Citation

Pollitt, D. (2015), "", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 47 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ICT-02-2015-0018

Notes and news

Article Type: Notes and news From: Industrial and Commercial Training, Volume 47, Issue 4.

Virgin Holidays team flies high at learning awards

Virgin Holidays picked up the learning team of the year gold award at this year’s Learning Awards, organized by the Learning and Performance Institute.

Against strong competition from Dell, University Hospitals Leicester, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Metro Bank and the Financial Conduct Authority, Virgin Holidays was selected as the outstanding example of a team providing exemplary results for the business.

Responsible for looking after the development of all employees in more than 60 departments, the Virgin Holidays team devised a series of targeted initiatives embracing new technology. These have helped the company to achieve higher rates of both employee engagement and staff retention. Additionally a bespoke sales program raised sales performance by 6 percent and a program on customer-service values helped to cut customer complaints by 1 percent.

The Virgin Holidays learning and development manager, Nebel Crowhurst, said: “As a Virgin company, we are passionate about helping our employees to reach their fullest potential. This award is a great way to showcase the things we have done to achieve that goal.”

Judging-panel member Charles Jennings, of Internet Time Alliance, said: “When judging the awards I always look for several key attributes. Vision and focus are at the top of my list. Smart execution is up there, too. Helping to build high-performing people and organizations requires the use of as many ‘levers’ as possible. Learning is not something that starts and ends in a classroom or by opening an e-learning package. It is a continuous process. Whatever category I am judging, I am always looking for evidence of integrating learning and development into the workflow.”

Meanwhile, the learning professional of the year award was presented to Glen Butler, academy training manager at Tesco.

The panel for this award, chaired by Denise Hudson-Lawson, of training company PluralSight, found Glen Butler to be a passionate individual who exuded confidence in everything he did. What struck the judges was how authentic he was in encouraging everyone he meets, including his delegates, to think differently about themselves.

Denise Hudson-Lawson commented: “Glen loves taking on a challenge.” An avid reader, he wants to change the way leaders lead. He takes them on a journey, asks them what the future looks like and challenges them to describe how they will get there. He follows through with 30-, 60- and 90-day habit changers, asking leaders to pick three habits and develop them through the program.

“Glen does what many learning specialists struggle to do, which is to challenge delegate thinking. His active use and promotion of technology and social media in learning sessions are a refreshing change from the old-style ‘turn it off.’ This was demonstrated when he had to deliver to an audience of 250 new graduates entering the Tesco graduate program when he encouraged them to ‘find stuff online’ using their mobile devices. His feedback from delegates showed that 91 percent got the training that they need and 90 percent said they got the right training, which is a testament to his excellence.”

Dave Buglass, head of organizational capability and development at Tesco Bank, picked up the chief learning officer of the year award, which recognizes the leadership qualities needed for the chief learning officer to operate on the global stage and to have the trust and confidence of the chief executive as they operate at the highest level in their companies.

Dave Buglass was selected against stiff competition from Dell and DHL Express. Judging the award was a panel of industry luminaries including Nigel Paine, who commented: “This award attracts extraordinary learning leaders, each with their own style and all of whom have made a huge impact on their respective organizations and added real value to the bottom line.”

Dave Buglass has been with Tesco Bank since its inception. He began in the organization with no more than a mobile telephone, laptop computer and a hotel room. Since then it has grown into a significant retail bank with 51,000 current accounts and 4,500 employees. He built the bank, initially, around staff leaving HBOS, RBS and Standard Life and melded their different cultures into a strong creative culture that is able to embrace regulation and innovation. It stands independently from its parent company but shares its core values.

The judges found him to be both humble and fiercely passionate about building the right culture, skills and physical as well as learning environment. His strategy of building leadership around curiosity and exploration rather than curriculum delivery has delivered outstanding results for the bank.

Dave Buglass said: “Although this award is for 2014, I really feel that it recognizes my efforts over the last 18 or 19 years. I feel that the work I have done in my career up to now has been justified. This is a great honour for me.”

Asked about his approach to learning and development, Dave Buglass said: “The most successful initiatives for us in 2014 were the simplest ones. Simplicity was the key to last year’s success and it is ‘simple, simple, simple’ again for 2015.”

The Learning and Performance Institute is a self-governing, not-for-profit body for workplace-learning specialists. Established in 1995, it has grown annually and has thousands of individual members and hundreds of accredited learning organizations.

Through a range of membership, certification, accreditation, events and bespoke consultancy services, the institute focusses on enhancing and recognizing the skills and professional status of individuals and organizations engaged in learning activities and assessing the quality of learning services.

Driving school steers trainee instructors toward better soft skills

AA Driving School has created a new online-learning center for trainee driving instructors, which gives them greater flexibility and control over their learning and will help to speed up the qualification process in the future.

The trainee driving instructors can gain access to five new interactive soft-skills e-learning courses, linked to a learning-management system (LMS), through any of their internet-enabled devices.

