Category Archives: Training & Apprenticeships

News, Training, Training & Apprenticeships, Training News

Educ8 one of 46 businesses recognised by HRH The Princess Royal for excellence in training and development in 2021

  • HRH The Princess Royal, President of City & Guilds, awards employers who have created outstanding training and skills development programmes which have resulted in measurable business impact over the last 12 months
  • Recipients include those that have used training to adapt to changing business needs and national skills shortages throughout the pandemic
  • Five organisations have also been recognised with a newly-established Covid Commendation for their standout use of training to effectively respond to the challenges of the pandemic

Following Educ8’s success at the Best Companies awards earlier this year, the training company has been named as one of 46 UK businesses that will be recognised by the 2021 Princess Royal Training Awards.

Currently in its sixth year, The Princess Royal Training Awards recognise and celebrate organisations across the United Kingdom which have demonstrated exceptional commitment to training and development. Despite facing unprecedented challenges due to Covid-19, the organisations receiving this standard of excellence have created and delivered highly engaging training programmes which have resulted in significant measurable impact.

Organisations receiving the award in 2021 differ in size and include a diverse range of sectors. Large national employers such as Barclays, HMRC and Sky UK through to smaller organisations such as local radio station Diverse FM and children’s charity The Mulberry Bush, are among those to have received this year’s awards. Lloyds Banking Group and Medical Defence Union have each received two awards for two different workplace programmes.

Ann Nicholas, Customer Account Director at Educ8, said: “It is an honour to be recognised amongst some of the top companies in the UK. The award recognises Educ8’s Workforce Development Programme, rewarding excellence in the workplace and the talent investment in our teams.”

With organisations facing some of the toughest times in history due to the pandemic, many have had to use training to address and adapt to changing business needs. The Master Innholders created an Aspiring Leaders Programme which develops staff in the hospitality sector all across the UK. The programme provides strong online support, offers an ILM level 3 qualification and has kept learners engaged during what has been a particularly challenging time for the industry. Despite the difficulties this industry has faced over the past year, 92% of learners from the previous three virtual cohorts are still working in hospitality.

Several of this year’s Princess Royal Training Awards recipients have innovatively used training as a way of addressing skills shortages and skills gaps in their sector.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE, Chief Executive of the City & Guilds Group said: “The last 18 months have caused disruption to the way most organisations operate which has led to major changes for all of us in how we live and work. Despite these challenges, it’s fantastic to see so many organisations’ continued commitment to training and development as well as the positive and life changing impact learning can have on people.   

Previous recipients of a Princess Royal Training Award have reported clear positive impacts on their business, with 82% saying it has improved recruitment and retention and 62% reporting increased investments into training programmes. This will be paramount when it comes to helping businesses recover post-covid, closing sector skills gaps and promoting a culture of skills development.

For the full list of recipients and their training programmes, please see the 2021 recipients’ page.

News, Training & Apprenticeships

How Businesses Benefit From Training and Development

Competition is the challenge that tests small companies’ ability to survive, and large businesses’ ability to thrive. This challenge is made even tougher by the emergence of e-commerce. This digital marketplace allows product-selling businesses to compete with small and large brands as well as local and international ones. On one end, e-commerce paves the potential for exponential growth; on the other end, the disability to ‘wow’ customers is magnified. To embrace success, series of studies advertise the need to captivate and satisfy customers while keeping them wanting more.

Meeting customer’s expectations is easier through training

Many companies do well when courting potential buyers, but only a few companies experience repeat purchases from customers. A significantly smaller number of businesses create loyal customers who will choose their brand over and over again. Customers usually leave businesses because of disappointment, unresolved complaint, and the desire to get a better purchasing experience. This is where training and development come in.

Training improves interpersonal relationships in the workplace

Just like you and me, employees have good and bad days. Since their personal circumstances influence their outputs and interactions at work, equipping them with the right training goes a long way. Behavioural skills training help build healthy workplace relationships through effective communication. It encourages the showcase of engaging attitude and productive emotions, which improve collaboration between peers. Training that advocates treating customers fairly helps ensure that all clients are respected the same way, helping keep the integrity of your brand intact. There are many types of training. It is important to choose or create a training curriculum that helps shape your employees’ behaviour according to your company’s values, goals, and the pain points of your business.

Training influences the culture within the workplace

Through training, the expected behaviour is communicated from the management to the employee. This creates a coherent culture which both customers and employees appreciate. To elaborate, environmentally conscious brands attract sustainability-caring individuals as staff and customers. At the end of the day, the more obvious the culture within your business is, the clearer your brand identity becomes. This leads to a more engaged pool of customers and more motivated employees.

Training helps solve problems

Even businesses that belong to the same industry encounter varying issues. Making sure your staff are trained to address relevant issues can only be done through custom training material creation. There is a science and art behind creating impactful training materials. The environment during training should be conducive to focusing. This can be done through the allocation of training rooms. The visuals should be visible and legible to the participants, whether sitting in front or at the back. This can easily be done by having a quality projector. Many businesses find projector ceiling mount and wall mount ideal for long-throw projectors. To keep the learners engaged, using gamification techniques is gaining in popularity.

