Plenty of cooperative societies do not collapse because the underlying idea was wrong, but because the people running them were never trained in governance, financial planning, or performance measurement. This training course, delivered by the Arab British Fellowship Training Academy, was built to close exactly that gap.

Rather than starting from theory, the course walks participants through the practical lifecycle of a cooperative society: how primary, secondary, and tertiary cooperatives differ in structure and purpose, how to register and organise a new society under cooperative law, and how to keep it financially viable once it is running.

A second track of the course looks inward at the organisation itself, covering workforce planning, performance indicators, and change management, so that graduates leave able to both start a cooperative and keep it operating efficiently over time.

The course closes with a capstone exercise in which participants draft a real operating and performance plan for a cooperative society of their choice, incorporating feedback from instructors and peers.

Who Should Attend?

• Founders and board members of cooperative societies, existing or planned
• Managers and team leaders responsible for people and operations
• HR professionals working on workforce development strategy
• Anyone in a leadership role managing staff who report to them

Course Objectives

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Distinguish between primary, secondary, and tertiary cooperative societies and their respective functions
• Establish a cooperative society and prepare its founding business profile
• Build a workable business plan and access cooperative support programs
• Resolve internal disputes within a cooperative membership
• Organise a workforce and re-plan operations for better efficiency
• Set up performance assessment frameworks and key performance indicators
• Lead organisational change and manage resistance to it
• Develop human resource strategies aligned with the cooperative's overall strategy

1. Cooperative Societies: Types and Legal Framework

   • Primary vs secondary vs tertiary cooperatives
   • Overview of cooperative law
   • Role of the cooperative society in the community

2. From Idea to Registered Society

   • Forming and registering a new cooperative
   • Preparing a business profile
   • Accessing cooperative assistance programs

3. Building the Business Plan

   • Writing a workable business plan
   • Case studies of successful cooperative businesses

4. People and Structure

   • Workforce organisation principles
   • Understanding workforce dynamics and structures
   • Core HR functions inside a cooperative

5. Operations and Performance

   • Analysing current operations
   • Re-planning for efficiency
   • KPIs and performance assessment frameworks

6. Leading Change and Resolving Conflict

   • Change management strategies and overcoming resistance
   • Conflict resolution within cooperative membership

7. Strategic HR and Team Development

   • Aligning HR development strategy with overall strategy
   • Facilitating team development
   • Mutual respect, trust, and performance standards

8. Capstone: Operating and Performance Plan

   • Applying course concepts to a real cooperative case
   • Peer review and instructor feedback