How might Learning and Development benefit your business? Pearl Onion’s Learning & Development Director Lesley Wilson gives some tips in the article below.

Lesley says: “I’ve spent 26 years managing learning and development in leading professional services organisations, and in my experience there are some key areas where training can bring about significant business improvements.

Each organisation’s needs will be different, of course: for some companies it will be technical training they need to focus on, for some it may be health & safety, staff engagement or management skills.  In others, confusing or overly complex operational processes might be getting in the way of efficiency.  The list below gives some areas to consider for your business.”

• Risk:  Are there any significant risks which your company is exposed to which need to be reduced quickly?  For example health & safety; manual handling; disaster recovery; disciplinary and grievance; poor performance by individuals; IT systems documentation.
• Technical:  Do you have concerns about the technical competence of your staff?
• Strategy:  Are there any areas in the company’s strategic plan where delivery is looking uncertain, or which are causing the Board concern?  Are people clear about their targets and goals?  Is the balance between management vs leadership about right?
• Operations:  Are there any areas of the day to day operations of the business causing concern?  For example high staff turnover; poor performers; poor behaviour; inefficient systems or processes; lack of cooperation between departments. What still needs to be done?
• Engagement:  How is the company as a place to work and how would the Board like it to be?  Does action need to be taken on, for example, career opportunities, pay, manager capability, leadership capability?
• Performance:  How good at people at their work?  How do you know?  Are their roles defined sufficiently?  Are people rewarded for their performance?  Are people’s behaviours generally effective?
• Critical roles:  Are there any leadership roles where succession issues are looming, or where the company is exposed to risk due to key individuals having hard-to-recruit-for skills?  If so are recruitment and development plans in place?

If you would like to discuss your company’s training requirements then please call us on: +44(0)1467681404 or email keith@pearlonion.co.uk