The most wonderful time of the year....

…for catching up with the paperwork!! 

I do love Christmas for all the traditional things such as the carol service in our village church, for the annual fight with the sellotape and for a few quiet days where you can catch your breath and do all those little jobs you have been meaning to do in the office.

My biggest bug-bear is filing...I am the one with piles of ‘stuff’ on my desk.  Now to anyone else they look like piles of rubbish, but to me it is an important pile of my ‘stuff’ and yes, I do know where everything is in each pile!!  But getting around to putting it away is just not even close to being important to me when I have lots of work on the go and deadlines to meet, but around Christmas you can catch a few hours and clear those pesky piles away!!

I do know that if I don’t do it the piles get so big they fall over and then the system that I have (stop laughing at my system) is completely destroyed! I also know all the rules of managing your time effectively, come on I regularly run training sessions on the subject.  But as I say to my delegates there are always some things that never get to the ‘a’ list!!!  So while you are tucked up in a warm house ‘between’ festive gatherings it is good to clear some of that clutter away.

So I have now tidied my laptop of the junk which was actually on the desk-top and put a new ‘wallpaper’ picture on to remind me that it is tidy and that ‘s how I should keep it.  I can feel the calling of New Year resolutions but I am going to resist!! 

These resolutions that we set out at the beginning of every year are in my opinion a good idea, but only if you have a plan and someone who is going to help and support you to carry them out.  This is especially true if you are trying to kick a big habit like smoking, getting fitter or losing weight.  For me I know that filing will never be as interesting, stimulating or important as designing new courses, talking to clients or delivering to a new group of learners!!

So off to clear a few more piles of stuff,

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

www.rubusassociates.co.uk

“We don’t know what good service is… until we don’t get it!”

Then we tell everyone about it…how bad it was, how disappointed we are, the fact that we are never going to shop/eat/visit/use that service again.

So as we are all in the customer service business we need to make sure we don’t take our eye of the most important person to us…the customer.  You might think that as a trainer you are in the business of developing potential, running courses or assessing people’s ability which we are, however we also have to consider that every person who attends our training programme is a customer.  Therefore we have to consider the following:

• Was their experience on the courses that we delivered a positive one?
• Where we value for money?
• Will they recommend us to their colleagues?
• How would they rate us as service providers?
• Were you on time and fully prepared to run the course when the first delegate arrived?
• Did you portray professionalism in your manner, dress and use of language?
• Were the handouts professionally produced?
• Was the venue, refreshments & facilities to a good standard?

This is nothing to do with your skills and knowledge as a trainer in your specialist field.  This is to do with you and is part of the on-going relationship you want with your customers….so consider these:

• You should not be exploiting your clients by selling them more days than they need. You are not a rip off merchant!!
• How easy are you to contact both for the client and for the delegates should they have a post-course query?
• How helpful are you with questions on the course, not the ones directly about the subject matter of the course, but those that are often ‘off-piste’, but are important to that delegate?
• Can you prove your professional credibility…how up to date is your CPD? What gives you the right to train my people?
• What evidence can you provide of successful training courses that you have run before on this subject?

What you must remember is that your training course is part of your sales process.  Unlike selling some products, our key product is ourselves & our knowledge and ability to share that. Therefore there is always an opportunity to develop business whilst you are delivering a programme, but not to the detriment of the course itself.

We have to consider that the training industry is a competitive one and very often your only differentials are you and the price you charge.  Now lets be honest, you don’t want to be the Poundstretcher of the learning world so you have to ensure that the service you offer is worth the money you are charging.

As a buyer of training your client wants to know not only do you have the credibility & knowledge to deliver the subject but you also have the customer care skills too. So the next time you are running a session whether as a trainer or a manager, or both, think, are you giving good value for money and providing a good service to your customers?

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

www.rubusassociates.co.uk

I have recently spent a very constructive & interesting day with a number of people discussing ‘leading teams’ and the importance of this subject…so I thought I would share some of these ideas with you.

Teamwork is crucial to any organisation as we need to make the most of the people that we employ, especially in the current economic climate.  So how do you measure the effectiveness and efficiency of your team? I bet your key measurements are numerical, such as how much we saved or made and I bet you don’t often think about measuring how much trust there is in your team or how much commitment to the objectives of the team.  Yet these are crucial areas that impact on your team’s performance.

