Member Article

County Durham coach first to gain new accreditation

Teesside business performance experts, Prismatic Thinking, have accredited their first independent practitioner several months earlier than anticipated.

Ann Barkas of Ann Barkas Consulting, in Consett in County Durham, has become the first independent level one ‘Prismatic Type’ practitioner.

Prismatic Type is a unique personality type assessment that Stockton-based Prismatic Thinking have themselves developed and tested over several years. It is however firmly based on over a century of research and work on personality types first undertaken by the highly-regarded psychologist, Dr Carl Jung, in 1910.

Having used the assessment successfully in their own client projects, Prismatic Thinking decided to offer it to the marketplace after been approached by those working in HR, business coaches and consultants.

Prismatic Type can be used as a general self-awareness tool for personal coaching to learn more about different leadership types, improve communication, reduce conflict between leaders and employees and improve team dynamics.

In addition, Prismatic Thinking has also developed its own ‘buying type/selling type’ workshops, using the Prismatic Type process to improve customer interaction and sales performance.

To become a level one accredited Prismatic Type practitioner, Ann Barkas undertook an introductory training day, three assessments and a final day of training to help enhance understanding.

Ann said: “Prismatic Type is a great tool that can help to make a real difference to the dynamics of an organisation and bring about more effective change management. It really is a great resource to help anybody improve their self-awareness and I have found the whole process extremely enlightening. The training now means that I can provide my clients with something extra that no other coaches are currently able to offer.”

Prismatic Thinking specialises in improving business productivity, performance and staff motivation and career development through increasing employee morale using specially-developed HR tools.

Thanks to securing major contracts with the likes of the North East Chamber of Commerce (NECC), Crystal Galleries, QA Weldtech in Middlesbrough and national logistics company Yearsley Group, managing director Tony Slimmings launched new premises on Aycliffe Industrial Park at the start of the year to assist with his business’s expansion plans.

Tony established his company in June 2015 and has enjoyed steady growth during the first few months in business and Prismatic Thinking’s team is split between the Aycliffe premises at St Cuthbert’s House and its HQ at Teesdale.

Tony said: “The first quarter of 2016 has been far busier than we originally anticipated and we are really pleased to already have our first accredited independent practitioner. We decided to make our HR tool, Prismatic Type, widely available in the marketplace as HR practitioners and those working in business coaching, like Ann Barkas, wanted to be equipped with exceptional tools to enhance what they could offer as a business and share with their clients.

“Prismatic Thinking’s goal is to be the go-to company for business improvement in the North of England as we offer exceptional expertise- usually only available in major cities such as London- at fair prices with a fantastic team of business psychologists.”

Prismatic works with a variety of organisation in both the public and private sectors to monitor levels of motivation amongst the workforce and increase productivity using its specially-developed online software, Vision.

The easy-to-use software, which Tony and his team spent two years stringently developing and testing, provides staff surveys to measure motivation, satisfaction, commitment, involvement, empowerment and engagement with the ultimate aim of supplying management with thorough, valid, reliable and practical data to help with development.

Prismatic Thinking’s tools can help organisations increase business performance by 30% and improve employee morale by 40% through its scientific approach to enhancing motivation.

MD Tony Slimmings, having worked closely with many HR departments throughout his career, recognised a gap in the market for providing organisations with easy-to-use software to help them measure and improve the morale of their employees.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Anna Addison Associates .