HR Archives - Keystone Development and Training Ltd

How to Create an Award Winning Development Programme

November 22, 2018Uncategorizedbespoke, business, coaching, design, HR, management, managers, OD, performance, talent, training, training design

In L&D circles, the fashion is for agile learning; for bite-size sessions, or even micro-learning; for self-direction and curation. Surely no-one still attends workshops? Even worse, 18 month programmes? Well. Yes they do, and there’s a reason for it: They work. They work AS LONG AS the right people are on the programme in the first place, the programme is designed to take them on a development journey, AND those people are given high levels of support and challenge. I’m delighted to have played a supporting role in such a programme for the last 9 months – The award winning Academy at Johnson’s Apparelmaster. The Academy is multi-layered (internal) development programme that I’ve been supporting for the last 9 months. Here I am (on the right) with (L-R) Charlene Howard, Michela Deegan and Jan Fisher-Payne who each manage and deliver a specific stream. I have been supporting the largest group – the Intermediate level. Although my part has ended, the Academy is just half-way through. Twenty-Four people have been through 9 months of structured development, including self-directed learning, five 2-day workshops, telephone coaching and practical assignments. So far, the results have been pretty impressive. I’ve seen the majority of these…

World of Learning – How to Curate Learning

October 21, 2018UncategorizedHR, OD

This is a short blog post based on the notes I made during this session at the World of Learning Conference in October 2018. It may not be complete or totally accurate – it’s just what I took away. This session was of particular interest. Not only do I know the speaker, Mike Shaw, a little, but curation is an increasingly important part of my role, so I wanted to see if there were any tips I could pick up to do it better! Firstly, Mike explained what Curation is: Its about providing resources, not courses and helping people to create their own learning journeys, utilising a wide range of sources. He said that the role of L&D is to provide recommendations, but also encourage people to find their own… this exploration helps to aid the transfer of learning as they’ve invested time in finding and selecting it. Content that is provided on a plate may not always deliver the same levels of engagement. In terms of HOW to curate, he suggested we follow the 3 S’s: Seek, Sense, Share. Seek – Look for content in many places, not just the ‘approved’ ones. Actively seek out views that may be…

World of Learning – L&D as Change Makers

October 21, 2018Uncategorizedbusiness, HR, managers

This is a short blog post based on the notes I made during this session at the World of Learning Conference in October 2018. It may not be complete or totally accurate – it’s just what I took away. Melanie Lepine talked about the VUCA environments that we all operate in, and what this means for the skills our leaders need, including commercial acumen, resilience, emotional intelligence, curiosity and creativity and cognitive agility. This has an impact for L&D. Again themes of curation, blended learning, agile learning and connecting people came through, as did the importance of demonstrating the value that L&D adds – not just to senior managers but also to the people you want to embark on learning. She suggested that to drive change from within L&D we need to: Connect people and with people… AND engage in PR in our own organisations! Link and label content – find/create great contact and explain how it adds value Hold up the mirror to ourselves Be pro-active – don’t wait to be asked by the business for a solution Be agile – we shouldn’t be driven or bound by rigid processes Know what metrics matter to the organisation and deliver…

World of Learning – Key Ingredients of Learning Impact

October 21, 2018Uncategorizedbehaviour, design, HR, managers, OD, training, training design

This is a short blog post based on the notes I made during this session at the World of Learning Conference in October 2018. It may not be complete or totally accurate – it’s just what I took away. I have to say that this session was one of the most insightful and useful – based on transfer of learning, which is a topic that is very important to me. This was an interesting session about an area of learning that matters to me… transfer to the job. Ina Weinbauer-Heidel explained that in most traditional training, 15% of learners get a positive outcome in that they transfer learning to the job successfully; 70% attempt to transfer learning but (for a range of reasons) fail to do so; and 15% don’t even try. So what is the reason for this lack of transfer? Her research identified over 100 factors that influence transfer of learning… she focused on 12 factors that L&D professionals can influence, which she has called 12 Levers of Transfer Effectiveness. These Levers fall into 3 categories: Trainees, Design and Organisation – You can imagine my delight when the importance of training design (not delivery) was highlighted as one…

World Of Learning – The Future of L&D

October 21, 2018UncategorizedHR

This is a short blog post based on the notes I made during this session at the World of Learning Conference in October 2018. It may not be complete or totally accurate – it’s just what I took away. The opening keynote speaker, Rafal Szaniawski) defined learning as an on-going, active process of enquiry, engagement and participation that living organisms go through to change. He asked us to remember the key lessons we’d learned in our lives. Although this wasn’t explored in detail, it was clear to me that all of my important lessons were EVENTS or CONVERSATIONS. No significant learning has ever been achieved without the involvement of others (though of course, reflection is necessary in some form or another). In a world where we are constantly being persuaded that the future of learning is digital, I have my doubts. Indeed, Raf said that learning needs are complex and multi-dimensional… so our approach to learning needs to be too. Raf then explored two ‘forces’ of future learning; curation and enforcement. He suggested that the L&D departments of the future will be more like DJs – creating a prefect mix tape for a specific person, but they will all have…