Then there is your leadership style…are you a micro-manager or have you got the leadership maturity to know when to demonstrate directive behaviour towards your team and when you need to be supportive and when you need to leave them alone? Having met over 30 team leaders in the last month it is interesting to listen to how we measure success in a team.  It is almost exclusively by numbers: how many boxes we shipped; how much sales revenue we have made and this has very little if anything to do with the qualities that we believe make up a good team.

These qualities are often cited as communication, trust, honesty, support and respect.  So how do you measure how your team are performing in these areas….oh that’s too hard I hear you cry so that’s why I don’t do it.  Exactly!  You can be the best sales team on the planet but if you don’t trust and support each other you are not a team, you are a group of people all reporting to one person.

A team can be successful without selling the most, saving the most or making the best…your role as the manager is to talk to all of them to help them understand how you are going to measure success, what your expectations are of their behaviour towards each other and you and that is all matters.  As Lencioni stated in his book the Five Dysfunctions of a Team and I am paraphrasing here:

Without trust I am vulnerable so I will not challenge the situation.  If I don’t challenge what we are doing I do not buy into it.  So if I do not commit to the situation I am not accountable and therefore I am not interested in the results. This team becomes or is dysfunctional.

However if we all trust each other I will challenge you in our meetings and when we have resolved our differences I will commit to what we have decided to do 100%.  As I am committed to making it happen I therefore realise that I am accountable for the outcome and therefore I will ensure that the results come. Thus this team is functional and performing!

Surely the latter is a much better situation for your as a team leader?

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

www.rubusassociates.co.uk

As you may know I have been a delegate recently on a course in my role as church treasurer and it brought to mind one of the biggest issues that we have as professional trainers…how many people do you have on one programme?

Well the answer is, as ever, it depends upon the subject, the competence of the learners and how practical the learning needs to be.  Adult learning theory shows us that we all have a preferred way of learning, be it reflective, and thus need time to consider and review the information or be it active, where the learner wants to get involved. It is therefore important that we as managers & trainers design a learning activity that is suitable for all types of learners, whether it is a five day programme or a 20minute tool box talk.

You may be in the fortunate situation that you know the learners whom you will be training and so with that greater insight you can provide a much more bespoke learning experience.  However, if you are running open courses, such as those that I am involved in, you have no idea about the learners preferred way of learning.  You must therefore design & develop your training programme to suit all four learning styles as identified by Honey & Mumford.  Be aware that you are likely to design a training programme that suits your learning style and thus will bore the pants off other types of learner.  I am an activist and like to ‘do stuff’ on a course, so this recent learning experience, which was aimed at reflectors, was hard work!!

Your other consideration is what you are training your people on…on my course there were 50 of us, so there was no chance for the trainer to spend time with us on an individual basis, so there was no practical learning or experience.  This was not too bad for a subject like accounting practice and there were three trainers so their different styles helped to maintain attention. However it is not how training IT subjects would work at all, for example, as people want to be hands on & practical with these subjects…people need to practice the skills as they are being taught them, not just watch the upteenth PowerPoint slide!

The final and most pragmatic answer to the question is that of cost or sales, depending on how you look at this situation.  I recently saw an advert for a ‘hands on, interactive training session where you will be one of only 4 delegates’ which I thought was fantastic.  It was for a very practical subject and meant that you as the delegate knew you would have a lot of attention from the trainer and therefore, able to get a lot of hands on experience with good supervision.  But this approach may not work in an organisation where you have to train a lot of people at once because they can only be released from their job all together, when the line is closed for example, in a manufacturing environment.

Commercial considerations also have to be made especially if you are charging people for attending the programme.   You have to cover the venue costs, costs of the trainer and materials that you produce as well as refreshments and you are a business so you need to run this at a profit.  So this may be the biggest influence on the numbers you train and in my experience this is very often the case.  So despite you, as a professional trainer, explaining that the maximum number for a particular course is X people the company put X+ on the course as they will make more money, but will the learning happen?!

I hope that this has been thought provoking!

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

www.rubusassociates.co.uk

Creating the right learning environment

I have just recently been a delegate on a course, not for me as a trainer, but for me in my role as church treasurer.  It was good to be on the receiving end of the learning for a change and enabled me to get a good insight into the perspective of the learner.

