PPL is made up of hugely motivated people, dedicated to harnessing the power of consultancy to improve outcomes for individuals and communities across the UK and proud to have been recognised in the MCA Awards, as nine-times finalists and three-times winners, including for Consulting Excellence Client Service & Value and Ethical Behaviour.
However, within our client sectors, a raft of political, social, economic and environmental challenges are stretching both our clients’ ability to respond and even the very largest consulting firms’ ability to resource to meet their needs.
We understood that if we wanted to continue to grow our impact we needed to look specifically at our approach to workforce, and how we use professional development to:
- grow and deepen consulting excellence across our team
- attract and retain the best consulting talent, at all levels
- build not just within PPL, but with our clients and partners
- ensure that we are able to respond to the challenges ahead
The resulting “How We Learn” programme has focussed not simply on refreshing our courses and curriculum, but on fostering and developing a mindset of continuous professional growth, improvement, and impact, in partnership with each other and those we serve.
It was Carol Dweck’s research into the Growth Mindset that came to be the cornerstone of How We Learn – transforming what could have been a simple update to our training curriculum into a whole-system change.
The resulting programme now incorporates monthly whole-team learning sessions, peer support groups, team meetings, people manager forums, staff-led “Lunch and Learn” sessions and shared learning sessions with partners and clients.
As a result, PPL has been able to grow our workforce throughout this period with new joiners including experienced hires from larger consulting firms, as well as graduates and apprentices; alongside working with charities such as with X-Forces to mentor and support armed forces personnel transitioning to civilian life – helping them to develop their own businesses, whilst practicing core skills developed through the How We Learn programme.
Most significantly, whilst expanding the scope of our work, PPL has sustained a 95%+ repeat business rate throughout the last 18 months. Almost every client that we have worked with – across over 135 separate consulting engagements – has recommissioned our team. And we have been recognised by clients and peers as one of the Financial Times Leading Management Consultancies in the UK.
View the PPL profile in the MCA Members Directory.