Johnson Controls helps its clients to increase not just the efficiency but effectiveness of global property portfolios in pursuit of business goals. It manages close to 150 million sqm of space, offering a single-source of expertise in real estate portfolio management, design and construction, strategic workplace consulting, energy and facilities management. In the UK Johnson Controls customers include BBC, BP, Boots, IBM and Barclays.

Johnson Controls is geographically dispersed across the UK in a number of different offices, from Scotland down to Devon. The internal training department provides a number of technical courses for its employees to ensure they are fully trained in the specific aspects of the business so they can deliver a high level of service to its customers.

In addition to this, Johnson Controls recognises the value in ensuring employees have access to training that develops softer skills such as time management, building positive relationships, team building, and presentation skills.

To enable them to provide a dual learning and development programme that consisted of technical and non-technical training, the company looked to outsource an element of its non-technical training to an external provider. This was largely motivated by the need to focus internal resources on business specific training and because the team felt that TT&C had the capability to provide consistent support in key areas of people development.

TT&C was chosen to work alongside the internal training department to manage the development courses that would help employees become more proficient in using and developing soft skills in the workplace.

One of the key motivations for choosing TT&C was its open programme offering.

Jordan Evans comments, “It can often be difficult to ensure all employees receive the right level of training to match their individual needs. By providing an open programme we can send one person, if needs be, on a course rather than having to find several employees to justify the running and setting up of a specific course. This allows us to provide employees with the training they want/need to go on, resulting in a better return on investment for our training budgets.”
 

Benefits of working with TT&C

Johnson Controls has benefited in a number of ways from working alongside TT&C. The internal training team has become more efficient in completing projects and setting up new initiatives, as the administrative burden associated with the key programme TT&C provides has been taken away. The long-standing relationship means that employees are confident and content with the training on offer and can approach TT&C directly if they want to enrol in a course. If a line manager identifies an area within their team that they feel could be improved by enrolling employees on a training course, then they can approach TT&C directly to make this happen.

Jordan Evans explains, “When an individual line manager identifies a TT&C course and nominates an individual, the process from start to finish is managed by TT&C.  We only have to get involved at the invoicing stage. We have complete confidence in TT&C that they can manage this efficiently and in Ten years we have not had any cause to question that process.”

TT&C proactively ensure Johnson Controls is regularly kept up to date with the training activity and the overall programme is discussed at an annual review. TT&C support Johnson Controls in measuring the return on investment of the training budget, something that the training team feel has added to the service that TT&C provide. After every learning and development course a post three-month form is completed to address how the course has impacted the individuals day-to-day work life and if the skills taught have been implemented into the workplace.

“The post three-month review is something that I presume TT&C provides for its other clients but in my experience its not something that other training providers do, which helps to distinguish them from their competitors and is part of the high level of service they offer.” Jordan Evans concludes.

Future plans for training

Johnson Controls and TT&C have now been working together consistently for 10 years on a management development side. Rachel Jordan Evans, development manager hopes to review the further capabilities that TT&C provide to see how the training support can be expanded for example with senior management training – something that TT&C has proven experience and success in providing with other clients.