why. This helps build trust and shows that employee feedback is valued and makes a genuine difference.
Organisational Integrity
Our values are intrinsic to how we work and are reinforced through clear expectations, everyday habits and consistent decision-making. We have a leadership behaviours framework that brings each value to life and sets out what “good” looks like under Leading Self, Leading Others and Leading the Organisation. This makes it easier for everyone to understand and demonstrate the behaviours we expect with colleagues, customers, suppliers and partners.
We recognise and reinforce values-led behaviour in a practical, visible way. Each week, employees can nominate colleagues through our “values jar” when they have demonstrated one of our values strongly, linked directly to the behaviours in our framework.
Each quarter, we select a Values Champion based on the nominations across that period. This keeps the values front of mind and celebrates the behaviours that strengthen our culture. Our values are also embedded in how we do business. We choose to work with clients and suppliers who share and protect our values, and we prioritise relationships built on trust and shared purpose. Because “trusted” is a core value, we act as trusted partners, which consistently leads to better outcomes for everyone involved.
We also use our values to guide commercial decisions and will not take on work that does not align to Making a Difference. The team talk about our values regularly, and we find different ways to bring them to life, for example, writing a team song with professional songwriters that captured our purpose and reflected our creative and vibrant culture.
