Meet Paul – COO Simonds Group

Paul Smith, Chief Operations Manager at Simonds Homes, provided an opportunity for his staff to take the Diploma of Leadership and Management (BSB51918) at Builders Academy Australia.

Hi, I’m Paul Sheperd-Smith. I’m the Chief Operations Officer of Simonds Group. I chose Builders Academy Australia as a training provider, so we had about 40 middle managers do the course with us. And really setting up that middle management team to also succeed in their careers moving forward.

So some of the skills that I found useful in the Diploma of Leadership and Management and that the team found useful, was learning about emotional intelligence, so self-awareness, learning about other people and other people’s personalities, how to manage people, so learning about position descriptions, meetings, agendas, so forth, and also a bit about people performance on how to get the best out of people. 

So one of the biggest costs of businesses is turnover of staff, so again with upskilling the middle management team and being able to actually deal with employees and know how to deal with employees saves that cost of turnover within the business. Even if we didn’t have government funding, we would’ve still gone ahead with the course as the benefits would’ve outweighed the cost. 

I can see why Builders Academy was awarded the 2020 Victorian and Australian Training Provider of the year. If you’re looking to empower and upskill your management team, I’d choose Builders Academy Australia. The Diploma in Leadership Management course, and I wouldn’t wait, I’d do it now. 

You can also empower your employees with leadership courses at BAA through government subsidies. Learn more: https://buildersacademy.edu.au/