Leadership Stories Unveiled: Kevin Sampson
We sat down with Kevin Sampson, HR Manager at AE Tuition, for the latest instalment of our Leadership Stories Unveiled series.
Kevin, could you share a bit about yourself? What initially drew you to HR, and what motivates you in your role?
I did a Business Studies degree at Huddersfield Polytechnic (1984-88) and like many on my course, I wanted my placement year to be in marketing, particularly in football. I had several interviews, but no offer was forthcoming. So, I was invited to an interview at Hewlett Packard for a role within their Graduate Recruitment team. This included some marketing bits as well as helping with the recruitment of graduates and sandwich students from 1986/7. HP sponsored me in my final year and offered me a role within their HR Team when I graduated. The rest, as they say, is history.
Over the past 30+ years, I have had many roles at different levels of HR. Having taken a step back in 2011 for personal reasons, in 2022 after the pandemic, I felt it was time to return to a management post. The role at AE Tuition was an opportunity to develop the HR team and provide help and support to managers within the business on a full-time basis, which was previously provided on a part-time basis by a consultant.
In my current role, I can use my HR knowledge to help managers and staff and my business studies background and interest means that I can contribute to the wider business which has not always been the case in roles I have undertaken in the past 10 years.
How do you align your personal and professional values with the business’s mission and vision?
Very early in my HR career, I was given a very valuable piece of advice. “Treat people how you would like to be treated and you won’t go far wrong”. I have always used this as my benchmark.
At the College of Law when we were looking to introduce some values, based on feedback from staff I came up with ‘Striving for excellence in everything we do’ which was adopted. I also use this as another benchmark. We don’t always achieve excellence in what we do but it should always be the aim and my aim in delivering the HR service. At AE Tuition, ‘Excellence in Education’ is our strapline and goal, and this continues the theme I strive for every day.
Reflecting on your 18 months at AE Tuition as Head of HR, what inspired you to join the company? And how has your experience been so far?
I was looking to step back up the ladder and take on more responsibility. It was a new area of education I had not known about before. However, once I read the brief and spoke to the HR consultant, I could feel the passion for education coming through. That went above and beyond when meeting the MD and the rest of the management team.
I was lucky to inherit an excellent, solid HR Assistant who had worked with the company for around 3 years so that helped my transition into the role. I knew that managers just needed some confidence and coaching so that made my job easier.
The past 18 months have flown by, and we’ve introduced a Wellbeing Policy and some initiatives in that area including a Death in Service benefit and improved sick pay, reducing absence rates among classroom assistants, and improving managers’ handling of performance issues. There’s still plenty more to do though and on my list is an employee satisfaction survey and articulating our values so that these can be used in our marketing moving forward!
What are some of the most rewarding and challenging aspects of working there?
One of the most challenging issues is the high percentage of part-time staff aged between 16-24. Sometimes their work ethic is not the same as staff at Head Office. Their absence and lateness have led to many disciplinary meetings at weekends when staff work. The number of meetings has reduced in the past 6 months, so the message is getting home. Also, as the centres are open in the evening and at the weekends, there is a lack of crossover with the Head Office team. This can cause a little ‘Them & Us’ at times.
The most rewarding part has been working on wellbeing. We introduced a Wellbeing Policy in December 2022 and launched an Employee Assistance Programme for all staff. Other initiatives include improving the sick pay scheme, adding an extra company leave day at Christmas and introducing a Suggestions Box. We have also had events at the Head Office throughout the year to celebrate World Book Day, Thank You Day, World Sleep Day, and Diwali.
On World Book Day, rather than asking people to dress up, we had a ‘Cook a Book’ competition. This was where staff baked, cooked, or assembled the title of their favourite book or characters from their favourite book. A fierce competition was had but all were in good spirits and our waistlines increased slightly with the wonderful offerings made!
When you think about a company’s culture, what values and principles stand out to you?
The company strapline is ‘Excellence in Education’. The passion for teaching delivered by our teaching team, supported by our classroom assistants is so strong. The desire to get as many pupils as possible to succeed is incredible and is the focus of delivery at our tuition centres.
This is backed up by the team at Head Office who support all that happens in the tuition centres. Pride in delivering high-quality customer service prevails over costs. If a child needs assistance, we will do all we can to provide the tuition they need and desire.
How do these shape the organisation’s identity?
Dr. Stephen Curran, our MD, and Education Director formed the company over 30 years ago and his high education standards are at the forefront of what we do. We write and develop our textbooks and advise parents on the applications to grammar schools. This helps us stand out from other tuition providers.
How do you foster a culture of collaboration, learning, and excellence among your colleagues and clients?
