Best Ways to Boost Employee Loyalty
When developing a stronger team it is imperative that you build employee loyalty. It’s important to keep and build long-term relationships with employees. Employee retention saves your company money, and it saves you time. Not only does employee loyalty save you money, but it creates a more productive workforce. Your employees will work harder, and […]
Critical Talent Strategies in a Crisis
The recent pandemic delivered a seismic shock to the world’s economy, destabilizing business frameworks, workforce models and challenging our ability to adapt. Having the agility to respond and reorganise swiftly gets business back in the game. However, many now face dilemmas around workforce numbers, managing surge capacity and technical competencies. So, what are the talent […]
English speaking companies failing to empower better communications
UK businesses are falling behind because of their lack of language skills.
Mental health at work: do we need line manager superheroes?
Line managers are at the front line of dealing with mental health issues at work.
Coaching: If you manage people, you’re a coach whether you like it or not!
You may have seen Alister Shepherd’s excellent article on TrainingZone at the end of last year entitled ‘Why coaching is a manager’s job’. Given the time of year, you may even have resolved to be a manager who takes up the coaching challenge or, as an L&D practitioner, have resolved to help your managers accept […]
Learning to Let Go – Why Delegation Matters
Last week, I spent a really enjoyable week with the team in Alston, Cumbria, handing over tasks that I really didn’t need to be doing myself and welcoming back the lovely Dawn, who is returning after a nine-year stint elsewhere to support our customers. (Some of you who have been with us a long time […]
Coaching: why it might be time to ditch the GROW model
It’s time we equipped managers with the right skills to coach effectively.
In-house team manager coaching
Hi there! I please need some advice on in-house coaching, as this is something we are looking to roll out (GROW model). What in-session coaching activities can I use with a customer services team manager to improve manager performance, and ultimately their teams performance? Also what out of session activities would you suggest? If there […]
The management puzzle: why it’s time for organisations to upgrade their ‘accidental managers’
Managers have a huge responsibility within an organisation, and yet very few receive formal training.
What is the identity of learning in your organisation?
Within an organisation, the identity of a department is connected to its sphere of influence and the impact the department has on others. The department’s identity encompasses how they are perceived internally at all levels. Why is this important for learning functions? The nature of the learning department means they need to collaborate with and […]
Diversity and Equality Training
Hi – I have started to design training programs around the Equality, diversity and inclusion topic area and my question for you all is to ask if you feel that this is a topic area that has potential or not or is too niche. Furthermore, what specific topis within this do you feel are potentially […]
Strategy Creates Conflict
You probably think that you have a strategy for your business. That is extremely unlikely. It’s unlikely because a strategy is a plan for what you’ll do in the future to achieve some objective or reach some goal. The problem is that your plans are in the future, and the future is uncertain, and you […]
4 ways to attract millennials to your organisation
With millennials set to make up 75% of the workforce by 2025, organisations around the world are scrambling to understand the needs and motivations of an age group which has wildly different viewpoints and work ambitions as previous generations. Often labelled as great disruptors (as well as being disrupted themselves), millennials have entered work wanting […]
Common sense in Business Management
After more years than I care to remember, firstly in management myself with rising degrees of seniority, through to today running my own training and development organisation, it never ceases to amaze me that what I consider simple common sense just does not occur to many people. Is it just me? Have I clouded my […]
Leadership: the problem with managers and how to upskill them
Poor old managers. They really get it in the neck, don’t they? They’ve got top-down pressure to deliver more with less, little time to translate or enthuse their own teams with the need for more, better or faster work, and still less time or encouragement for personal or professional development. In learning and development we […]
Three workplace trends employers need to action
The workplace has changed a lot over the last decade. Low unemployment rates and millennials entering the workforce has seen large culture shifts within offices and organisations in a short space of time. Trends around the way workers want to work have also changed. Flexibility and work-life-balance are huge buzzwords and key selling criteria when […]
Why managers need to learn to be impartial
One of the biggest pitfalls for leaders and managers in business is a rock-solid belief in their own impartiality. Long experience and intimate knowledge of situations and people mean they must know best. It’s a problem when it comes to relationships and diversity – in how different types of people are perceived and treated; when […]
Conflict management: how to be generative rather than destructive
There’s only one organisation that I have worked with, where people had physical altercations in the office. That doesn’t mean that the other organisations don’t have conflict – it just means that they enact that conflict differently, often in ways that are equally destructive. What I more often see is weaponised gossip, arguments about technical […]
Are we feeding fear?
Several times a week, I take the winding road up onto Dartmoor. Essentially the main link between Tavistock on the other side of the moor and Ashburton on this, it’s a perfectly useful road for much of the route, with lines down the middle and everything. It’s a somewhat different story on our side of […]
First Steps as a Training Manager
Hi all, I'm taking my first steps as a newly appointed Training Manager and would like to hear about your must-do (and must-not!) hints and tips, to help me shape my first few months in role. I have been a Trainer for many years and have been involved in, and led, many training projects from inception through to […]