Venues vary tremendously from client to client and hotel to conference centre but as a trainer it is one of the areas that nobody tells you about.  Very often you have to spend the first 10-15 minutes setting up or sorting out the room to make it conducive to the learning of your delegates.  This had been thought about a little in the venue I was at….yes there was daylight and yes we could all see the screen for the PowerPoint presentation, but you couldn’t see the presenters and if you had been at the front you would’ve disturbed a lot of people if you had wanted to go out for a wee.

People who design meeting rooms, conference rooms and church halls and want to sell them for training forget that if you are a trainer you will want to walk in amongst your delegates not lecture from the front...this is especially true if you are an experiential trainer.  Yet the designers/IT people insist in putting the plugs in the middle of the floor so you have to tip toe through the cables all day.  Or the tables are fixed so that you cannot move them, this means that not only can you not move from the front very easily, but also the exercises that you have designed for small groups are very hard to facilitate….or even just getting people to work in small groups is restricted by the furniture.

Daylight is also so important for assisting the attention span of the delegates as well as allowing fresh air to be circulated.  I have trained in a number of venues without natural light and as the trainer you have to take this into consideration with your delegates and their learning capacity.  Last week as a delegate it was great that some of the daylight was allowed into the room, however because the session was completely tutor led and driven by PowerPoint half the windows had to be covered so people could see the screen!!

The other key area to consider is the seating arrangements; can all the delegates see the visual aids that you will be using? Can they see you? How well can they see each other?  This latter point is very important if a high percentage of your programme is based around facilitated discussions. Hopefully as well, the seats will have arms as this assists the comfort of your delegates.  Remember that the mind will only take in as much information as the posterior can endure!!

You also have to consider the number of people that you will have attending your session….I was one of 50 people last week, so yes, it was a lecture not a learning session, consequently there was little interaction between learner and trainer which for learning styles like mine (active, participative) was not good at all.  In fact I spent a lot of the time on my social media sites…my apologies to the trainer but I was bored and that is a whole other subject to talk about in the future!!

So lets make our learning environments more conducive to learning and ensure that our learning outcomes are met and we don’t bore our delegates to death!!

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

www.rubusassciates.co.uk

How do you measure learning?

How many times do you actually read the instructions and ensure that you understand them before you go ahead and do something?

Part of my work involves marking work for students so that they are assessed against a given criteria decided upon by awarding bodies such as Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) or Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD). If the student meets the required standard they then get a recognised qualification. This is often valued by many of the people I have the pleasure to work with and the reason they are attending the programme.

However it never ceases to amaze me that people, who appear to be competent and literate, do not read instructions!! If you are asked for 2 examples of something, why only give 1!!! Or you are asked to explain something and you describe it…these are two different activities.

Reading and understanding the instructions or the criteria against which you are being assessed is fundamental to the process of accreditation. It means that people like me, and lets be fair, there are a lot us out here, have a benchmark to which we are measuring a person’s work.

Interestingly if you as a trainer or a manager, or both, have not identified why the person needs to attend a training programme how will you be able to measure the success of that learning event once it has been completed?  This is why there is much more emphasis on accredited programmes now because companies can set a level at which they expect people to attain.  It is also why a lot of government money is available because it can be measured and therefore the expense can be justified.

So, if you are attending a training programme or planning to run one for your team or individuals within it, ask yourself: “how will I know that the training has been effective?” Ask this question to the people you are thinking of hiring to run that training or put your own measurement criteria together.  But remember to be clear about what you are asking people to do and then make sure that they actually understand what is being asked of them.

The assessment criteria needs to be clear, measurable and relevant to the subject and must be accessible to all.  Then depending upon how many people will be completing this assessment, how do you ensure consistency in the people who are marking this work?  This is especially true in the intangible area of leadership and motivation, so you as a trainer, or as a manager need to set clear expectations of what you are measuring and be able to provide examples for the learners.

So, if the instructions are clear & understandable for the learners it will make marking of such work fairer and more equitable for people like me!  It will also mean that the money you are spending on the learning will provide you with a measurable return.

Off to do some assessment now!!

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

www.rubusassociates.co.uk

What does your voice say about you!

One of our most important tools as trainers or managers is our ability to vary the pitch, speed and passion of our voice, be it in meetings, tool-box talks or at presentations.  Your voice is a wonderful tool and should be used in all its varieties throughout the delivery of your session.

