Griffiths Sheppard Consulting Group was formed in 2002 by Jeff Griffiths and Kevin Sheppard, two Alberta-based Certified Management Consultants with a vision to help organizations address the skills gap. Over the years, we’ve worked on this in a number of ways – occupational standards, competency-based training and certification, and organizational development to promote “learning organizations”, but the overarching message as been the same – better organizational performance means growing people. Period.
Our focus on “backbone” industries is not by accident – both founders have spent the majority of their working lives focused on improvement in a “blue collar” world. Kevin ran a successful construction company prior to his consulting career, providing training and career opportunities to numerous individuals with barriers to employment – lessons learned from that experience were the basis of his book Professional Attributes, and led to his consulting practice. Jeff is the son of a skilled tradesman who immigrated to Canada in the 1950’s from the UK to seek a better future. Jeff has often stated “I wasn’t good enough to be a craftsman, so I became a soldier instead” – he served as an officer in the Canadian air force, where he acquired a fervent belief in the importance of continuously developing individual and team competency as a precursor to high performance.
Griffiths Sheppard continues to pursuing the vision of a better, higher performing workplace for the benefit of all. We help leaders understand that credentials and competency are not the same thing; to look for “latent skills” within their organization as an asset that can bring about a significant competitive advantage.
Our recent work is tied to efforts to improve the performance of major capital projects in Alberta’s energy sector as part of GO Productivity’s “Project Alignment and Delivery” (PAAD) initiative – vital work at a time of incredible change and economic upheaval in our home province.