Strategise to Thrive
Improve business performance with Enginuity’s fully funded workforce planning training tailored for engineering and manufacturing SMEs.
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“SMEs are the backbone of engineering and manufacturing, yet many struggle to find the time or resources for workforce planning. Strategise to Thrive was designed to change that.”
Claire Aspinall
Impact & Delivery Manager at Enginuity
What is Strategise to Thrive?
For many small and medium-sized businesses, strategic workforce planning training is often out of reach—either too costly or not suited to the realities of a busy SME.
In response, Enginuity has created the Strategise to Thrive programme as part of its charitable mission to make high-quality strategic workforce planning more accessible.
Fully funded by Enginuity, the programme will enable your organisation to start implementing your own bespoke action plans, closing gaps in your organisation’s workforce planning capabilities and delivering a positive bottom-line impact.
Who should take part?
The programme is specifically for engineering or manufacturing businesses with 250 or fewer employees, suitable for individuals responsible for workforce planning.
The Strategise to Thrive programme is only available to those organisations who have not previously engaged in any formal (paid-for) workforce planning training.
Why invest in workforce planning as an SME?
8-year reduction in average age of workforce
Brandauer, an SME in the UK, saw an 8-year decrease in the average age of their workforce after investing in workforce development.
65% of management team from an apprentice background
For the Brandauer, 65% of current management team have come from an apprentice background, with two being homegrown talents.
25 young people aged 14 to 19 from diverse backgrounds
Brandauer has seen five of these proceed to a successful apprenticeship journey with the company, with two winning industry awards in recognition of their efforts.
Cost savings of 6–10% within a year
Research by HR.com showed that investing in workforce planning or management tools can result in cost savings of 6–10% within a year; others slash scheduling time by up to 80% and avoid thousands in overtime and compliance costs.
Benefits for employers
Baseline workforce planning capabilities
Access to a workforce assessment tool to assess your organisations strategic workforce planning capabilities and identify gaps.
Evidence for recruitment
Provide a solution to recent changes to UK immigration policy, which now requires more robust evidence of skills shortages when recruiting internationally – placing additional pressure on SMEs to plan strategically and adopt workforce planning approaches.
Retain skilled employees
Access to skills and talent monitoring, succession planning and personal development tools and support, enabling talented employees to be retained at your organisation longer.
What’s the time commitment?
Busy SMEs are the lifeblood of the engineering and manufacturing sector and often struggle to invest the time and resources for leadership training.
The Strategise to Thrive programme helps to overcome these barriers by offering a modular training approach with just 14 hours of virtual contact time, during 7 online sessions, over a 6-month period.
Topics include, baseline strategic workforce planning assessment, organisational strategy, current workforce analysis, future workforce demands, gap analysis and action planning.
How much does it cost?
The Strategise to Thrive programme is fully funded by Enginuity, which includes the cost of all the training and access to all the tools and resources.
Your organisation will not pay anything for the first participant but will need to pay a contribution if you wish for more than one of your employees to take part.
When does the programme start?
Enginuity is planning to commence the programme on 22 October 2025.
Applications are open until 10 October 2025 for the first cohort.
The 20 available places will be allocated to eligible employers on a first come, first served basis.
How do I apply?
The employee (participant) needs to complete the application form to be considered. Please find the form below.
Apply nowContact us
To learn more about the programme or to register your interest, please contact the programme lead via email at [email protected]
