Talking TAP

October Welcome

Hello, I hope that you will enjoy reading the October issue of the Talking TAP Newsletter. In this issue we take a look at our Foundation Certificate in Presentation Skills to see how this course helped one graduate to excel in his interview for his first job.

Our TAP Partner of the month, Velocity Learning, explain the benefits of adopting TAP.  In September we hosted the Employee Engagement open day, read on to see reviews of the event. If you would like to attend the next Employee Engagement event, please contact Matthew Hancocks on m.hancocks@trainingfoundation.com who will add you to the waiting list.

And lastly, here is a pic of the mallards at our duck pond that were posing for a picture when our Director, Ron Mackrell, was walking past on his lunch break...

All the best
Claire Brookes

If you have any suggestions for the TAP Newsletter, please email them to me at: c.brookes@trainingfoundation.com.

Back to top

Review of Employee Engagement Open Day

On the 21st September we hosted the Employee Engagement and Performance Improvement Open Day to discuss the findings of the 2009 Macleod Report to the Government.  This event was designed for senior HR executives who wished to explore the factors that have created a high level of disengagement in the UK workforce today and what is required to build a successful engagement strategy going forward

Of the attendees 96% found that the session broadened their understanding of Employee Engagement and rated the event as very useful or useful.

The attendees were given the opportunity to to share their perception of how well their organisation is facing up to the engagement challenge and 86% stated that motivating performance is a key area of interest right now.

MAP 1 which is our 3 day Manager course, is specifically designed to help increase performance through motivation and heightened self - awareness of how managers come across to their people and how their own behavior and attitudes affect others' performance for better or worse. 

To learn more about Management Development Courses email Claire at c.brookes@trainingfoundation.com  or visit our website: www.trainingfoundation.com.

Back to top

Website Watch

Welcome to the Website Watch feature, here we update you with new developments on our website:

1. Take a look at October's Training Tips - just follow this link:
http://www.tap-training.com/page/communities/trainingtip.html

2. To see our range of Silver TAP Partners, including our Partner of the Month, Velocity Learning, click here:
http://www.tap-training.com/page/partners/silverpartners.html

3. Click here to see the course outline for the TAP Foundation Certificate in Presentation Skills: http://www.tap-training.com/page/courses/presentation_skills.html

Back to top

TAP Qualified Professional of the Month, Amar Patel

Hi my name is Amar Patel.  I am a new graduate and I recently achieved a TAP Foundation Certificate in Presentation Skills. After graduating from university I needed to be able to secure a graduate job which entailed sitting for multiple interviews.

The graduate job market has never been more competitive with companies cutting jobs and more students graduating from universities than ever.  I had to make myself stand out from the rather sizeable ‘pack’.  I therefore felt that improving my presentation skills would give me a much better chance of attaining a job I wanted.

Many graduate interviews consist of having to create and deliver presentations on a variety of topic and tasks.  In addition getting a grad job, having good presentation skills would come in very useful when in the work place as most graduate jobs entail some form of presenting your findings to colleagues and team leaders.

After deciding that improving my presentation skills would be a worthwhile investment, I enrolled in the TAP Presentation Skills course.  It turned to be one of the best decisions I have ever made.

The TAP Presentation Skills course gave me a very useful methodology on how to approach any presenting task.  The course was delivered by Paul Edmondson, and Paul taught me how to structure the presentation in order to maximise the knowledge transfer that has to take place.  Making sure that the key messages from your presentation are absorbed and understood fully by the recipients is the single most important factor in determining the success of a presentation and I was able to dramatically improve this aspect of my presentations as a result of this course. 

In addition to this, the TAP Presentation Skills Course taught me different techniques which improved the style and recipient experience of my presentations.  Developing areas such as body language, use of visual aids and improving my confidence were all results of taking this course and I now feel as though I would be confident in presenting to any group of people in any situation, no matter how important or challenging it may be.