Interestingly I was in church just recently and the key message was about managing what you say!  It made me think about how such a small part of our body can manage to get us into so much trouble sometimes!!!  It is the strongest muscle in your body, proportionately.  So you need to manage both your tongue and the words that come out of your mouth with as much effort as you put into other forms of communication. Consider this...I bet you think about the report you have to write for your boss for considerably longer than you think about what you are going to say to your team!!

How often have we been in meetings, presentations or training sessions where the person presenting the information has been so passionate and alive about the subject you come away feeling inspired and motivated.  Equally we have also had the opposite experience…how do you want your delegates or team members to feel when you are talking?

I encounter many managers who bemoan the fact that they have to have team meetings and they never get any response from their team.  I question this: maybe this is about how you deliver your messages?  Your role as a manager or trainer is to ‘sell’ the concept, idea, new process or procedure to your audience; if you sound bored or non-committal what do you think will be the outcome?  What ideas do you use to liven up your team meetings? How do you get your team involved in the meeting?

Whatever your reason for speaking to a group of people you need to be convincing, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, passionate so that you get your message across.  You need to take time to consider exactly what you are going to say and where you are going to put the emphasis so that you keep your audience engaged.

Remember the old saying; “think before you speak”.

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

http://www.rubusassociates.co.uk

Meetings…how wasteful can they be?

How long do you spend in unproductive meetings wishing you were somewhere else getting on with your ‘to do’ list?

I don’t know about you but I find it very disappointing and frustrating attending meetings that are not well managed or planned.  What a waste of everyone’s time, which let’s be honest we can ill-afford to waste in the current economic climate.

Even more frustrating is when meetings have been arranged well in advance in your diary, you then check to confirm whether it is on or not as you get another opportunity on the same day as obviously you have to decide which takes priority. The person you contact makes out that the date was never fixed so you take it out of your diary and put in the other meeting and think nothing of it.  However, two weeks later you get an email inviting you to the first meeting again as the organiser could not organise the proverbial, in a barn!!  Oooh, makes me mad as you can probably tell!!

So, how do you ensure that the meetings you are involved in are productive and not time wasting, here are a few pointers that I find work well:

• Every meeting should have a start and finish time
• Every meeting should have a chairperson, a different person to take notes and a third person to watch the time
• Every meeting room should have an accurate clock in it
• Everyone who attends a meeting should contribute
• Every meeting over 30 minutes in duration should have an agenda
• Every meeting agenda should be issued at least 5 working days before the meeting, unless it is a weekly meeting with repeating topics for discussion
• Every meeting that involves the same people should spend five minutes as the end of every meeting asking:
• How well was the meeting chaired?
• How effective was the meeting in its use of time?What went well?
• What can we all do better at the next meeting?

When you have an initial client meeting it will probably only involve a maximum of four people (2 from both companies), but it is still good practice to confirm how long the meeting will be and what the key points that need to be covered are. Never assume that everyone is on the same page as you.  From a sales perspective you also need to know what the client’s agenda is and it is only polite to see how much time you have available.  It also shows that you are business focused, which will gain you greater credibility.

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

http://www.rubusassociates.co.uk

Leadership behaviour...learn how to manage it!

As a manager, trainer or coach we all have to be leaders of people and we often forget how our behaviour impacts on other people…we need to learn how to manage our behaviour and recognise that sometimes we just don’t get it right!

If you go and look up leadership behaviour on a search engine or dare I say it, in a book, you will find many references to leadership theory dating back over 50 years.  As a trainer who delivers accredited training I have to share a lot of this theory with managers at all stages of their career and it is interesting to see when people have that ‘light bulb’ moment.

Most recently this has been around changing your behviour to different members of the team, for the theorists amongst you, this is situational or contingency theory.  Fundamentally it is about you recognising when a member of your team/group needs you to tell them what to do and when they need you to back off, so that they can get on with the job.

Different behaviour can be categorised into two key areas: directive behaviour where you tell the person what to do and supportive behaviour where you discuss with the person what they are going to do.  This categorisation forms part of Hersey & Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory, which gives much more detail, I am barely scratching the surface here, just making a key point for you to think about.

Take a new recruit, for example, in the first few days & weeks they will need more directive behaviour from you but as they learn the job you need to pull back and give them more support to allow them to do the job on their own. I often use the analogy of swimming: when you are teaching someone to swim you are in the water telling them what to do; once they can do the basics you are still in the pool but you are encouraging them.  When they can swim a length or two you might be on the side of the pool still encouraging but eventually all you will have to do is take them to the pool.  That is where you want to get to with all your team eventually

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So often I meet team members who wish that their manager would give them space to do the job, they do not want to be micro managed.  We, therefore have to look at our own behaviour and recognise when it is appropriate to be directive, which will not be all the time, and when it is important to be supportive of your team.