Your business can make two general mistakes around training — not having enough and having too much. To make sure you deploy the right training and a sufficient number of it, gathering feedback from customers and conversing with training professionals is key.

Mental Health at Work, News, Training & Apprenticeships

British Safety Council launches Live Online mental health workshops

As workplaces across the country adjust their practices to prevent the further spread of coronavirus, the British Safety Council, one of the world’s leading safety training organisations, has launched a selection of their mental health workshops online for those looking to better address employee mental wellbeing.

Whilst its courses are usually completed face to face, their new service, Live Online, is now allowing students to undergo training from within the safety and comfort of their own homes.

Working in partnership with Mates in Mind to address mental health in the workplace, the British Safety Council provides high quality, effective mental health workshops taught in real-time by experienced tutors and mental health first-aid instructors, providing an interactive experience throughout.

With 602,000 workers across Britain suffering from work-related stress, anxiety or depression in 2018/19, Live Online offers training for both managers and employees to help develop their skills and confidence when it comes to addressing mental health.

Several workshops and courses are on offer including their 45 minute ‘Start the Conversation’ session which educates employees on how to look after their own mental health, as well as identify the signs when someone else might be struggling.

With many employees across Britain working remotely, whilst others adapt to all new safety measures in the workplace, the coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt normality. Inevitably inducing feelings of stress, loneliness and anxiety, the psychological impact of the virus means it is now more important than ever to thoroughly address mental wellbeing.

Live Online is an easy and convenient way for employees and managers to improve the culture of mental health in the workplace, creating a supportive and positive environment in which it’s workers can navigate these uncertain times.

Charity & CSR, HR News, Training & Apprenticeships

Coronavirus: Charity Offers New Online Bereavement Training For Employers

The UK’s largest bereavement charity, Cruse Bereavement Care, has launched a new training webinar for employers to support employees through bereavement.

As the death toll from the coronavirus rises, it is vital that organisations are able to support their employees through bereavement. An awareness of the impact of bereavement and grief has never been more needed.

To support employers at this time, Cruse Bereavement Care have transformed their long-standing Loss and Bereavement workshop, into a new 2.5 hour webinar. The webinar will be tailored to the needs of each organisation, and will help attendees gain an understanding of grief and bereavement, become aware of the impact of loss, communicate with bereaved employees and develop an understanding of support organisations.

Cruse have seen a large increase in demand for its external training services since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, currently training over 2 and a half times as many companies as they normally would at this time. Many well known organisations such as Age UK (Westminster) and Mind (Mid and North Powys) have already benefitted from this invaluable training.

Andy Langford, Clinical Director at Cruse Bereavement Care, said:

“At the moment, tragically, it is more likely than ever that employees are going to be affected by bereavement. This can impact both their work and their relationship with colleagues. It has never been more important for employers to be able to support employees through bereavement.

“We are delighted that we are able to continue our hugely sought-after training, in the form of this new webinar, during what is a hugely difficult time for many companies.”

Feedback from companies who have already undertaken the training include:

“I really found the training useful especially in the current climate. It gave me an insight on what is available for anyone who has suffered a loss.” – Claire, Heathrow Rail

“Excellent training. Trainer was very clear, informative and engaging. Would recommend this to others.” – Lizzie, Mid and North Powys Mind
More information about the training can be found here.

Cruse Bereavement Care has been providing life-changing support to people across the UK for over 60 years. Our services are provided by our network of 5,000 trained volunteers up and down the UK. We are continuing to update our guidance to support bereaved people affected by the coronavirus outbreak.

Cruse is here to support anyone grieving at this time. Our new website resources are available: www.cruse.org.uk/coronavirus

HR News, L & D, Training & Apprenticeships

GoodScan helps 100,000 workers rediscover their learning mojos during lockdown

Nowadays we have plenty of spare time to learn something new – the main challenge is deciding where to start and what to study. GoodScan, a new tool from e-learning specialist GoodHabitz, was designed to ensure that workplace learners get the most value from time invested, by highlighting exactly what courses most closely match their interests, personality traits and growth potential. It is already being used by organisations in 8 European countries and has helped 100,000 learners to get back their learning mojos.

Most people will admit that they want to learn, but have trouble finding their intrinsic motivation. Locating courses that are going to really accelerate their personal development, especially now, as the COVID-19 crisis looks set to transform working life as we knew it is another factor. GoodScan solves this problem for L&D departments, by matching people to courses that fit not only their obvious interests, things they are already good at, but their best interests too – new skills that fit their personality types, but that they might not be aware of. This is very important because by flagging the courses that are most beneficial for learners, they can maximise growth opportunities.

