Have you ever wondered about what it is like to work at Park Leisure? Have you maybe wondered what we all get up to? We've sat down with Louisa Rodriguez, Park Leisure's Head or Learning and Development to find out about what she gets up to on a daily basis and why she loves working at Park Leisure.
June 2017
I was excited about taking on a new role for the business, there wasn’t a Head of Learning and Development before me, and to be able to join a business to support and develop its people was something I felt passionate about. I was also lucky enough to get to visit two of our parks before joining and was blown away by how stunning they are. I loved the idea of working for a company that was all about creating amazing experiences and memories for our guests and owners on park.
My favourite things are:
Please describe your job:
I oversee and develop the learning and development of all our team members and the business. This means working across the business with our Directors, Senior Managers and different departments, to assess the training needs that exist in our business so I can find effective training solutions to best suit the business needs and develop our teams. My role is about driving and developing a learning culture within the business encouraging the mindset of learning and growth as integral to the team experience. I work with the Communications Director, to oversee the talent development of our people, to ensure we are developing our shining stars in the business who are driven to progress. A big part of my role also focuses on internal communication and employee engagement, this means looking at how we communicate with our teams, how happy and motivated our teams are at Park Leisure, and constantly looking at how we can keep on improving to drive the team member experience. I am also an internal trainer and coach to the business, working with different managers using coaching as a development tool and designing and delivering training as the business requires.
Number one has to be people skills and communication skills. My role is all about people, and being an effective communicator, being able to work with people from all backgrounds, understanding the different motivational drivers of our different team members, different communication and learning styles that exist in the business in order to provide effective training and development that works for our people. Being creative and solution focused is also important, in order to come up with training solutions for teams, creativity is important in thinking outside of the box to look at things from a different perspective, being able to step into the shoes of the different roles in the company is key to understanding the needs of each team member. I also have coaching experience and training, facilitation experience all of which have been key to my role.
What I love is every day can be different in my role. One day I might be travelling to park to deliver a one to one coaching session with one of our Heads of Department, the next day I could be delivering a training session on GDPR or facilitating a leadership workshop for our ILM programme or having a one to one tutorial with a team member around their development. Then I might be running inductions for a new General Manager, to working with a Director to discuss a new training programme, to designing a training course for a park team. Then it might be coordinating our employee newsletter, filming our interview with a director video to researching and consulting with our senior managers about what training needs our teams have and how we can fill those gaps. Every day is different but always about our people which I love as it keeps me on my toes.
For me it is always the people, I remember at this year’s Employee Conference saying how I had fallen in love with everyone, cheesy as it sounds it is true. It is the teams I work with from the Maintenance and Grounds team members, Housekeeping, Customer Care Advisors, to the Heads of Departments all the way up to the Directors, I love working with everyone at every level. Watching individuals develop and grow in their roles and progress is also amazing! Park Leisure is the company it is because of its people and it is amazing to be a part of the team that leads on developing our people culture.
I would love to see Park Leisure be recognised as an award-winning employer of choice. For all team members to love coming to work and have the ability to reach their career potential with us.
The key thing to this industry is people and communication, being passionate about people and delivering amazing experiences. With that in mind If you want to work in this industry it is all about getting people experience, guest experience and having the right mindset of wanting to go the extra mile to deliver excellence. I can say at Park Leisure, we work hard but we have fun while we do. Joining Park Leisure has been an exciting adventure so far and I look forward to the future with them.
13th February 2019