Ask five people involved in the same cooperative society what its main job actually is, and it is common to get five different answers – some see it as a business, others as a community project. That confusion at the top is usually where governance problems start, long before any financial trouble shows up. This training course from the Arab British Fellowship Training Academy exists to settle that question properly and then build outward from it.

The course runs along two connected tracks. The first treats the cooperative as a legal and financial entity: how primary, secondary, and tertiary cooperatives differ, how to register one under cooperative law, and how to keep it solvent once it is operating. The second track turns inward to the organisation itself – workforce planning, performance indicators, and change management – so graduates can both launch a cooperative and keep running it well for years afterward. The course closes with a capstone exercise in which participants draft a real operating and performance plan, with 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.

Knowledge and Benefits:

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

• Distinguish between primary, secondary, and tertiary cooperative societies and their functions.
• Establish a cooperative society and prepare its founding business profile and business plan.
• Access cooperative support programs and resolve internal disputes within a membership.
• Organise a workforce, re-plan operations, and set up performance frameworks and KPIs.
• Lead organisational change and develop HR strategies aligned with the cooperative's overall strategy.

1. Module 1: What a Cooperative Actually Is, and How to Register One

   • Primary vs secondary vs tertiary cooperatives, and the role of the cooperative in the community.
   • Overview of cooperative law and the registration process for a new society.

2. Module 2: Turning the Idea Into a Working Business Plan

   • Preparing a founding business profile and accessing cooperative assistance programs.
   • Writing a workable business plan, with case studies of successful cooperative businesses.

3. Module 3: Structuring the People Side

   • Workforce organisation principles and understanding workforce dynamics.
   • Core HR functions inside a cooperative society.

4. Module 4: Running and Measuring Day-to-Day Operations

   • Analysing current operations and re-planning for efficiency.
   • Building KPIs and performance assessment frameworks.

5. Module 5: Conflict, Change and Team Development

   • Change management strategies and overcoming resistance.
   • Resolving internal disputes and aligning HR development with the cooperative's overall strategy.

6. Module 6: Capstone – A Real Operating and Performance Plan

   • Applying course concepts to a real cooperative case.
   • Peer review and instructor feedback on the final plan.