Building people capability at scale – without losing the human touch
From customer services to senior leadership, Golden Charter uses the Mindtools Content Hub and Ask M: Coach to develop the skills that matter, right when people need them.
The Challenge
As one of the UK’s largest and most trusted funeral plan providers, Golden Charter is built on compassion, reliability and personal service. Developing their people isn’t a nice to have – it’s the foundation for maintaining the trust families place in them every day. When Pamela Malkin, joined them as Organizational Development Partner, she saw a familiar pattern:
‘The team were technically competent and promoted because of that – but had very little development around managing people.’ – Pamela Malkin, Organisation Development Partner, Golden Charter
The organization was growing fast, and expectations were shifting. Like many growing organizations, Golden Charter needed to build leadership and people capability at speed – without compromising trust or service quality. Managers needed stronger people leadership skills, customer facing teams needed new levels of empathy and communication, and employees across the business needed opportunities to build confidence and capability.
‘There was a great opportunity to make a difference. We needed something that would help our people grow in confidence through all the change our organization was going through.’
Golden Charter needed a solution that would scale with growth, support managers and their teams in the moment, and keep learning human, practical, and trusted.
The Solution
Golden Charter introduced the Mindtools Content Hub and, later, Ask M: Coach to create a scalable, people centred learning ecosystem – grounded in behavioural science and designed to build capability in real moments at work.
Building confident, capable managers
The People and Culture team deliver a one hour session on Learning, as part of the managers’ induction programme, designed to build confident and capable managers. The session ensures all managers understand how to get the most value from the Content Hub.
Keeping learning alive
The People and Culture team invests heavily in ongoing engagement, ensuring learning remains relevant and connected to performance by:
- Learning prompts aligned to business cycles (e.g., midyear reviews, wellbeing, difficult conversations).
- A Leadership Hub for senior managers.
- Curated playlists linked to real organizational challenges.
- Promotion of M: Coach via drop-in sessions and testimonials from users.
- Regular opportunities to surface new Content Hub resources.
- Playlists focused on communication, wellbeing, and psychological safety.
- Specific Customer Services induction, integrating resources from the Content Hub.
‘You’ve got to continually build momentum. We integrate learning into real time moments of work. That’s what makes it stick.’
This approach ensures learning isn’t an event, but a continuous driver of performance, confidence and capability. The Content Hub has also become a key part of professional development supported by accessible, skills-based learning resources.
A true partnership
Golden Charter’s People and Culture team works in close partnership with Mindtools Kineo – shaping solutions, feeding into product development, and ensuring learning remains aligned to real organizational needs. They contribute to product development sessions with Dr Anna Barnett from the Mindtools Kineo Insights team and have worked with Colin Beaton, Customer Success Lead, to deliver a facilitated session for managers. They also receive on-going support from Lee Murphy, Client Enablement Lead and main day-to-day contact.
The Results
The impact has been significant – strengthening leadership capability, improving engagement, and supporting sustainable growth. Here are three business outcomes that really matter to Golden Charter.
Utilisation scores up from 50% to 70–80%
The People and Culture team highlights Content Hub usage data and departmental insights to demonstrate clear business impact – linking learning directly to engagement, performance, retention, and people related case management
‘It’s fantastic to see the difference – people feel supported, empowered and able to grow.’
Stronger leadership and fewer HR escalations
With better equipped managers, the quality of performance conversations has strengthened. Ask M: Coach is new and a key tool for building confidence and capability.
‘Ask M: Coach reassures managers they’re doing the right thing. It’s fantastic.’
A modern, scalable learning culture
Using the Mindtools Content Hub and Ask M: Coach has enabled Golden Charter to create a vibrant, organization-wide learning ecosystem that strengthens capability today and prepares teams for tomorrow.
“Mindtools Kineo helps us integrate learning into everyday moments. It’s made a real, tangible difference. We feel part of the Mindtools Kineo team. They really understand our organization and they work with us.”
Pamela Malkin, Organisation Development Partner, Golden Charter
Unlock leadership
potential across your organization
Discover how Mindtools can help you develop confident, capable managers and leaders.