All the skills I learned on this course were tested in a recent interview for a graduate analyst role in London for a well known internet company.  In this interview I was tasked with creating and delivering a 15 to 20 minute presentation to a group of senior management staff at the company.  I used the techniques and skills gained from the TAP Presentation Skills course to deliver a presentation that was clear, interesting and thought provoking for the recipients.  The result of which is that I beat a large number of fellow graduates to win the job and I am due to start in Autumn 2010.

Thank You Paul &
The Training Foundation!!!
Amar Patel

Click here to see the course outline for the TAP Foundation Certificate in Presentation Skills: http://www.tap-training.com/page/courses/presentation_skills.html

The next available dates are:
1-2 November
28-29 March

If you would like to appear as a TAP Qualified Professional of the Month please contact Claire on: c.brookes@trainingfoundation.com

Back to top

My Training Nightmare...

One Monday in January, I was privileged to deliver a course to six delegates who were either visually impaired or blind. The weekend snow had turned to sleet and the ground was wet and slippy. Three guide dogs, Charlie, Jasper and Carl, slept quietly under the desks of the training room and at lunchtime I was asked if I would give them a drink of water and take them out for a short ‘comfort break’!

All three dogs were happy to be outdoors and sniffed at everything in sight and marked their territory many times.  Carl seemed particularly thrilled so I decided to treat him to a longer walk.  The minute we rounded the corner of the building, he looked back at me, caught my eye and made a bolt for it.  I fell over.  He had the strength of a hippopotamus and dragged me along the ground in the mud and sleet.  I was forced to let go and he ran off.

I looked down at myself ….I had lost a shoe, my tights were hanging in shreds, both my knees were cut and bleeding, as was my nose, my suit was soaking wet and caked with mud.  A colleague retrieved the dog.  I retrieved my shoe.  I looked a right mess.  I went into the toilets, washed my face, plugged my nose with cotton wool, wiped down my suit, took off the tights so tattered and torn, washed my legs in the sink and stuck on lots of plasters. 

The show must go on I thought so I limped back into the training room and began. ‘Welcome back from lunch.  The next session is about ‘Presenting with Style'...and only I could see the irony in that opening sentence. 

Frances Day
Training Director
The Training Foundation

Email your training nightmare to Claire at: c.brookes@trainingfoundation.com

Back to top

TAP Partner of The Month, Velocity Learning

I am Jane Bell and together with my colleague  Ronny Quincey we have formed a partnership  in Velocity Learning, a Silver TAP Partner. 

I started my Learning career seven years ago with Barclays as a Learning Project Administrator where as a team we delivered learning solutions to the entire Barclays Group.  This fired my passion for learning and wanting to design and deliver learning solutions.  I studied to become an accredited associate of the CIPD; venturing in the theories of learning and the training cycle.

A few years into my career after moving upwards, through designing and delivering programmes and then starting to manage learning teams, I was fortunate enough to be part of a programme with The Training Foundation where the entire UK Learning team went through the TAP Training Delivery Skills programme.  I have to say this was invaluable and still gives me structure for my delivery to this day.  I remember a period of high volume recruitment in a previous role and needing to get onboard seconded training deliverers to support with induction training.  Without the structure of the TAP Training Delivery Skills Programme, it would never have been possible.  I could certainly recommend this course to any experienced or aspiring learning professional.

This led on to being part of the TAP Certificate in Blended Learning which enabled me to manage projects designing e-learning and blended induction programmes for  Barclaycard in India- using e-learning and face to face mediums intertwined.  This was a first, and a real win for Barclaycard.  I believe the basic structure is still being used to this day!

My Business Partner, Ronny came from an Operational background in Learning.  She delivered coaching programmes in a fast paced sales environment for the Barclays Group.  With her experience and knowledge, she then came on board to join the Barclaycard Learning Team in 2006 and undertook the TAP Delivery Skills Programme shortly after this.  Ronny used this as a base to design and deliver training programmes where she made a massive impact on the sales communities in the UK.  A great alliance was formed between us both during our time at Barclaycard and we realised that our backgrounds, expertise and way of working complimented each other well.

In February of this year, we took our next logical step to become self-employed and co-created Velocity Learning.

