Three members of the Pall-Ex team in Coalville have graduated from the Open University's BA in Professional Management, following a three-year course.

The degree was completed in conjunction with a Chartered Management Institute (CMI) standard, which provides a practical outlet for proving management skills alongside the academic component of the degree.

Lauren Pullin, Joseph Murfitt and Nick Antill-Holmes combined their day-to-day roles with intensive studying to earn their degrees and accreditations.

Funded by Pall-Ex as part of its ongoing commitment to supporting the professional growth of employees, Lauren, Joseph and Nick also benefited from one-to-one mentorship with business leaders within Pall-Ex whilst undertaking their studies.

Delivered remotely, the Professional Management course covered a wide range of skillsets and competencies needed by those working in management roles across a variety of sectors.

Modules included effective people management, development and succession planning, marketing, improving stakeholder relations and project management.

Lauren, who is Head of Commercial Analytics at the UK's leading palletised freight distribution network for quality, passed her degree with First Class Honours, alongside a score of 99 out of 100 in her CMI standard – earning a distinction. Speaking at her graduation.

She said: "I'm so proud to be finally graduating, and with first-class honours too. It's been an intense three years, particularly combining our normal roles with the study programme, but it has definitely been worth it.

"I have learned so much from this course which is already directly benefiting my day-to-day working, and there's so much that I'll be putting into practice in the future."

As part of their degree, participants also had to submit a dissertation, which brought together all of their learnings into a cohesive business strategy. For his final submission, Joseph, who is the Central Hub Manager at Pall-Ex presented his Road Ahead Programme, which was centred on recruitment.

Joseph explained: "The course was so useful and informative because it touched on so many different aspects of a business's daily running – from hiring to financial management. Bringing all of that together in my dissertation was challenging but rewarding, and resulted in my Road Ahead strategy – a scheme to support people from difficult economic backgrounds to pursue a career in logistics by helping them obtain their forklift license or HGV license with paid training support from Pall-Ex.

"The feedback I received on this from course tutors was invaluable, and is now something we are looking to implement.

"As well as graduating, I am particularly proud of achieving a distinction in my CMI standard."

Nick, who is Service, Quality and Compliance Manager and earned a merit in his CMI, said: "I have been with Pall-Ex for 13 years and am still impressed by how people-focused it is as a business. Being given the opportunity to undertake the degree, and then given all of the backing I needed to ensure I could study whilst still doing my day-to-day role, is just another example of how supportive Pall-Ex is as a business.

"The course covered so many valuable areas that I'm applying at work, but one of the areas I enjoyed most is people management. It's such a crucial part of everyone's working life and can really make a difference to an employee's time at work, and the skills I learned as part of this module are already making me a better manager."

Kevin Buchanan, CEO at Pall-Ex, added: "We are incredibly proud of what Lauren, Joseph and Nick have achieved. Taking on a degree whilst working full time is no mean feat, and we have been consistently impressed with the hard work, dedication and commitment they have shown throughout their studies – I am sure there have been a few late nights along the way!

These three fantastic young managers are the first of many taking advantage of the development opportunities available at Pall-Ex. Through our personal development plans and Logistics Excellence Achievement Programme (LEAP), I look forward to seeing an influx of our talented team gain new skills and develop within the business in the coming years.

"On behalf of the whole team at Pall-Ex, I would like to extend our sincerest congratulations to Lauren, Joseph and Nick. I'm looking forward to seeing them put everything they have learned into practice."

Kevin alongside UK Managing Director Barry Byers, Commercial Director Michelle Naylor and Group Chief Technology Officer Dave Dunhill, each of whom helped mentor the Pall-Ex graduates during their studies attended their graduation ceremony held at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Newcastle earlier this month.