For us, that makes this award particularly meaningful.

We spend our working lives helping other employers recruit, manage, develop and retain their people. It is therefore important that we apply the same principles within DOHR.

One of our core values is Continual Improvement, and we often say that Every Day is a School Day.

That is not a slogan we have created for an awards entry. It is genuinely how we work.

Learning is part of everyday life at DOHR

We do not treat development as something that happens once a year when somebody attends a course.

Our team have access to professional qualifications, external training, webinars, employment law updates, management development and our business book library.

Through our HR system, every member of the team also completes regular learning modules. Recent subjects have included cyber security, sexual harassment prevention, privacy awareness and health and safety at work.

All our team are trained Mental Health First Aiders, and we also offer opportunities to develop additional workplace skills and qualifications.

We financially and practically support team members undertaking CIPD qualifications and progressing their professional membership.

Learning needs to be relevant, though.

There is very little point in sending someone on a course, ticking a box and then never using what they have learned again.

That is why we try to build learning into real work.

When we produce our client newsletter, for example, team members are encouraged to choose a subject they know less about, research it properly and turn that learning into a practical article for our clients.

They improve their own knowledge while also learning how to translate HR theory into advice that makes sense to a business owner.

That matters to us.

Our clients are not employing us to repeat textbooks. They need practical, current and commercially sensible advice.

Developing people from the start of their careers

One of the things I am most proud of is our approach to developing people who are relatively new to HR.

We actively recruit graduates and give them the opportunity to learn through real client work, supported by more experienced members of the team.

One graduate who joined DOHR is now heading up our HR advisory team five years later.

For me, that is one of the clearest examples of what people development can achieve.

You can recruit experience into a business, and there will always be times when that is exactly what you need.

You can also create experience.

That takes time, support, patience and investment, but it can create people who understand your clients, your standards and the way your business works.

Has investing in people made a commercial difference?

Yes.

Around 75% of our permanent employees have now been with DOHR for more than two years.

That means we retain knowledge within the business, our clients build relationships with people they know, and we reduce the disruption that comes with continually recruiting replacements.

During the last three years, DOHR’s revenue has grown by 27% and our retained client base has increased by 200%.

There are many reasons behind that growth, and I would never claim that training alone created it.

What I can say is that we would not have been able to support that growth without developing the capability and confidence of the team around us.

That is the connection between people development and business performance which matters.

What does this mean for other SMEs?

You do not need a huge training budget or a complicated learning and development department to develop your people.

In a small business, development may look very different.

It could be giving someone responsibility for a project they have never managed before.

It could be paying for a professional qualification.

It could be asking an employee to research a new subject and present what they have learned to the rest of the team.

It could be mentoring, shadowing someone more experienced or making proper use of the learning tools already available through your HR system.

The important part is that development is relevant to the employee and to the needs of the business.

Ask yourself where you want your business to be in two or three years’ time.

Then ask whether the people you have today are being given the opportunity to develop the skills and confidence you will need when you get there.

What comes next for DOHR?

We intend to continue building a team that combines experienced HR professionals with people at the beginning of their careers.

As we grow, we want to recruit more graduate trainees and, in the future, introduce an HR apprenticeship route.

We also continue to offer work experience to school students exploring HR as a career and undergraduates looking for practical workplace experience.

There will always be more for us to learn and more we can improve.

That is probably why this particular award feels so appropriate.

We are very proud to have won the People Growth and Development Award, and even prouder of the team whose development, hard work and willingness to keep learning made it possible.

Every Day is a School Day.

And at DOHR, we intend to keep it that way.