Gill Balshaw, head of learning and development at the AA Driving School, commented: “This initiative is the result of a true partnership between AA Driving School and the supplier of learning and talent-management solutions, Kallidus. The latter has delivered a great learning platform and has effectively simplified some very complex material into bite-size e-learning modules. The team has demonstrated real creativity in developing engaging content which will help to ensure that all trainee instructors benefit from a consistent and high-quality learning experience.”

It typically takes between nine and 12 months to become a qualified driving instructor. Pupils have to pass three tests assessing their competencies in driving theory, driving proficiency and instructional ability.

Gill Balshaw continued: “Kallidus has developed five new e-learning modules covering the fundamental soft skills required to pass the instructional ability test. This has always been the hardest component of the program to teach consistently and the hardest element for pupils to pass. Our new e-learning modules will help to speed up learning while ensuring greater consistency in knowledge. They will also help to ensure that our trainee instructors have the core competencies and behaviors they need to be effective driving instructors.”

The AA Driving School has traditionally relied on teaching instructional-ability skills through in-car training through a network of more than 100 trainers. The addition of the new e-learning coursework will enable the company to provide a more blended and flexible approach to learning and will reduce the hours trainees spend in the car. A flexible learning solution is particularly important given that many trainees are undertaking a career change and have to fit training in while still working in their current job, while others are trying to juggle learning with the demands of family life.

The new instructor-ability courses build on the success of the bespoke e-learning modules Kallidus initially developed for the driving-theory syllabus which have helped to make paper-based learning for pupils a thing of the past. The five new courses cover core competencies, levels of instruction, learning styles, lesson planning and client-centered learning. They also include pre- and post-assessment questionnaires.

Said Rob Caul, Kallidus chief executive: “Online learning is all too often used by organizations purely for developing hard skills so it is great to see the AA Driving School innovatively using learning technologies to engage trainee instructors as part of a blended approach for soft-skill development.”

The learning-management system is not only proving to be a valuable platform for delivering online learning but provides the AA Driving School with the ability to monitor how driving-instructor pupils are progressing through their training so that any additional support can be given when required. Anyone who goes on to take out an AA Driving School franchise will be able to continue using the learning platform after they have passed their driving-instructor training examinations as a way of managing their continuous professional development.

Language of luxury on London MBA

Walpole, an alliance of more than 170 British luxury brands, and London Business School have launched their second MBA program in luxury management, in association with Fairmont Raffles Hotels International and Farrer & Co.

Dedicated to nurturing the next generation of British luxury leaders, the program will draw on London Business School’s MBA curriculum to develop the potential of 13 students aspiring to take up management jobs in the luxury industry upon graduation.

The students will experience a program of workshops and mentoring provided by some of the luxury industry’s most experienced executives, including: Jonathan Akeroyd, chief executive of Alexander McQueen; Michael Ward, managing director of Harrods; and Mark Henderson, chairman of the London Business School program and chairman of Gieves & Hawkes.

During their core studies as part of the full-time MBA, students undertake a curriculum focussed on tools and techniques, managing the organization and engaging with the world, ensuring they have the right combination of knowledge and skills to be successful in this fast-moving business.

Students also select from a range of elective courses in their areas of specialism. The Walpole program in luxury management comprises a series of workshops with speakers on luxury fundamentals, business models in service of “the dream,” the value of the brand, the creative process and retail and e-tail.

Beyond the workshops, students will be invited to pair up with companies selected to participate in Walpole’s entrepreneurial program, brands of tomorrow. This is dedicated to supporting the next generation of British luxury brands. The students and brands will work alongside one another to create a three-year business plan and a marketing strategy.

Students on the program will also be assigned a mentor – a senior executive from within the Walpole membership. The mentor will provide guidance and networking opportunities to maximize learning opportunities. Furthermore, students will be required to undertake a series of activities and internships in order to gain relevant experience in the industry.

Michelle Emmerson, Walpole chief executive, said: “We are delighted that Walpole member companies – including the Savoy, Gieves & Hawkes and Harrods – are providing the opportunity for students to gain real experience in the luxury industry, as well as offering priceless mentoring and internships. I am thrilled to be a part of this program. Our goal is to encourage specialist learning, facilitate the exchange of exciting new ideas and help to nurture the next generation of leaders in our sector.”

Mark Henderson said: “This is an initiative I have championed from the beginning because I believe very strongly in our duty to nurture the next generation of talent in the luxury-goods industry. It is not just the highly skilled craftsmen and women of this country that we need to support, but the business leaders of tomorrow, who will be responsible for expanding this industry on an international scale. I am thrilled that we have found such a bright and ambitious group of students and been able to pair them with some of the industry’s leading business leaders.”

Blue Support Services hosts work-experience students

Blue Support Services, a building-services engineering company based in Stockport, Cheshire, has hosted Year 12 students on work experience from the Greater Manchester Sustainable Engineering University Technical College (the GM).

Students experienced the world of work in a commercial setting and learned about the importance of health and safety and risk assessments, as well as getting to grips with engineering and working on real-life projects.

The students attended work experience two days a week, with one day working in the workshops on different engineering tasks such as wiring circuits or fitting equipment and the second day going out with the engineers to work on live projects.