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

http://www.rubusassociates.co.uk

Make sure you qualify every lead!

Although sales training is not one of my main strengths I was amazed to be part of a sales process where the initial qualification of the need of the customer was not done.

A couple of weeks ago a sales representative of a very well known double glazing firm called at our house selling his wares, so to speak.  Well I know that we need new fascia boards at the gable end of the property, which I explained to this person. He then asked about sofit boards (sorry to be so technical but you need to know what I wanted) and I explained that we only have one of those.  He said he would arrange for someone to come out and give us a quote on a date that we agreed.

Now from this representative’s perspective he had succeeded in getting an appointment.  So he was well on his way to his target…job done!

Two weeks later and three days before the appointment I get a call from another representative to check that I will be in on the agreed date to meet with the surveyor.  This person explained that I would also get a quote from the surveyor on the day, which this person hoped would be acceptable to me.

On the day of the allotted appointment I get a call from a third person from this company to confirm that I am in and I am the decision maker.  They also confirmed what I wanted and I explained two fascia boards and a sofit board, no I did not need the guttering replaced.  This voice said that was part of the package but the surveyor would ensure that I got the right information when he arrived later that day.

The surveyor duly arrived on time and very well presented…always a good start for a sales appointmentm I believe.  He took one look at my house and said he could give me a quote but it would be far too expensive, I was better off going to a local builder and getting them to do it.  He was with me for no more than 3 minutes!!

Two lessons to learn from this:

1. Make sure that you know what the customer wants and what you are selling.  If the initial representative had been better trained he would’ve been able to tell me that the job was too small for his firm.

2. If the job had been qualified better three people would not have had to interact with me to establish that the job was too small.  Again if the person on phone call had been better trained, again he could’ve qualified me out

Please make sure you do not waste your precious time & your resources on badly developed sales leads.

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

http://www.rubusassociates.co.uk

THE MOTIVATION OF CPD (CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT)

For the first time in quite a long time I attended a conference this weekend as part of my continuous professional development (CPD) and feel so motivated by it I thought I would share it with you.

What is CPD?

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) continuous professional development (CPD) “is a combination of approaches, ideas and techniques that will help you manage your own learning and growth”. 

Why do CPD?

As professional trainers, coaches and mangers we should be encouraging everyone we come into contact with to keep their CPD up to date.  Obviously we should also be doing it ourselves!!  The idea is to keep us up to date with developments in our industry, to keep our ‘little grey cells’ working and to ensure that we are motivated and developing ourselves as well as other people.

However, we are like the cobblers children and very often give this great advice and don’t take it up ourselves…guilty as charged here!!  So as I am interested in eating real natural food I attended the inaugural Harcombe Diet conference at the weekend in Birmingham.

Not only was it good for me to be a delegate…which does make you think about some of the things we take for granted as trainers, such as environment, comfort of chairs, how long until a break and how important these are to delegates. It was also good for me to see other people present, manage a large group of over 50 people and give people advice about how to break habits and become motivated.  The latter is always good as you see things from a different perspective, get new ideas that you can pass on and generally feel more motivated than when you arrived!  Well I did anyway!!

So I am going to ensure that my CPD activities feature in my diary on a regular basis as I feel invigorated and motivated as I start the working week.  Hope you have a great week as well,

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

http://www.rubusassociates.co.uk

Experiential learning.

Just recently I have had an interesting conversation with a colleague here in South Wales who asked me if the word ‘experiential’ actually existed!  This person speaks five languages fluently yet had never heard of something that us professional trainers are very familiar with.

So it made me think about how wrapped up we all get in our own little world with our own jargon, specific to our work area.  We then use that language to talk to our potential clients and in some cases we may as well be speaking Martian.  I was intent on using this language in some marketing that I am doing to develop my business and this encounter has made me stop and think about ensuring that I use language that is understood by my audience or if it is not, then I have to explain it.

Here then, is my brief guide to Experiential learning and why it is so much better for you as the learner than more traditional methods of learning.