GoodScan was developed in partnership with academics at the University of Rotterdam and is first tool to link widely used psychology models with deep learning. Unlike a psychometric test, which just measures personality traits, GoodScan uses this information to improve the outcomes of online learning in the workplace by dividing people into four main professional types – the corporate adventurer and strategist, the team player and people person, a detail orientated technical specialist, or creative genius and inventor – using a validated algorithm and secret weighting matrix.

“GoodScan is a very accessible self-test for learners. It’s proving to be a very effective way for L&D departments to develop a learning culture which is really important now that so many teams are working remotely”, says Stephen Humphreys, Country Director UK at GoodHabitz.

Models used within the GoodScan include the Great Eight competencies model, to measure existing skills e.g. leadership, cooperating with others, presenting, creativity and analytical capabilities. This is combined with the OCEAN framework of five key personality traits –
openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (emotional stability). The outcome is a set of recommendations to maximise both growth opportunities and the person’s own motivation, based on nearly 200 course options from the GoodHabitz library.

“We know from our own research that learning is a high priority, but getting down to it can be an issue. GoodScan helps trigger people’s intrinsic motivation because it’s giving them guidance to find courses that they might have never thought about, but that are really relevant for personal development. They can learn the skills that offer maximum rewards for the time invested,” says Stephen Humphreys.
Do the GoodScan: https://www.goodhabitz.com/en-gb/goodscan.html

For more information visit: www.goodhabitz.com

North of England, Sales, Training & Apprenticeships

Sales Geek becomes first accredited ISM sales training centre in the North West

Sales Geek has officially been announced as the Institute of Sales Management’s first accredited training centre in the North West.

Chief geek and founder of Sales Geek, Richard Few said:

“We are delighted to get this honour especially as there are only 20 such centres across the world. It is vindication of the outstanding skills and experience of our Geek trainers and the hard work they have all put in to ensure every piece of our training content meets such rigorous high standards.”

Sales Geek, based in Altham, specialises in helping UK businesses grow sales revenue by providing flexible sales director support and also offering sales training packages for existing staff in companies.

The Institute of Sales Management (ISM) formed in 1911, is the UK’s largest professional body for salespeople and represents sales professionals across the world. The organisation only works with sales training providers whose materials, delivery methods and standards are assessed by their education team to ensure their quality against meticulous industry standards.

Chief training geek and director, Jonathan Finch added:

“I’m absolutely delighted to have achieved this accreditation which really sets us apart in the region. We have worked really hard to ensure we provide world class leading training at Sales Geek and this accreditation shows we are doing just that with fantastic courses and content, much of which you can access via our Sales Geek Academy™.”

Sales Geek provides a number of training options from their ‘Sales Geek Academy’ including five intensive days of sales training, to the bespoke, ‘Your Sales Trainer’ programme, and training supplied though Sales Club and Sales Society events run with East Lancashire and North West Chambers of Commerce. All this training is now accredited under the Institute of Sales Management and will carry CPD points.

For more information on Sales Geek and the training schemes on offer, visit www.salesgeek.co.uk or call 01254 300 031.

Midlands News, News, Training & Apprenticeships

In-Comm Training chosen to help deliver new Apprenticeship Levy Transfer fund

In-Comm Training has been named as one of the training providers for a new skills fund launched by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA).

The Aldridge-based firm, which operates three technical academies in the Black Country and Shropshire, will be galvanising SMEs and larger firms to make the most of unspent Levy money currently available in the region.

The aim is to encourage employers to take on more young people in advanced manufacturing, digital skills and STEM-related apprenticeships as the area looks to cement its position as a global leader in engineering.

In-Comm Training’s employer-led approach to skills was one of the main reasons it has been chosen, with its team of expert advisers and trainers now responsible for supporting potential users of the fund to meet the criteria and recruit the right young people.

Bekki Phillips, Managing Director at In-Comm Training, commented:

“Any new programme that encourages greater adoption of vocational learning is welcomed, especially one that specifically targets STEM courses.

“We have to raise the region’s productivity and using unspent Levy money to offer apprenticeships to 16-18 year-olds is a great, long-term way of ensuring we are growing our workforces of the future.”

She continued:

“More than 146 standards are available, covering science, technology, engineering, manufacturing, construction and digital – all the skills we are going to need if we are going to exploit the UK’s strengths.

“The new fund will essentially remove the 5% fee that SMEs normally have to pay to take on an apprentice, making it easier to invest in young people.”

The West Midlands Combined Authority covers a population of 4.2 million across Greater Birmingham and Solihull, the Black Country, Coventry and Warwickshire and the Marches LEPs.

In-Comm Training’s proven track record in delivering apprenticeships, combined with a £7m investment in its three academies in Aldridge, Bridgnorth and Shrewsbury, has given it the perfect platform to be a crucial partner to the Apprenticeship Levy Transfer Fund.

For further information, please visit www.in-comm.co.uk or follow @incomm_training on twitter.