Management Development Services (MDS) is a non-profit making recruitment and training organisation working on behalf of 25 member companies involved in fresh food, produce and horticulture supply chain.
The aim of the organisation is to provide its member companies with junior managers who have gained experience and demonstrated both their management capability and potential during a two-year accelerated management training programme.
MDS was formed in 1986 and, as with so many good ideas, the concept was hatched over a few beers in the pub.
Directors of four UK grower groups were discussing the oft-aired problem of recruiting managers with the right credentials for the fresh produce industry. In a competitive industry, the decision they came to - to collaborate in a concerted training and recruitment drive - was revolutionary. But, 18 years later, the original group of four - AH Worth (now QV Foods), The Shropshire Group, Greens of Soham and JJ Barker - has expanded into a membership that has moved beyond its foundations and is very broad-based.
It covers producers and processors of salads, fruits and vegetables, pot plants and flowers, most of which trade domestically and internationally. The MDS network has also incorporated members among the major UK importers and in Sainsbury’s, one of the country’s leading retailers.
The consistency of the programme’s results are highly impressive too. Every MDS leaver has moved onto a management position and 80 per cent have found that position within the group of member companies. There are more than 200 graduates of the MDS system already working within the industry and several that are now perched on high branches of the fresh produce industry tree, including Duncan Worth, director of QV Foods, who is also now a director of MDS.
Trainees are recruited and selected by MDS with the single prerequisite for entry to the selection process being the possession of a degree or higher degree. Graduates have - not surprisingly - predominantly been taken from land-based or food-related courses, but the course is open to graduates of all disciplines. Recent trainees have successfully completed the course with degree qualifications in subjects as diverse as Classics and Geography.
A successful applicant will receive a two-year contract from MDS and undertake four consecutive five-six month secondments in management positions within member organisations.
The programme is designed to give each trainee a variety of roles, in order to maximise their knowledge of responsibilities across the whole supply chain. The opportunities are diverse, including production, procurement, sales, marketing, operations, logistics and quality assurance.
The on-the-job training is backed up by off-the-job, high quality management training and development, facilitated by MDS. This formal training comprises 25 days spread across the two-year training period, and covers topics such as communication skills, leadership, team building, financial awareness, process analysis, problem solving, business simulation, negotiation skills and employment law.
Trainees have optional access to a formal management qualification. MDS is a satellite of the Chartered Management Institute and able to offer the opportunity to attain a Level 4 diploma in management - which is equivalent to one third of an MBA.
There are benefits for members at all stages. “Members benefit in the short term through direct access to enthusiastic graduates keen to accept responsibility and challenge for a five-six month period,” says MDS director Jules Carey. “They get a fresh pair of eyes in their business and the off-the-job training programme is also available to their existing managers.”
And following the two-year training stint, graduates will have developed a rounded perspective of the industry and a selection of skills that could take years to pick up if they plunged straight into one, specific role. “In the longer term, members all have access to MDS leavers with a wide level of skill, experience and knowledge, which spreads the cost and risk of investing in management training,” adds Carey.
Each member pays an annual fee to MDS and is expected to make opportunities available for secondments. Around 20 trainees go through the course each year and each receives a salary of £17,000 in year one and £18,000 in year two. The average immediate post-MDS salary expectation is above £23,000.
Of course, the salary potential is just one part of a two-way win scenario, as trainees gain heavily from the chance to enter an industry with a variety of roles in a short space of time and, if successful, get placed on the fast-track to management positions. “The programme bridges the gap between university and work,” says Carey. “The chance to experience four different roles in up to four companies over a two-year period is extremely attractive, and gives people the opportunity to legitimately job-hop. Many graduates are still unsure of the final direction they might wish to take and whether they want to specialise immediately in a particular facet or area of the business. Some have a fair idea, some a more firm direction. But they do not choose their secondments, that is centrally co-ordinated, so when they sign up with MDS they know they will experience various roles.
“They receive constant coaching, mentoring and support, both from the secondment managers which each member is obliged to have in place and from MDS central management. And each trainee will inevitably build up an extensive network of contacts.”
She adds: “MDS is not a recruitment agency. It is a training organisation working on behalf of its member companies. “There is room for some expansion of the membership, but we have no intention of getting bigger for expansion’s sake. The focus will remain on the intrinsic quality of the service to members and trainees alike,” says Carey.
Another former MDS trainee now in a lofty position is Lucy Abrey, national accounts manager at Barfoots of Botley. She gives the programme a ringing endorsement. “MDS gives a breadth of experience and a wealth of contacts that have been invaluable in the last few years. I am certain my career would not have progressed quite so quickly in other circumstances,” she says.
Chairman Doug Henderson concludes: “MDS demonstrates that if you go after recruitment in a clear and co-ordinated, professional manner, the widely held fears of skills shortages across the industry are really quite unfounded.”
HENDERSON EMBARKS ON NEW VENTURE
Former Fresh Produce Consortium chief executive Doug Henderson joined MDS as chairman at the beginning of October. He says: “The promotion of fresh food is at the heart of a major government drive to improve the health of our nation. This is turning our industry into an even more dynamic and expanding market, full of exciting opportunities. MDS offers an ideal route from university into management, in this rapidly-changing and developing market.
“One of the major issues raised by any review of the UK fresh produce industry in the last 20 years has been the need to find ways to attract the right calibre of people into the trade. From its earliest days, MDS members recognised this industry was not necessarily recognised as a ‘sexy’ proposition for aspiring graduates. MDS is unique - members are direct competitors, working with the same products and often the same customers. But they saw the potential benefits of co-operation and a partnership approach to finding the right people to take their businesses forward.”
MDS, he says, provides a very good solution to the long-term recruitment and training needs of member companies. “The members are a group of companies that take their future very seriously indeed. They are already seeing the short and long-term benefits of their actions and will continue to do so. Some of them have become large enough to run their own in-house graduate trainee schemes and they work extremely well in parallel with what MDS offers,” says Henderson.
“Because our trainees are moved around the country, and sometimes into overseas secondments, they get exposure to different experiences and cultures very quickly. While it is not an easy two years, they come out as resilient and hardened individuals, with a wide-reaching perspective on the industry, which is what forward-thinking companies are looking for in their management today.
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