Experiential learning is the way that we learn from experiences.  Aristotle said “for the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them”.  So if you think about learning to drive a car, it is not until you are in the car trying to engage the clutch, steer the wheel and look in the mirrors, all at the same time, do you experience how difficult it is.  Yet now you do this sub-consciously, without thinking when you drive because you have had the experiences and developed your skills.

Sticking to the driving analogy, if you had sat in a classroom and been told how to engage the clutch, steer the wheel and the need to look in your mirrors, would you have known how to drive?  You might have the knowledge of these three skills, but you need to put it into practice to develop your understanding of how difficult it is to do all three things at once! This is the key part of the learning process.  You do not learn just from hearing information in a classroom/lecture type situation you have to practise & experience the skills in order for you to develop and learn how they work.

Think about this now in the manager/subordinate situation in a busy work environment.  The former tells the latter what to do & how to do it.  If this instruction is not clear and if it does not involve the former establishing understanding in what the task is and if the subordinate is then not given an opportunity to practise this new skill there is a very high probability that they will fail.  This failure is not the subordinates fault, it is the fault of the instructor who has not ensured that the learner has learnt…this is known as the learning cycle and is for another time.

Therefore, as a manager when you are hiring a training company or trainer one question you might want to ask them is how will the learner’s get experience of the skills & knowledge that you are going to share with them.  What practical exercises are they going to undertake or is the session just going to be all one way communication, trainer to delegate? As a trainer do not get caught up in the ‘chalk & talk’ and ‘death by Powerpoint’ learning practise,  as it will mean that the amount of actual learning that takes place for your learners will be minimal as all they will have experienced is you talking!

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

http://www.rubusassociates.co.uk

Appearances can be deceptive!

Been away from Blog world for a while, but feel the need to share a great customer service experience that I had this week as it was unexpected yet fab!!

Customer service is a big beef of mine as you may be aware and as we work our way towards the last holiday weekend of the year before Christmas, spare a thought for the millions of people who will be working this weekend to serve you in your local pub, restaurant, cinema etc. Also for all of those people who are working spare a moment for us, your customer, who is looking forward to a relaxing time, so please remember to smile and look after us!

My experience this week was up in Yorkshire where I have been doing some business coaching.   After finishing with my client we were in need of lunch in a pub that allowed dogs inside as the weather was inclement….well it is August in England!! The pub we ended up in was the Market Tavern in Knaresborough….a pub that is in need of some attention in the decor department, but in no need of customer service training

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Hurrah!! I would rather have a great customer service experience from genuine people than sit in a pristine environment and receive ‘plastic’ service with no warmth.

From the moment I walked in and asked if dogs were allowed in for which I got a humorous response 'we let them out as well!' I knew we were in for a treat.  Ok so the place could do with a lick of paint and some TLC but the service was excellent and the place was busy...the only lady working front of house was cheerful, attentive and remembered everything...she even managed to get in a sales pitch about their B&B rooms that allow dogs as well, and it didn't feel robotic or contrived...it was genuine and heartfelt and we will go back!

So please let us hope that your customer experiences over this long weekend match up to mine!

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

http://www.rubusassociates.co.uk

Accredited training...good idea or not?

I have been involved in training & development for over 20 years now and this is an interesting question that I have recently been asked by a client.  Is it a good idea to get the training that we are doing accredited?

From the trainer’s perspective it gives us a framework to work within and makes the design & development part of the training cycle easier as there is a structured outline.  However it can be restrictive to the creativeness of the design process and also not meet the identified needs of the people who will be attending the programme.

So what about it from the client’s viewpoint?  It gives their people a nationally recognised qualification and this can be measured in line with other businesses and prospective employees.  The downside can often be the amount of time that the student needs to complete the designated work.  Do you give them study time at work? Study time at home? Or do you expect the work to be completed in their own time? This is perhaps a hidden cost to the learning process that is not always accounted for.

What about the person who is attending the training?  On the plus side it means that they have a nationally recognised qualification at the end, however it does mean that they have to do work that is marked and because it is like going back to school, it puts many people off.  Also from my experience the delegate is not often told by their employer that there is additional work involved to get the qualification!

So I think the jury is probably out on this one!!

I deliver both accredited and non-accredited courses to my clients and as reflected above, there are pro’s & con’s to both.

From recent experience I would ask people who set the criteria for accredited work to not try and get too much information into too little a timeframe.  It would appear that accredited programmes are in danger of becoming taught programmes with little or not interaction with the learners, just so that the content can be shoe horned into the given timeframe.

