Our 2009 year-at-a-glance calendar had a picture of a gannet navigating through an approaching storm. We’ve all felt the effect of that storm to some measure and it’s time to reflect on the lessons learnt, the opportunities gained or lost and how we can make the most of our new environment. This year our calendar depicts reflection through the beauty of our New Zealand mirror lakes.

On the back of the calendar we show the dates of our scheduled public courses:
IMPACT! Training for Trainers, ON-JOB Training, LEADERSHIP Skills for Supervisors, Introduction to TEAM LEADERSHIP, TEAMWORK, FOOD SAFETY, HEALTH and SAFETY, Unlocking Business COMMUNICATION, Essential COMMUNICATION Skills and COMMUNICATING with CUSTOMERS

We have a few of these laminated A4 sized year-at-at-glance calendars left. If you would like one, please use our 'contact us' page to email your Name, Job Title, Company and Company Address. We will post one to you, subject to availability.

One of the benefits of internal/in house supervisor training is that you can implement it as part of a process of performance improvement. By this I mean it could be integrated into performance appraisal, coaching, productivity improvement projects, administrative support, presentations etc.

It’s a bit harder to do this when supervisors are sent to a public/external course, but it’s not impossible. If you want to get the most from supervisors attending public courses, discuss the expected outcomes with the course providers and arrange for pre course briefings and post course implementation and reviews.

It is our desire that delegates do not simply enjoy our courses (which they do). We want them to implement the skills and insights gained from participation. To this end we have developed a few add-ons to our Leadership Skills for Supervisors course - assignments, coaching etc. We offer most of these for no additional cost to clients. Some that will involve us in ongoing support will carry a reasonable fee.

There are off course some decided benefits to public courses. One is that there is less likelihood of participants being called away to attend urgent(?) issues. Another is that delegates benefit immensely from interacting with participants from diverse working environments.

Contact us if you would like to know more about our Leadership Skills for Supervisors course and the added value add-ons (plug-ins for the computer minded)

How do you evaluate the effectiveness of your training? One of the best known frameworks for distinguishing between different types of evaluation comes from Donald Kirkpatrick. He constructed a four level hierarchy of evaluation, each of which is relevant and provides useful information to measure the success of a training intervention.

At level 1 learner reaction to the training is measured, at level 2 learning during the course is assessed. Level 3 measures behaviour change back on the job and level 4 evaluation deals with the impact the training has on the organisation. This is the difficult one to measure, but it’s not impossible.

Those who attend an Impact training for trainers course regularly give us great feedback on what they think of the course (level 1) and demonstrate their new skills by presenting during and at the end of the course. (level 2) They and their managers report improved approaches to course development and presentation. (level 3) As for level 4, we as training consultants are not called upon to undertake before and after impact studies, and most people don’t, so we cant say.

Trainers, like teachers are in a unique position to impact the people in their care, and well trained staff are undoubtably having an impact on their organisations.

I would love to hear, and report in this blog, how some trainers have gone about measuring and documenting the success of their training interventions.

The TV news has been full of fires lately, tragically some of them have been house fires, resulting in loss of life.

We do a fair amount of health and safety training in industrial/commercial environments and we always relate what we are teaching to both the work and the home environment. It is interesting however, that whilst people can see the relevance and application and may even be committed to safety in the workplace, they are often not so studious in the home.

With this in mind, during this last year, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and upgrade my safety systems around the home. I started with buying a domestic fire extinguisher, followed up by a few more smoke alarms, of both types, and more recently as part of my Christmas stocking to myself, I bought a residual current device for use with my power tools.

Perhaps a training workshop, dedicated specifically to health and safety around the home, wouldn’t go amiss. Reduced absenteeism would surely justify a few hours of company time, not to mention the spin off of heightened safety awareness in the workplace. And then of course there is the thought that one may be saving at least one family from the trauma of the loss of a loved one. Give us a call and we can put something together for your work teams.

Human Resource departments are often faced with slashes to their training budgets during tough times. Of course when the economy dips, all departmental budgets are under careful scrutiny and Human Resources would be no exception. Having said that, some time back (more than a few years) I was head of training and development in a large food manufacturing company. The economy went into a dive and the MD required that all departments, with the exception of training and development, resubmit their budgets with signifiant cuts. He correctly assessed that the nature of the training we were doing, was not so much an expense, as an investment. The bottom line is, rather than slashing training budgets, companies could be taking a closer look at what training is achieving for the company during the slump. Now is the time to carefully look at WHAT is being trained, focus on the MUST knows, require that behavior change is implemented and that results achieved are measured and reported. In a stormy sea, training may very well help the crew to focus on the critical issues and take advantage of new opportunities when the storm breaks.

First off, let me say that I believe that just about any training programme has some benefit in the overall development of people. If one attends training courses over a period of time, changes in knowledge, skills and attitude happen. But this can be a slow process, and it's expensive.