Projects included anything from erecting a fence at their own UTC to attending a burst water pipe in a health center.

Blue Support Services is part of the Equity Solutions Group, which is the lead employer sponsor for the GM. Andrew Dwan, managing director of infrastructure at Equity Solutions, said: “The students learned about the different elements of engineering such as architecture, alarms, joinery, mechanics and electrics. It was a great opportunity for them to put what they learned in the classroom into practice and experience what it’s like to be a real engineer.”

Breast Cancer Care launches e-learning platform

Breast Cancer Care has launched an e-learning platform to deliver breast-awareness training courses online for health-care staff and community-health-awareness volunteers in Scotland.

The e-learning platform is part of Breast Cancer Care’s B-aware campaign aimed at promoting early detection of breast cancer and improving survival rates in Scotland. These are among the lowest in Europe.

The sooner that breast cancer is diagnosed, the more effective treatment may be. The online course will help to give people the knowledge and confidence to share the importance of being breast aware with communities where prompt detection rates of breast cancer are low.

Breast Cancer Care worked with workplace-learning provider Webanywhere to develop an online two-hour pilot training course to be given to 50 volunteers and staff including nurses, pharmacists, social workers and non-clinical staff.

Webanywhere developed a Moodle (open-source) platform and a course using content from Scorm, a set of technical standards for e-learning software products. This includes quizzes and custom certificates. The training portal which hosts the B-aware online course also has information about face-to-face training and frequently asked questions.

Davinia Green, head of breast awareness and early detection at Breast Cancer Care, said: “The B-aware online course will help us to train even more health-care specialists to work with local communities where early detection of breast cancer is low. It is vital that people are confident about recognizing the signs and symptoms of breast cancer and this course will help us to reach more men and women with the breast-awareness message than ever before.”

Government launches 750 Civil Service apprenticeships

The UK Government has nearly quadrupled the number of Civil Service apprenticeships available to young people, to 750 places.

Young people can apply for 450 Civil Service fast-track apprenticeships, including 50 dedicated cyber-security apprenticeships, and 300 new operational-delivery apprenticeships. Some 200 places were available last year.

The 2015 apprenticeships offer a wider range of opportunities than ever, with roles in departments across the country, ranging from the Department for Work and Pensions in Dundee to HM Revenue & Customs in Hastings. Successful applicants will gain work experience and a certified qualification, while being paid a competitive salary.

The minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, said: “As part of our long-term economic plan, we are working to ensure that we have the very best people working in the Civil Service. We created the fast-track apprenticeship scheme to recognize that young people who leave school and go straight into the world of work have much to offer. In time, I hope to see some of them rise to fill the very highest posts in the Civil Service.”

The chief executive of the Civil Service, John Manzoni, said: “This year we are looking for even more young talented people to join the Civil Service. While receiving fantastic training and experience in various disciplines, successful applicants have the opportunity to work on some incredibly important projects making a real difference from day one. These apprenticeships are here to attract a new generation of talented school-leavers who are looking for an alternative to higher education and want to take up one of the exciting and diverse roles available in the Civil Service. I look forward to welcoming them.”

Meanwhile, the National Hairdressers’ Federation has written to the Scottish Government urging it to rethink plans to cut funding for its modern-apprenticeships program, warning that, without change, its proposals could bring the recruitment of apprentices by hairdressing salons and barber shops to a halt.

Skills Development Scotland has proposed that funding for Scottish Vocational Qualification Level 2 qualifications be cut by 14 percent (or around £350 per trainee) over the next five years and SVQ Level 3s by 54 percent, or the equivalent of £3,300 per trainee.

Employers will be expected to make up the shortfall through a greater cash contribution themselves toward the cost of training and assessment, on top of what they already pay in trainee wages and the time they invest in training.

In a letter to skills and training secretary Roseanna Cunningham, Skills Development Scotland and the Scottish Training Federation, NHF chief executive Hilary Hall has warned that, with many salons in Scotland still struggling economically, asking salons to subsidize training in this way could simply lead to a collapse in apprentice numbers.

“We remain extremely concerned about the impact funding changes will have on long-term take-up of apprentices, defeating the aim of both the Scottish Government and Westminster in driving up the number of apprentices,” said Hilary Hall.

She pointed out that similar reforms in England have included a bonus for small- and micro-businesses, but in Scotland as yet no such provision has been included. “I note there are currently no plans to cushion small- and micro-businesses from the impact of the additional costs they will incur through employing apprentices,” Hilary Hall warned.

“While the reforms in England are not popular, the additional support for small businesses has gone some way to ensuring demand for apprentices does not dry up overnight. It is essential therefore that, as well as clearly explaining the funding changes to employers and the additional costs they will be asked to pay, there is also careful research done into their future intentions on employment, and whether they will continue to employ apprentices or switch to less appropriate provision,” she added.

The NHF’s concerns echo those of the Scottish Hairdressing Forum, which has warned that reforming funding in this way could put salons off recruiting apprentices “and jeopardise the future of modern apprenticeships in Scotland.”