Talking TAP
The TAP Qualified Professional Newsletter
In This Issue
- A festive welcome from Claire Brookes
- Lack of line management buy-in is the major barrier to learning retention: A new survey finds
- TAP TV now on the air!
Monthly Features
- TAP Qualified Professional of the Month
- TAP Partner of the Month
- Article of the Month: Sunshine and Showers ahead for 2009
- Subscription details
Contact us
www.tap-training.com
c.brookes@trainingfoundation.com
Dates for your diary
Every year The Training Foundation takes part in a wide range of Learning and Development related events. TAP Qualified Professional LinkedIn members will receive advance notice and special registration privileges. Jot these dates in your diary!
Learning Technologies 2009 Conference and Exhibition,
28th to 29th January 2009, Olympia 2, London
Click here for more information
5th Getenergy Global Energy Exploration & Production Annual Event,
23rd to 25th March 2009, London
Click here for more information
CIPD HRD Conference and Exhibition,
21st to 23rd April 2009, ExCeL, Docklands, London
A festive welcome from Claire Brookes
As the Editor of Talking TAP I’m pleased to welcome you to our Christmas issue.
The TAP Qualified Professional Group is still growing rapidly and the forums are generating some interesting discussions. If you have not already done so, then why not drop by to see what fellow members have to say. This group exists to provide a useful networking resource so feel free to post questions about any challenges you are currently facing. I am sure fellow members will be happy to assist if they can.
If you would like a refresher on how to get the most out of your membership, then why not drop by at the LinkedIn Learning Centre:
http://learn.linkedin.com/
In this months issue there is an interesting research item about the way in which an absence of management buy-in creates barriers to learning retention.
Our TAP Qualified Professional of the Month is Dave Chidley, Training Manager for the the trade facing training team - Cruising For Excellence at Royal Caribbean Cruises.
The search is now on for more TAP qualified individuals to feature in forthcoming issues of Talking TAP in 2009. Please drop us a line if you fancy sharing details of your working life with other group members.
Our TAP Partner of the Month is Lombard, a leading asset finance specialist. In this case study Bryan Pyke, Head of Learning & Development talks about the benefits that have been generated from the adoption of the TAP Learning System and from Lombard becoming the 100th TAP Partner organisation.
The Article of the Month, by Adrian Snook looks at the forecast for the world of learning and development in the year ahead.
Please don't forget that The Training Foundation will be represented at the Learning Technologies exhibition from January 28th-29th in Olympia, London. For more details see our 'Dates for your Diary Section'. We have a limited number of free entry tickets, so please feel free to drop me a line to request one.
Finally, I'd like to wish you all a Happy Christmas and New Year on behalf of everyone here at the Training Foundation. See you in 2009!
Best wishes
Claire
Lack of line management buy-in is the major barrier to learning retention: A new survey finds
Lack of line management buy-in (cited by 40 per cent of respondents) is a key barrier to learning retention, according to a survey of hundreds of learning and development professionals conducted for World of Learning 2008.
KEY:
1. Lack of learner buy-in
2. Lack of line management buy-in
3. Lack of clearly defined objectives
4. Lack of preparation
5. Lack of follow-up exercises
6. Lack of coaching/ mentoring
7. Lack of measurement
The survey also revealed that 37 per cent of respondents believe that the lack of follow-up further hinders the success of learning retention. A further 25 per cent felt that the lack of coaching/mentoring negatively affected the effectiveness of learning and development opportunities, followed by a further 24 per cent believing that lack of learner buy-in was a major issue.
Andrew Gee, Project Manager for the World of Learning, said: “Over and above the survey results, we have found that there is growing concern about the lack of on-going support and learning and development guidance. It is a constant battle for learning and development professionals to ensure that line managers place their staff’s ongoing development as a high priority on a day-to-day level. Learners can often therefore leave courses with insufficient skills to help them follow through on what they have learnt.
The Training Foundation is working on a new initiative designed to ensure that managers actively support the work of learning and development professionals and recognise the importance of helping staff to develop new skills. So if a lack of active support from line managers is making your working life difficult please drop us a line. We can certainly help.
The survey results were released ahead of the World of Learning Conference, sponsored by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), which took place on 19 & 20 November 2008 at the NEC, Birmingham.
TAP TV now on the air!
The Training Foundation has recently produced a new interactive “Any Questions” DVD. This runs in any DVD player and features learning and development professionals from a range of backgrounds talking about their experiences and the benefits of achieving the TAP Diploma in Learning and Development.
If you would like a free copy of this disc, please reply to this newsletter at the email address above with ‘DVD’ in the subject line, confirming your current postal address.
Alternatively you are very welcome to review the streaming video clips which make up this new DVD on the brand new TAP TV section of the TAP website by clicking here.
TAP Qualified Professional of the Month
David Chidley started his career in training within the travel industry during his time at Virgin Atlantic 10 years ago. After being inspired by his New Hire trainer when he joined the company, he decided that this was the route that he wanted to take and embarked on a journey of self development and grasping every opportunity. He started by assisting with the induction courses, which led to a coach trainer role and this led to him eventually becoming a new hire trainer himself (partnering with another new young trainer Michelle Russell).
After September 11th 2001, things looked unstable in the airline industry, so Dave took the opportunity to take the skills learnt at Virgin and left not only his hometown of Brighton but Virgin and Michelle and relocated to Derby.
His new challenge was to help set up a Customer Service training academy for Midland Mainline trainline, implementing various programmes which included culture change, disability awareness and conflict management.