To improve results, supervisor training programmes should be based on a clear understanding of what needs to change. In addition, the material must be presented using well established learning principles. Thirdly (not to mention fourthly fifthly and sixthly) there should be support to ensure that what has been learned is implemented. This may very well be the most important factor in ensuring that the desired change takes place.

Most trainers will have faced a group of learners who say "why don't our managers attend this course, they need to know this too." And of course the managers may very well have the knowledge and skills that have been taught. The issue is that they don't always believe it, or they don't take the time to follow through and coach their staff after the course.

There are ways around this, but they are not always used - Involve managers in the decision as to what will be trained: facilitate a shortened version of the course and add coaching skills for the managers; visible support from the very top. Also, never underestimate the power of administrative systems that support the correct way to do things.

Coming to think of it, all that I have said applies to any training, not just supervisory.

My association with the IMPACT course goes back nine years. The PIC (Performance Improvement Centre) was part of the Auckland College of Education and I was 'at the right place at the right time.' I was co-opted in to the team to help edit and write some of the material before it was sent to the publishers. As an associate of the PIC I was called in from time to time to facilitate IMPACT train the trainer and other PIC courses.

So whilst I am sad that Tom and Susan will be shutting the doors on PIC at this time, I am delighted and privileged to have been entrusted to fly the IMPACT flag for this season. We at Leading Edge Training wish Tom and Susan all the best in their respective new ventures. We look forward to working with the PIC clients who have supported and valued IMPACT over the many years of it's excellent service to New Zealand Trainers.

Shortly literacy tutors are going to be required to understand and use TEC's Foundation Learning Progressions. Our Education consultant, Shirley, recently ran a successful 'Mapping Writing' Workshop for Literacy North Shore tutors. This practical workshop gave participants a brief introduction to learning progressions for Adult Literacy and Language with the strand 'Write to communicate' being the main focus. At the end of the workshop tutors were given an opportunity to apply their new knowledge by 'mapping' students writing.

The Tertiary Education Commission describes the Learning Progressions as a guide that can help tutors identify the next learning steps adult students need to take in order to strengthen their expertise in numeracy, literacy and language. They are designed to offer information and a structure that can be used to develop curricular and learning and assessment tools.

So here is a tool for literacy tutors - there will be some challenges getting to grips with the theory and applying it, but once mastered the tool will provide tutors with clearer direction and the learners with better outcomes.



*The publication Learning Progressions for Adult Literacy and Language (Tertiary Education Commission, 2008a) describes the steps towards competency in literacy and language that apply to most adult learners. http://www.tec.govt.nz/templates/standard.aspx?id=1016

I've always been a fan of Computer Based Training (CBT). Fifteen years back the MD of the Biscuit Manufacturing Company I worked for asked us (the training department) if we could develop something he had seen whilst on a business trip to England. It was an early form of CBT - a slide projector was linked to a computer with touch sensitive screen. The operator touched a simulated control panel and the slide showed the results of the action. We developed a similar product but were very soon overtaken by technology. Determined to stay ahead of the game we invested in a Mac with two linked screens. We used Macromedia Director and later Authorware to develop realistic simulations for our machine operators.

Things have come a long way since these days and there are now many alternatives for developing and using CBT and CBE on stand alone computers, company intranets or over the internet. Despite this, when I visit clients or prospects in the field I am yet to see the predicted figures for the % of training conducted through CBT (if I remember correctly some were talking of 80% by this time.) What I mostly see is the odd CD Rom or DVD sitting in the training room, and a perhaps a few employees registered with distance learning providers. Perhaps that is enough, and let's face it, there will always be a place for face to face training. But are Companies making the most of CBT opportunities?

I would value your thoughts and comments on the CBT you are using, the pros and cons, what you would like to see developed in this area etc.

For as long as we have operated our consultancy, we have developed our own training material. Most companies use us for so called 'soft skills' training - supervisor, communication, health and safety (would that be 'semi-hard'?) and the like. Some use us to write machine operator training manuals - these fall squarely in the 'hard skills' category. We tend not to advertise this too loudly, it's 'hard' work and we don't have the capacity to do too much of it. But we have developed a competency in this area and perhaps now is the time to share it.

So we are thinking of coaching in-company manual writers. There would be an initial three to five days of training followed by several months of coaching. We would take people through all aspects of the process - planning, observing, exploring sources of information; taking and editing digital photos; using our template for capturing the data; developing a reader-friendly manual and so on. Manual writing is not for the fainthearted. It involves diverse skills such as breaking processes down to easily followed steps; an ability to observe and understand mechanical things; asking relevant questions; note taking, and computer skills. Our course will focus on all of these and our ongoing coaching will be in areas that the manual writers particularly need.

We would love to hear from Human Resource or Operations Departments who are thinking of developing operator manuals as an integral part of their employee development process. Perhaps you are already doing so, and would like to up-skill your writers, make the manuals more reader-friendly and inclusive of all important safety issues.