Cornerstone Resources scales its leadership development programmes

Stockport-based HR consultancy Cornerstone Resources is expanding its learning and development offering, after a strong start to the function led by L&D Consultant Joe Husbands.

The business is now focusing on bespoke L&D programmes for medium-sized organisations, typically businesses with 50 to 150 employees who’ve outgrown informal, one-off training but don’t have a dedicated L&D team of their own like the larger corporates often have.

It’s a gap that matters more than it might look. Research from the Small Business Charter found that 28% of employees have left a job because of a poor relationship with their manager, with a further third saying ineffective management left them less motivated at work. Even for SMEs with tens of employees, rather than hundreds, that’s not an abstract productivity statistic, it’s the difference between keeping good people and quietly losing them.

Rather than delivering generic off-the-shelf courses, Joe Husbands works directly with a business’s HR lead and senior leadership to design management training, compliance training and leadership coaching. Based on a curated, custom-designed catalogue of L&D workshops, they are tailored collaboratively with each organisation to their own values, mission and day-to-day processes.

In response to a strong start, Joe Husbands, said:

“Greater Manchester is home to so many ambitious organisations that are growing, evolving and investing in their people. The best learning programmes don’t start with a course; they start with a business challenge. Our role is to understand what an organisation is trying to achieve and then develop people in a way that genuinely helps them get there. Whether that’s preparing first-time managers, improving performance or helping leaders tackle difficult conversations with confidence, that’s when learning stops being a cost and starts becoming an investment.”

Co-Founder and Director of Cornerstone Resources, Nicci Birley, added:

“Training has the greatest impact when people can see a clear link between what they are learning and the realities of their role. The bespoke training offered by Cornerstone makes that connection, helping medium-sized businesses build stronger leaders, more engaged employees and healthier workplace cultures.”

The programmes are built from Cornerstone’s growing range of leadership workshops, spanning line-manager fundamentals, difficult conversations, inclusion and belonging, resilience and more, which can be combined into a package tailored to a specific business rather than delivered as a generic training day.

For businesses wanting to understand where to start, Cornerstone Resources has also put together a guide to learning and development for SME leaders, covering everything from manager training to onboarding and compliance.