Many of our support staff at Head Office have worked for AE Tuition for many years. This has developed a sense of loyalty which helps collaboration. Most of our teachers have been with the company for 5 years or more. This means that not only are they experienced teachers, but they also understand how AE Tuition delivers to its pupils and parents.
Many of our assistants and supervisors have previously been pupils and have benefitted from the 1-1 tuition we provide weekly. Again, many of them have been with us for years, particularly our classroom supervisors and Tuition Centre Desk Teams. This means they have experienced service delivery from both sides.
In your view, how crucial is organisational culture in driving success and fostering growth?
The culture is driven by the MD, and he sets the standards in the classroom. The business has grown from teaching in parents’ kitchens, into the local village hall to one dedicated centre to now having three tuition centres. The challenge now is to fill our classes both in our face-to-face classes in our three tuition centres and through our remote offering. I will talk about our remote offering later but if we fill our classrooms, then our revenues will increase from around £5m and our net profit will increase as the incremental costs will be minimal. This will enable more investment in our centres and help us grow our remote offering.
One of our biggest marketing tools is word of mouth but that can only take us so far. We have around an 88% pass rate, and we need to shout more about this in our marketing to help the word spread. This should help us to grow again.
Could you delve into specific strategies or initiatives that have contributed to AE Tuition’s growth? What has worked well?
Like many organisations, Covid-19 hit our business hard as we were unable to offer classroom tuition and needed to move online as soon as possible. As a result, our remote learning offering was born and quickly took off. Our remote offering has been very successful in the years since schools returned to the classroom. It has opened opportunities for us outside the catchment areas of our three tuition centres in Slough, Langley, and Feltham. We now have more than 300 pupils attending our remote classes from across the UK.
Whilst many of our remote learners are in areas of the country with grammar schools, there are quite a number from counties and areas where there are no grammar schools, including Derbyshire, Cambridgeshire, Hampshire and even Wales and Scotland. Our trick is to now get the AE Tuition name known throughout England where there are grammar schools. This will increase our parents’ and pupils’ interest in our remote classes. If we want to increase our remote learners, we will need to look for areas of tuition that may be lacking.
Additionally, we need to look to bring on board current tutors in certain areas of the country. These tutors will buy our books and help our publications business grow its sales.
What steps has the business taken to create a positive work environment and boost employee satisfaction?
In the 18 months I have been with AE Tuition, we have done several things to boost employee satisfaction, particularly in wellbeing. The introduction of the Employee Assistance Programme has been well received and its use is increasing to the levels the provider sees in other more established schemes.
We were very conscious of the cost-of-living crisis and did an interim salary review of up to 8% in January 2023 to help as well as a further increase in September 2023 of up to 7%. We pay more than the National Minimum Wage for our classroom assistants. We will continue to review that situation despite significant increases in rates in the last two years.
When we launched the well-being policy, we also launched a Suggestion Box, primarily for wellbeing ideas but this has also led to other suggestions which have been investigated. We have introduced period dignity where we provide products for our female staff, introduced a quiet space for staff to use over the lunch period, investigated volunteering opportunities and created a bookshelf where staff can swap books or donate books for others to read.
For our salaried staff, we have improved the company sick pay scheme over the past 12 months. We have also introduced a Death in Service benefit.
We have recognised several special days in the calendar including World Sleep Day, Stress Awareness Day when we had ‘at desk’ massages, a Thank You Day when we had the ice cream man visit and recently an Easter Egg Hunt together with Hot Cross Buns, etc at Easter.
Looking ahead, how do you envision AE Tuition’s growth trajectory in the coming years, and what role will culture play in achieving those goals?
Whilst growth has stagnated a bit in the past two years, the opportunity for remote learning and increasing our publication sales to new tutors is something we are focused on. We can do this through improved digital marketing campaigns that everyone can participate in. The more you involve people in the company’s potential success, the more buy-in you will have. Our messaging can be enhanced by everyone’s ideas on various topics.
As an education institution, we are looking to do more campaigns like World Book Day, National Numeracy Day and Back to School in September, etc. Hopefully, collaboration and giving staff a chance to contribute ideas in areas outside of the normal remit of their role will make us come together more, sharing in the business’s future success.
Kevin, a seasoned senior HR professional, brings strategic thinking and a wealth of multi-sector experience to the table. His expertise lies in managing operational challenges and delivering top-tier people solutions that align with organisational culture and values. As a true generalist, Kevin ensures that HR services meet business needs while minimising risks.
His specialities encompass coaching and mentoring leadership teams, overseeing large-scale redundancy programs, mediating employee relations, enhancing engagement, shaping HR policies and attracting and retaining talent. Kevin’s holistic approach ensures people-centric solutions across the entire employee life cycle.