Likewise I think as trainers and managers we should all be working towards an agreed standard so that there is consistency in courses that are delivered by doing effective needs analysis at the beginning of the process.  This has to be the responsibility of the both the client and the deliverer and should be clarified in writing as part of the contract of work. It is not just a question of “I need my managers to be qualified” it is a question of identifying the actual training need in the first place, but that is whole different situation for another discussion!

Thanks for your time,

Suzanne Unsworth

www.rubusassociates.co.uk

Why mystery shop?

Customer service is something that we encounter on a daily basis and it varies tremendously and it has a huge impact on us as customers.

Take the situation I was in recently…Bank holiday in a very busy & popular garden centre and granted there were four tills available for me to pay, so no queues, which is good.  However the complete lack of interest of the person serving would put me off going again.  She clearly was not interested in me, made no attempt to make eye contact with me or have a conversation and barely was able to say ‘thank you’ for my business.

And that is the point….it is your business.  If you do not have customers you will not have a business.  How do you know how your customers are treated when you are not there?  Sure, they will be model staff when you are around because you are the boss, but what happens when you are not there?  In the retail/service world this is often on a Sunday or BH Monday (of which we have had a few recently!!) because all the ‘suits’ are off!!

So that is why ‘mystery shopping’ can ensure that you are monitoring and measuring the levels of service your customers receive.  It is no good spending hours of training time on teaching & encouraging good customer service if you do not then test it out to see if it actually works.

I have had a lot of experience of mystery shopping for a number of retail & service companies over the last ten years.  During this time I have seen the best and the worst of customer service.  I am not suggesting that you should have sycophantic staff who are ‘all over’ your customers but I am sure that you want them to be attentive and interested even if your customer is only spending £4.99.

The mystery shop can take the form of an actual customer visit or telephone calls where the shopper is looking for specific standards of performance from your staff.  This may be if the order is repeated back to you in a restaurant or if you are thanked for your custom.  It is somewhat subjective on the attitude but if you as the ‘customer’ do not feel wanted then that is not acceptable.

In my opinion if you are offering customer service in your business and  you are saying in your marketing how good you are at it, you should be monitoring how effective it is!!

Thanks for your time,

Suzanne Unsworth

www.rubusassociates.co.uk

Commitment from senior managers pays dividends!

Training & development of people within any size organisation can be expensive and is very often the area that gets slimmed down in times of austerity.  However the benefits of looking after your people…who at the end of the day are your most expensive and therefore most valuable asset, is key to the success of the business going forward.

It is therefore delightful to see the senior management of a multi-million pound business that I am working with at the moment, fully involved in the management development programme that I am running.  Not only does each of the three Managing Directors come and present to the group but the Group Finance Director and Chairman spend quality time with their managers in support of their development during the programme.

What does this do for the people attending the course?  Well imagine how valued they feel and how important their contribution to the business is…the fact that five senior managers take time out of their busy schedule to attend speaks volumes about the ethos of the business.  They actually believe and show that their people are their greatest asset!

How does this help the learning?  Well instead of having delegates who have been ‘told to come’ and who are therefore not engaged with the learning I have 12 very attentive, eager to learn managers who see the value in the programme. So not only does the event go well but the learning that is achieved by the managers is increased and is translated back into the workplace in how they treat their people.

As a manager you are only as good as the last interaction, decision or instruction you gave so you have to consistently value the contribution of all of your team.  Invest some time in them…not necessarily training, but just taking some time out of your busy schedule to make a difference.  This is what these senior managers do and it costs, maybe a couple of hours, once a quarter....can you afford not to do it?

So translate that into your world and take a few minutes to spend some quality time with your people, it will pay you dividends in the long term.

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

www.rubusassociates.co.uk

Wasting time & money!!

In times of austerity, such as we are living in now, why do organisations freely throw money away?

In the past two weeks I have known of two training programmes that were planned and run in South Wales where attendees failed to turn up.  In the first instance 10 people, out of 12, failed to show up for a two day in house programme and in the second example, two people didn’t turn up for an open course.

In both cases the trainer still has to be paid, as does the venue, catering etc. and presumably the training need for these people still needs to be addressed.  So the organisation will end up paying twice!!

