TQC is owned and manged by Ruth Oulton and Maria Baxter (Directors). TQC also have a wide range of highly experienced and skilled Associates who they work with to support and advise businesses in the north of Scotland. Their structure ensures that they can match each businesses unique needs with the right person or team at TQC – in terms of skills, sector experience and personality. Read about the TQC team here https://tqc.scot/the-tqc-team/
TQC was established almost 20 years ago and have continued to adapt their structure and services since then to meet the ever-changing needs of the business community.
Ruth and Maria are absolutely passionate about helping businesses in the north of Scotland thrive and prosper through their people. TQC offers Training, Qualifications and Consultancy services.
TQC love working with businesses to help resolve people and workforce challenges, whether this be a small family business, a third sector organisation or larger private and public sector businesses. They know that everywhere, happy people and happy teams impact positively on productivity, culture, profits and efficiencies.
Training – TQC offer a wide range of training courses in many different topics with content and delivery tailored to your exact needs.
Qualifications – TQC are an ILM Accredited Centre for Level 3 and Level 5 Leadership and Management Qualifications
Consultancy – Their consultancy services include people and HR reviews, staff engagement activities, teamworking and wellbeing strategies.
Ruth and Maria told ICC why they would like TQC to be member of the week: “During this period of ongoing uncertainty, we have seen that business owners need to invest in their people and teams to help them successfully transition to working in new and different ways.
We want to let business owners in the area know about some of the things we can do to support them in this changed world. Now is the time to invest in preparing people for returning to work so that things go as smoothly as possible – whether this be looking at team dynamics, staff engagement or supporting managers with the skills they need to support their teams effectively.
The training and consultancy work we can provide can be provided with government guidelines for social distancing as well as remotely.
We have also recently revised our website. We would like to share this with the Chamber members and would ask them to share it with anyone else they feel could benefit from our services.”
Ruth and Maria know that the ongoing Covid 19 crisis has led to more people looking at their own skills and preparing to take on new and changed responsibilities. Many people will need to adapt to new ways of working within their teams, often with different team members, therefore, Ruth and Maria would like to highlight the following qualifications:
(1) ILM Qualifications in Leadership and Management
These nationally recognised training programmes allow managers and supervisors to develop valuable, practical and work-based management skills. TQC is an approved ILM Training Provider offering ILM Level 3 and ILM Level 5 qualifications in Leadership and Management. As your managers develop their knowledge, they will be able to put newly learned skills into use in the workplace, ensuring that there is an immediate business impact. What’s more, your managers can also gain industry recognised qualifications that acknowledge their learning and achievements.
(2) DiSC personality profiling tool
The DiSC® model is a simple tool that’s been helping people to connect better for over thirty years. Ruth Oulton and Maria Baxter are both DiSC certified Trainers. DiSC helps people to understand their own working styles and also how to connect better with colleagues whose priorities and preferences are different. By increasing awareness of differing personality styles and people’s unique strengths this simple but effective toll improves communication within teams, and between managers and their teams. Starting with a confidential, personal, online questionnaire we firstly discuss results with people a one to one basis allowing them to better understand their own style and why they may connect and relate better with some colleagues more than others – and what they can do about it. One of the biggest benefits of DiSC is involving entire teams to build communication and reduce conflict and tension. Bring people back from furlough or back into a workplace is an ideal opportunity to look at how teams can work more effectively going forward.
DiSC can also be used when recruiting team members – to help identify the gaps in personalities that are needed within teams. We all have a natural tendency to recruit people like ourselves – but we know that this does not always result in the most productive results.
https://tqc.scot/disc/
We asked Ruth and Maria if they have any new services to offer: “We believe the fundamental offerings we have within our Training, Qualifications and Consultancy services continue to be of value to businesses. We have however adapted the way that we work with businesses to meet the changed working environment.”
Ruth and Maria shared their business plans with ICC for over the coming 12 months: “To continue to provide great business support services to clients in the Highlands!
We will continue to build on our approach as we listen to the very specific needs of each business that we work with to identify and agree the outcomes tailoring our offering to contribute to the solutions needed to meet the needs of all of our Highland clients.”
ICC asked Ruth and Maria if they have received any awards or commendations lately: “We recently had an ILM audit – all our work is quality assured but once a year we have a full MOT from ILM. Here is some of the feedback:
External QA from ILM (extracts) on 18th May 2020
“The centre has an exceptional and highly robust learner support system. The team is highly experienced and qualified. CPD records were checked and are up to date”
“Highly qualified and suitably competent team”
“The centre only offers bespoke solutions. They undertake a very detailed interaction with the business at the outset to assess needs….tackling work-based issues to engage and develop the learners”
Ruth and Maria shared with ICC what they value most about their Inverness Chamber membership: “We value having a presence within our Highland business community and continually developing our understanding of sector priorities and challenges. The Chamber Webinars have been hugely helpful to us during the pandemic to keep up to speed with what is happening – a habit we will continue.
At a strategic level, we also value the benefit we have of the Chamber being a powerful ‘voice’ at a local, national and UK level representing the interests of all members.”
ICC asked Ruth and Maria to provide their top-tip for other chamber members to maximise their membership: “Attend events to learn and meet others – we believe there are more opportunities for us all in the region if we all work together rather than in isolation. Contribute and be pro-active in events and initiatives to support the future and success of the Highlands and Islands.”
Website: https://tqc.scot/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tqcteam
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tqcscotland/