Velocity Learning is based in the North of England and  specialises in providing NLP learning solutions to organisations throughout the UK.  Put simply, NLP is the relationship between successful patterns of behaviour and patterns of thought underlying them.  This helps with self-awareness and effective communication, and to change patterns of mental and emotional behaviour.  NLP can be applied to every business context: coaching, leadership, decision making, working collaboratively, selling, problem solving, team building and communication. 

We deliver training in a style to suit all customers – from ‘formal’ sessions to more fun events.  Achieving learning objectives is something that we’re passionate about.

Having achieved the TAP Certification in Delivery Skills and the TAP Certification in Blended Learning has really benefited Velocity Learning.  Having a structure of delivery and a blended approach to design to achieve learning objectives has become an integral part of the Velocity methodology.  We are more responsive as an organization, clearer to our customers and are able to deliver value adding programmes every time. 

I would love to further my studies with TAP in the long-term.  I am studying for my NLP Master Practitioner this year and further from this, I could see myself studying for the TAP Diploma in Performance Management.  I think this will help to merge an operational angle with a learning angle – something that every learning professional knows is a tough cookie!

Many thanks
Jane Bell  & Ronny Quincey 
Velocity Learning http://www.velocity-learning.co.uk/

To be next month's TAP Partner of the Month Email Claire at: c.brookes@trainingfoundation.com

Back to top

Celebrate Success

Each month we are excited and honored to celebrate the success of our hard working delegates who have achieved one of our role-based TAP Diplomas.  This month we congratulate the following individuals:

We also celebrate the success of our customer organisations who have adopted TAP as a standard and have joined as a TAP Partner.  This month we approved the following new TAP Partners:

Silver TAP Partners:

To learn more about the TAP Partners Programme please contact me on +44 (0) 2476 411 288 or email, d.hickling@trainingfoundation.com.

Many thanks
Dave Hickling
TAP Partner Programme Co-ordinator

Back to top

Brain Teaser

October's Brain Teaser was suggested by Amar Patel, and is entitled:

Not so Cold Blooded Murder:

Four men entered a sauna. Because it was a steam sauna, no one could see each other. Suddenly a scream was heard and the manager came running...After the steam was switched off, they found one of the men dead after being stabbed to death. The police were called and they questioned the three suspects:

The first suspect had a thermos flask
The second a copy of the TAP Newsletter
The third had an I-Pod

The lead detective thought for a while and he caught the criminal.

Who was it and how did he do it?

Email your suggestions, or call for the solution to me at: C.brookes@trainingfoundation.com and put Not so Cold Blooded Murder in the subject title.

The solution to September's Brain teaser, The doctor, is that the Doctor was the boy's  mother.  Those who correctly solved the riddle are listed below:

Jane Wawszczak, Djanogly City Academy Nottingham
Rene Garcia-Evans, Allianz Retail
Peter Langley, Warrington Primary Care Trust
Teresa Rose, E.ON UK plc
Kim Broadley, AXA Corporate
Jane Leigh, NHS
Morrison Stephen, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust
Lorraine Stone, Santander
Elaine Roy, Wellstream International Limited
Gerard Hancock, National Policing Improvement Agency
Bill Smith, Handlesbanken
Jack Dowsing, Alacer
Leslie Channell, Aviation Training International Limited
Pat Morrison, NHS Lothian
Michelle Murray, Buckinghamshire County Council
Tomasina Collier, Worcestershire Acute NHS Trust
Janet Newson, Surrey & Sussex NHS Trust
Tracy Whiting, AXA UK
Barrie Fulker, Invensys Rail
Michelle Kaye, Boodle Hatfield
Julie Reynolds, NHS
Colin Noone Rolls-Royce plc
Sandra Roe, National Air Traffic Control
Kerry Young, BAE Systems - Submarine Solutions
Nick Mills, Landmark Information Group Limited
Paul Millard, Phase Forward
Katie Weston, GVA Grimley Ltd
Janet Warren, Admiral

Many Thanks - The Training Foundation

Back to top