Training Design and Learner Maturity

October 4, 2018Uncategorizedbespoke, design, HR, management, OD, training, training design

In September I ran 2 (identical) workshops for one of my main clients. One of the topics we were covering was Conflict management. It’s not my strongest subject to cover, so during the design phase I spent a lot of time researching different theories and models to get myself up to date. None of the models or theories jumped out at me as being particularly relevant for my client and the likely conflict situations my delegates would find themselves in. So I did something I would never normally do… I DIDN’T design part of this section of the workshop. As someone who ALWAYS designs in detail (I figure it’s better to give the trainer more than they need than not enough – even when that trainer is me) I felt nervous about this. Just to clarify – I didn’t leave a hole full of nothingness: I did include a section on exploring what conflict is, what causes it and created some bespoke case studies/role plays to explore the practical side of conflict resolution. What I DIDN’T do was prescribe HOW conflict should be resolved. Instead, I asked delegates to complete their own independent research into conflict resolution as pre-course work,…

Conscious Competence – It’s bloomin’ hard work!!

September 25, 2018UncategorizedHR, managers, OD, performance, training

I’ve just got back from a long weekend in Centre Parcs – my kids’ favourite place in the world. As part of our mini break, we went quad biking. To be honest, it’s one of those activities that’s actually very easy to pick up – but difficult to do well. I was probably the worst in the group, and despite the very good instruction by Josh, I was still the worst at the end – but I had improved. But boy, was it exhausting!!! Not just the physical side of it, but the continuous concentration, the identifying the nature of the next obstacle, thinking through how to tackle it, and then doing it, and working out how adjust if my approach wasn’t quite right. My husband (and ex motocyclist) said that I should just relax and feel my way around – but that’s OK for him – he had lots of (similar) experience to fall back on. I did not. Everything was a conscious process for me. Thinking everything through worked, but it was hard work. It made me realise how much we are asking of people at the end of a training event. I always stress that training is…

The Great British Train Off

August 29, 2018Uncategorizeddesign, HR, talent, training

I was asked a question by a freelance trainer in my network who had been running events for a client – “Should I hand over my training materials?” The client then asked to have all of the training materials so they could mop up and run events in the future. My contact was reluctant. The client felt it was their right. It’s a tricky one unless (like me) you always intend to share materials and factor the cost of design into your work: If my clients pay me for the time it takes to design the materials, they can have them. If they don’t, they can’t. It’s quite straight forward, and I’ve written before on this topic. Ultimately, it depends on the agreement between client and supplier and there’s certainly no right or wrong approach. But, as the Great British Bake Off started again this week, I couldn’t help but compare the two situations: You could provide me with all the equipment, the ingredients and detailed instructions to make some of those show-stopper cakes, and they would be a disaster (though I’d like to think I’d make a reasonable success of some of the challenges!). Skill and experience make the…

Material Things…

May 12, 2018Uncategorizeddesign, HR, OD, training, training design

There has been a move away from detailed training materials over the last few years, and I totally get it. Whether it’s saving the environment, catering to different learning preferences, curating what’s already out there, or just wanting people to note down their personal learning rather than the theory, in many ways, limiting training materials makes sense. I have cut down the amount of delegate training materials I create, but actually not by that much. Many people still like to have all the relevant information in one place. That said, increasingly delegate workbooks are presented digitally rather than physically. The slides I create are largely visual so giving delegates a copy of the slides is pointless if it is supposed to act as reference material. Anyway, last week, I was grateful for my slightly old fashioned habit of creating detailed delegate workbooks. I was running a workshop and was told (15 minutes before we started) that some of the delegates would be attending virtually, from another country. English is not their first language. They appeared on the screen where my slides would normally be, so I immediately ditched my slides. Thankfully, I always create detailed trainer’s notes and these, combined…

FARE Training – Providing Vitamin D for Learning

April 19, 2018Blogbehaviour, HR, OD, training

When the sun shines and it’s warm outside, I actually WANT to eat salad and fruit. This is good, because I’m carrying a few excess pounds and eating more healthily will help me to get back into shape. It’s harder to make healthy choices when it’s cold, wet and dreary, even though I know I should. The draw of a cheese toastie is just too much! the vitamin D in the sunshine does us more good than we realise. For me, it’s highlighted the importance of a vitamin D equivalent in learning, and the link between environment, feelings, actions and results, and how one affects the others: Your environment affects your feelings, your feelings shape your choices and actions, and your actions define your results. Of course, your results then feed into creating your environment, and around we go again. Most training interventions (understandably) focus on actions: what we do. What we do – our behaviours – have a direct impact on results so it makes total sense. Our behaviours are also the easiest to define, observe and learn, and they are within our circle of control. But we know that impact will be limited if we don’t spend time…

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