After 2 years that really moulded him as a trainer, due to the varied range and complexity of the training, David felt it time to move back south. The opportunity arose to work again with Michelle Russell, who had now herself moved onto a new company and set up her own training team. So Dave joined Michelle at Royal Caribbean Cruise Line to help head up the trade facing training team - Cruising For Excellence.
David and Michelle both hold TAP Certificates in Blended Learning, whilst David holds a TAP Certificate in e-Learning Training Skills.
David and Michelle are now both Training Managers with a small team that has made an enormous impact. Over the last few years the training interventions developed by Cruising For Excellence have put them at the forefront of the travel industry, winning some prestigious awards for their innovative training events and fantastic online training programme.
David and Michelle are running a series of training events across UK and Ireland with up to 100 people attending each one and Cruising For Excellence online has had over 10,000 individual travel agents sign up and take the course. In the most recent years, they have learnt to blend their training, utilising both face to face and online training interventions.
To enhance this experience they have introduced virtual classrooms, a weekly blog, specific social networking sites for groups of their agents, plus pages on Facebook, Bebo and MySpace.
This innovation has now been recognised with them winning an Elearning Award in 2007 and recently a South East Region National Training Award in 2008.
The team are currently running a nationwide project to get every travel partner in UK and Ireland switched over from an old antiquated booking tool to a new online system, so they are embarking on a two week tour of the country taking a branded PC COACH to their top users. The idea is so as not to disrupt them too much - they will go directly to them... so, look out for this coach in a town near you soon!
To review David's LinkedIn profile see:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/4/829/160
TAP Partner of the Month
Left to Right: Ed Davie, Laura Jessett, Brian Pyke, Joanne Crook, Karen Jenkins
Seated Left to Right: Richard Harvey, Joan Arthur, Christina O'Hara, Colin Bradley
There are now around 150 TAP Partner organisations throughout the UK, committed to the employment of TAP Qualified Professionals in order to guarantee the quality of learning and development services. This month we profile Lombard.
Since its founders started leasing out rolling stock almost 150 years ago Lombard, a leading asset finance specialist and part of The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Group, have been helping businesses to obtain the vehicles, vessels, aircraft, machinery or technology they need. In the competitive finance arena, where customer loyalty is vital and much harder to come by than in the banking world, attracting, developing and retaining the highest calibre of staff is a top priority.
Until the latter part of 2006 investment in learning and development (L&D) had been steady but unspectacular. Having disbanded the training function for a while, the business decided it needed to up its L&D game to achieve ambitious business targets and a new small team was formed in the autumn of 2006 to drive the L&D agenda forward.
To download the full case study Click here
(721KB - requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)
Article of the Month: Sunshine and Showers ahead for 2009
At best the outlook for the learning and development in 2009 represents a very mixed forecast. So who will be the winners and losers in the year ahead?
Corporate learning and development budgets are already coming under increased pressure. L&D professionals are having to work even harder to get more from less resources.
Of course every cloud has a silver lining. A significant amount of training budget is expended as a result of induction training for new starters in high staff-turnover environments like call centres and in major retailers. As a result of the down-turn ‘staff churn’ in these environments has suddenly dropped off, possibly due to a lack of confidence in alternative employment prospects elsewhere. Staff are preferring to stay put in the hope of weathering the economic storm, or landing themselves a worthwhile redundancy package, if the worst comes to the worst. An absence of growth combined with improved staff retention may mean that significant cost savings will be made in relation to induction training in 2009. If these cost savings are higher than expected then other areas of learning and development could benefit in the short term.
Organisations offering blended learning and e-learning solutions already seem to be benefiting from a resurgence of interest in more scalable solutions, without the overhead costs associated with face-to-face training delivery. This is reflected by the high level of demand which The Training Foundation is currently experiencing for those elements of the TAP Learning System which focus on L&D consultancy skills and on blended and e-Learning skills. These skills are evidently suddenly at a premium.
Of course there are some forms of training that employers simply cannot cut, without risking disproportionate financial penalties. After years of market liberalisation sentiment recently seems to have turned a corner as a result of the fall-out from the credit crunch and ethical concerns in relation to the sale of financial products, telecoms, energy and utility services. More intrusive regulation is on the way, especially in the financial services sector. One outcome of this is likely to be an increased level of investment in compliance training. As the scale and scope of regulation intensifies learning and development professionals with a track record in regulatory and compliance training could well reap some benefit in the medium term, despite the economic slow-down.
L&D professionals specialising in customer service and sales training are also likely to get an appreciative hearing from employers thanks to increasingly cut-throat and competitive markets where the customer with cash is king.
When it comes to business development, learning providers will certainly need to work harder and far smarter just to maintain their existing level of business in the coming year. Those that offer training programmes leading to sought after or ‘marketable’ qualifications will be well-placed to weather the coming economic storm. By contrast significant budget cuts are likely to have the most serious impact on external learning providers that market non-accredited or non-certificated short courses addressing personal developmental needs. After all, much of this expenditure is essentially discretionary.
Of course, some trainers are so charismatic that delegates clamour to use them, whatever the economic climate. A growing desire to inspire more emotional engagement and commitment from learners and clients may explain why The Training Foundation has experienced so much interest in the Trainer-of-Choice - a new addition to the 2009 TAP Qualifications Prospectus.
Experience at The Training Foundation also suggests that Learning & Development professionals are increasingly looking to update their own CV in order to secure their future in these uncertain times. We have recently experienced a surge of enquiries from people interested in either achieving their first TAP qualification or upgrading this to a higher level, working towards TAP Registration.
In summary, we can all look forward to an very unsettled period of sunshine and showers in 2009. So keep your Factor 30 and your wellies close at hand. It pays to be prepared!