Thank you for coming to have a look at my new website and welcome to the hub of my business. I am so excited to share with you information about my new business and what we are here to do. I am also really excited to be writing my first blog post, which has been a goal of mine for a long time, so I hope you enjoy it and come back for more!
So, let’s kick off with a little about me for those who don’t know me well! My name is Candy Redfern, and I am the founder and owner of Sojourner. I am (almost…) 40, mum to two children and have been married for 10 years. Having lived and worked all over the UK in my 20’s, I’m settled in West Yorkshire where my husband and I have spent the last 14 months renovating and extending our home. We also have a little caravan in the lakes which we love escaping to with the kids and dogs ~ in fact I am writing from there now. I am in my final year of a business master at Sheffield Hallam and am completing a coaching qualification with Leeds Business School and when I ever get a spare moment (a rarity right now) I love dressmaking.
During lockdown 1 I decided to make a huge change to my life by quitting my big corporate job and starting my own business. I have been dreaming about this for such a long time, in fact, I told my interviewer in Bidfood 12 years ago that it was my future ambition to run my own L&D consultancy. It doesn’t usually take me so long to achieve my goals but now definitely feels like the right time.
It’s fair to say when reflecting on my career to date, I have spent most of my time helping people with their development. My interest in training started at age 18 when I had my first job at Alliance & Leicester. I worked in the Lincoln branch on the counter and had my first taste of organisational run training when sent on a week-long course to learn the job. Back then A&L had amazing training and inspiring trainers. Spending my youth in the theatre, it seemed to me to be a mini-show every time a course was run but how wrong I was! Also – for someone who hadn’t spent much time outside of Lincoln, hotel living seemed very glam.
{I can now confirm from vast experience, hotel living is the opposite of glam, especially when staying in budget hotels.}
In those days you had to know how to do the jobs to train them, so I set about a fast trajectory. Declining my scholarship to study journalism with my hometown newspaper, I decided to focus on learning the ropes. When someone was promoted and a vacancy appeared, I found everyone in my branch was waiting to be asked to apply, so I strolled right into my manager’s office and told her why I should be the next Mortgage Advisor. (Anyone who knows me, knows this is 100% me and isn’t the only time this has happened!) Thankfully, she agreed…and so I spent many weeks on training courses and studying for my exams. When we learnt new systems without a training guide, the unofficial one I wrote for myself and my team had made its way around the region and was being used widely with great feedback. The first of many like this I created.
Over time I progressed from Mortgage Advisor to Branch Manager (at the tender age of 20 I believe I was their youngest) and then onto area management – managing Mortgage Advisors across 14 branches. Reflecting on my time there – training others seemed to be my go-to role. I supported new to role Branch Managers with their inductions, and I used to write ad-hoc little training and comms guides for my colleagues. I loved recruiting those with great will over skill – knowing I could help them develop. My staff grew as I loved observations, coaching sessions and PDPs ~ our success paid off with constant increases in league table positions which resulted in great bonuses. I intuitively understood the link between performance and results. I was lucky that A&L were so forward-thinking with career progression, and I was able to move into a head office role as Management Development Trainer where my “official” learning and development career began.
I have now spent the last 15 years or so working in learning and development, with the last 7 years working strategically as Head of Learning & Talent Development at Bidfood. My passion for business results through people development and engagement is why I wanted to start my business. I have so many stories of how L&D has helped shape people and their results. I am passionate about taking what I have learnt to help other businesses grow.
I have been asked on multiple occasions why I would risk setting up a business during a global pandemic – and it is very much because of this that I decided to make the change. I can see looming skills gaps on the horizon, especially around leadership and management and the soft skills which feed into these roles – especially as teams have been working remotely for so long and internal L&D functions have been cut due to budget concerns. This is exactly why Sojourner needed to happen now. I want business leaders to be able to buy what they need exactly when they need it. I believe that great L&D doesn’t have to cost the earth to deliver sustainable, learner-led change and create value. It should be considered a commercial, strategic and transformative service above all else, for enabling business results.
This links me nicely to what we are here to do – our goal is to support small to medium-sized businesses, in any industry, to identify, create and implement their people and organisational development strategy. We have the time, talent and resources to help your business grow and we do this through the improved capability of your people. Our sweet spot is the development of people leaders and sales enablement. We support employees at all levels from the most senior to the most junior and we can help you develop the right processes and tools to appraise and develop your people and establish your top talent. We offer psychometric services using Everything DiSC™ and can provide 121 or team performance coaching.
Our process is to firstly work with you to appreciate your unique business environment, your goals and current capability levels. We will then create a proposal for growth. We can work with you on one program through to a more strategic partnership approach. If you are interested in learning more – head over to the services section of our website, look at our client cases and drop us a line where we will be very happy to discuss your current challenges.
In addition to the great support Sojourner can offer in person, we have also created a “Learning Centre” on our website just for you. Here you will find free content and ideas which you can take to implement into your business immediately. You will also find writing from us or our guests on topics that help with your company learning approach.
In my next blog post I share where the name Sojourner comes from and what it means…please take a read and if you’ve liked what I’ve said above please comment below!
Candy
