How Halifax's Leeds Beckett University centre is empowering women in business

#WECAN - empowering women in business

At Leeds Beckett University, we have a network of University Business Centres located in Leeds, Halifax and Wakefield.

Our Calderdale location at the Piece Mill, Halifax, offers short, and long-term private office spaces, co working, hot desking, meeting rooms, virtual office services and an executive business lounge.

Piece Mill has matured into a successful and popular friendly base for Calderdale businesses to link with Leeds Beckett University, with other businesses within the district and within the Leeds City Region and to a home from which to access business support and mentoring (for example, the AdVenture, Accelerate and Founders Forge programmes).

The last year has been hard for all, however the business centre team have been hugely proud to support and to welcome back our businesses. We’re now able to begin to look again to the future.

First on the agenda for us is to support the launch of #WECAN (Women Empowered through Coaching and Networking) - a new three-year project in the Leeds City Region, aiming to improve leadership skills, knowledge and capabilities in women in the workplace, and in turn, to improve business performance through empowering and motivating staff and nurturing existing talent.

#WECAN is designed to reflect and to honour the importance of empowering women to lead, inspire and work together to succeed. Women, and women with these qualities, are key to Calderdale’s history, it’s resilience and its future successes.

The #WECAN (Women Empowered through Coaching and Networking) project is looking to engage with businesses who want to access funded leadership and management training qualifications for their women employees.

Through #WECAN women in Calderdale and over 1,000 women in the Leeds City area and Calderdale will improve their leadership knowledge, skills and confidence by attending events and training.

Over 400 businesses over the whole region will be supported to identify their leadership strengths, skills needs, and to improve their overall performance.

Leeds Beckett University and programme partner academics will gather data and undertake research to inform and move this agenda forward for our region.

Ultimately, though, it’s the collaboration between these component elements which we at the centre are excited to explore, and which will ensure added value for Calderdale.

We have built in lots of opportunities to be part of surveys, to listen to the research and experiences and to share stories and successes.

If you, as a Calderdale based business, want:

* Your staff to feel empowered, to drive effective solutions and decisions and take part in ILM Coaching and Mentoring qualifications;

* To implement changes and share experiences to be part of developing the blueprint for the future;

* To be part of this collaborative piece of work for our region.

Then get in touch. Contact us: https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/wecan