Paul Stubbs, Davis Langdon LLPArchive
Name – Paul Stubbs
Job title – Head of Learning & Development
Company – Davis Langdon LLP
Tell us about Davis Langdon LLP.
We are a global construction consultancy, delivering everything from cost, project, and program management through to specialist services. We do everything between the architect at one end of the project through to the actual construction and sign off. So we’ll manage the whole process one way or another.
Why do you partner with us?
I like people who come with solutions. I had a problem. You came with the solution. Simple as that really.
You get it right. You make sure things work.
The only other reason I work with people, or conversely I stop working with people, is just the people - if I don't like the people. And Damian and Lindsey I use constantly.
Why is learning and development important to you and your organisation?
This is a professional services organisation so we don't really sell anything apart from our people's talent and time. We develop people to provide our clients with the best service they can, so learning and development is central.
This project you are working on with us is demonstrating that despite the tough times we are still wanting to train our people, it might be in a different way, it might not be ideal for everybody but at least we're doing it.
Is there any one story that illustrates our partnership?
We were designing a training programme, but it was stopped due to cash constraints. When it was shelved, the guys on the working party said, "Is there something we can do to keep momentum going?" We wanted to provide training for our people but in the most cost-effective way. We decided to try to run training sessions using our internal knowledge champions and experts. This approach was successful but then the problem appeared: what about those who couldn’t get to the sessions because of the timing, what about the rest of the country?
It was literally a lunch with Damian when I said, "Look, we've got this problem. How do I do this?" And then he came up with a solution: he and Lindsey have developed a system where we can have Powerpoint slides and videos of talking heads of our internal experts on our intranet as a way of being able to deliver the learning to people more widely.
It has allowed us to keep going in the learning area. The natural instinct is "Times are tough, let's stop." and that's what happened to the original project. It has allowed mass distribution of our product; our intellectual property. And it allows us to continue to up-skill people within the business.