This has to be a serious matter for both the line managers of these people, the person responsible for the training in the organisation as well as the financial implications for the company.  Training can be expensive and this is why people need to plan more effectively, commit to the dates and understand why the training is so important both to their job and to the company’s ongoing success.  Yes you can understand that sometimes there might be extenuating circumstances but 10 out of 12 sounds like careless to me!

As someone who is self employed I do not have the luxury of an employer who will pay for my training & development, it comes straight out of my pocket! Therefore, when I look at my Continuous Professional Development (CPD) I need to consider the time I will not be earning money, the cost of the development and what training needs will be addressed by me attending.  Does this happen in your business?  Do you consider the cost, both in time & money, of sending people on training programmes?  Does the person understand the investment that the company is making or do they see it as a ‘day out of the workplace’! Do you as a line manager have a conversation with the individual before they attend the course about what they want to achieve and do you talk to them afterwards about what they did achieve from the course.  You want to get a return back on your investment don’t you?

So this is why training companies, both small and large will charge a cancellation fee for non-attendance on courses, or will insist that you pay in full up to a month beforehand.  This should also happen with internal courses.  Ok it may be ‘wooden dollars’ but it might make line managers understand the cost and thus value the training that the person will be receiving.  It will also mean that for trainers like me we get a full complement of attendees on a course which ensures that the exercises & key learning points are maximised in the way that the course was designed….but more on that another day.

Thanks for your time,

Suzanne Unsworth

www.rubusassociates.co.uk

Recently I enjoyed a lovely walk in the Monmouthshire countryside with a professional colleague of mine.  We have taken to going for a decent walk instead of just sitting over coffee then lunch for our quarterly mutual coaching session. This is an informal arrangement that has developed between us over the last few years and recently we decided to use some of the time to get some fresh air. 

Coaching became ‘trendy’ to do back in the nineties and is now an established way of developing yourself and your team.  What is interesting is people’s approach to it as some people insist that you have to meet in a semi-formal setting, make notes and be very structured in your approach.  I believe that coaching works best when both parties are relaxed and able to talk without boundaries or prejudices.  By getting outside in the fresh air and yes, maybe getting wet and muddy, you will build the relationship of trust needed to be able to coach on a personal level as well as a professional level.

I have always advocated John Whitmore’s GROW model for coaching as I believe that models should be simple and effective.  Lets be fair as well, if you are in the middle of a muddy field Goal, Reality, Options & Will is easy to remember.  The model also works whether you are tackling a business issue or a personal development need.

The other advantage of being outside is that the conversation will have natural breaks which can often feel awkward in a meeting room but completely understandable when you cannot get your breath back after walking up hill!!  And of course there are very little distractions which can support the coachee in being much more frank about the situation.

So if you fancy some coaching in the outdoors….get in touch or try it yourself, especially on a fabulous day like today!

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

www.rubusassociates.co.uk

How do you measure up as a trainer?

For the first time in eleven years as a freelance trainer I have been assessed against excellent quality criteria by a company that employee me…scary!!

However, this was part of their quality control process and a very useful exercise for me to go through because the feedback was constructive, specific and involved two assessors as well as the group of learners. What it has made me think about is how important quality control and measures are in the training environment.

Consider how organisations, be they training companies or companies that hire trainers, actually measure the standards of the trainer.  If you think about it most measurement is about attendance and ‘happy sheets’ so what does this actually measure?  It measures the fact that 12 people turned up and that 12 people finished the programme and rated the course.

None of these measurements actual enable you to actually determine whether or not the training met the training need that had been identified?  Did the trainer actually deliver a learning event that met the required standards of any of the training qualifications that they possess…that is if they possess a training qualification at all!!

As a professional trainer with over twenty years experience both delivering and procuring training & development programmes I find it very disappointing that once people have achieved their training qualification (CIPD Certificate in Learning & Development or Prepare to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector etc) they may never again be assessed.  What does this say about the training industry?  It is a bit like once you have passed your driving test, that’s it!!

Surely as professional trainers who encourage other professional managers to get their own ‘continuous professional development’ on a regular basis we should be exemplary in getting ours.  Given the current climate and the cost of training to any business I believe it is imperative that all purchases of training services should be questioning the quality management processes to ensure that the programmes delivered by either internal or external trainers meet the needs and do not just tick the box!!

Thanks for your time, kind regards, 

Suzanne Unsworth

www.rubusassociates.co.uk