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At Phoenix we always place a great emphasis on understanding exactly what it is our clients are trying to achieve.  This part of the training process is so valuable and yet it is so rarely done as effectively as it might.  At best, it involves a meeting with a selection of key stakeholders, whereupon broad objectives are agreed and content is designed around these.  In many cases it is simply based upon managerial observations and anecdotal feedback which does not always get to the root of the real development issues.  What’s more, the participants themselves are rarely involved in this process which is also not ideal.  By consulting with at least some of those who will actually be attending the training, you not only get a better chance of designing something relevant but also of establishing participant “buy-in”.

This is a particular concern when designing content for telephone sales workshops.  We are often told that the participants need help on a particular skill – for example, closing, negotiating or questioning.  No problem – we’ll design something around these and in many cases, what we design will work pretty effectively and provide the participants with some key tools and techniques that will improve their results.  But how much better could it have been, had we been able to do some real analysis and actually listen to the quality of calls that the participants have been making to their potential or existing clients.

Call recording equipment has been around for many years, however, it is expensive to install and has usually only been utilised at larger call centre operations.  Improved technology has however now made it very easy for any type of organisation to benefit from call recording and here at Phoenix, we have really begun to see just how useful it can be.  Phonecoach provide a very straightforward system which enables call recording simply by adding a prefix to the number dialled – there’s no hardware involved and all the recorded calls are automatically saved as MP3 files.

By being able to listen to exactly what is being said, by both sales person and customer, we are in a much better position to identify what’s working and what skills need further developing.  From a design point of view this “reality check” enables us to focus only on those areas that really need it, ensuring that the training is lean and extremely relevant.  Where appropriate, we can even use the recorded calls to illustrate key learning points during the training itself – which can also be very powerful for the participants.

For just £24 + vat, we can record up to 500 minutes of calls, which is usually enough to get a good selection of a team’s telephone sales activity over a week or so.  After some thorough analysis, we report our findings back to the client and only then, will we design a course based on what’s actually happening.  This ensures that any sloppy techniques can be instantly identified & addressed, leading to a direct impact on an individual’s sales performance. Which is, after all, exactly what any high quality sales training should do.

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I’m often asked by potential customers, what exactly are the key differences between open and tailored training. This got me thinking that it might be useful to develop a quick reference guide that will help you make a more informed decision.

Open Courses

1. Open courses provide the participants with a brilliant overview of their chosen subject – whether it’s Introduction to Sales, Essential Management or Inspirational Leadership.
2. Open courses enable you to work alongside individuals from different industries but often with very similar concerns. They also provide you with great networking opportunities!
3. Open courses provide an off site learning environment to discuss openly challenges & concerns which in some cases individuals feel more open to talk about when not in the company of colleagues.
4. Open courses represent a highly cost effective solution where only one or two individuals require development in a particular area.
5. Open courses give individuals a new set of skills and the opportunity to practice them in a ‘safe’ environment and build their confidence to apply the newly learnt skills back in their own workplace.

Tailored Training

1. Tailored training provides you with a comprehensive training needs analysis conducted in advance of any events we deliver on your behalf.
2. Tailored training enables us to include a wide range of disciplines within a single given event.
3. Tailored training will meet a specific requirement through the unique design to match the objectives of the individual or group.
4. Tailored training offers the possibility to design a specific programme for the whole organisation where everyone will be involved, this enables lasting change which is encouraged and supported internally & externally.
5. Tailored training can be designed specifically to a given company and industry with a choice of ‘best fit’ Learning Consultant
6. Tailored Training allows more flexibility with training dates and location.

I hope this was useful and if you would like to discuss either option in more detail please get in touch and I will be delighted to help.

This was no doubt partly due to the fact that we couldn’t really offer our clients anything along these lines, but more so due to my belief that this type of training was the very antithesis of everything that makes Phoenix special.

Our focus has always been on delivering practical, results based training where the emphasis is on what gets done differently once participants return to work, not on how many credits they have been awarded or what type of certificate they will receive.  In my experience, too much training is simply commissioned on the basis of what form of recognition the participants get.  Traditionally, this is meant to provide some form of motivation but if the training is not up to scratch, then no matter what they receive at the end, participant levels of engagement will still sink very quickly.

Having said all that, we have often wished for some kind of independent recognition for the quality of our delivery and content and who better to provide this than the Institute of Leadership & Management – the world’s best known accrediting body.

Through their endorsed award scheme, the ILM have provided us with the ideal solution.  Phoenix have been able to retain all the best aspects of our programmes’ content and delivery, whilst adding an assessment section that ensures the participants put into practice everything that they have learnt on the course.  In many ways, the additional assessment has really strengthened our offering and it fits perfectly with our results focussed training.  Now participants and their colleagues will see exactly how the learning has been used, as it has to be documented on a regular basis over a six week period.  A 500 word case study is also required which again will indicate the participants’ understanding of the content and how best to use it.

On successful completion of both the course and the assessment, participants are indeed awarded an ILM certificate however, for most participants this is only a subsidiary benefit.  The real prize is becoming a better manager and leader and being able to demonstrate this to their colleagues.

Phoenix currently deliver ILM Endorsed open courses in Essential Management Skills & Inspirational Leadership and are about to offer endorsed modular programmes in both Management & Leadership Skills.  Our unique approach, style of delivery and focus on results will remain as strong as ever, but with the ILM’s Endorsement our products are now even more attractive to a wide range of clients & participants across the world.

I will always believe that good training should be about improving performance and delivering results, but if you can achieve this and also provide participants with some kind of appropriate recognition then perhaps we have an ideal solution.

Written by Oliver Osmond – Sales Director

Our broad experience has taught us much, but today I’d like to focus on one key area – Buying Training.

Many organisations make the mistake of buying training as a reactive response to a perceived problem – i.e. arranging sales training if the figures have dropped off, or management training if staff morale is low. The problem with such reactive training is that it tends to be generic or (to coin an awful HR phrase), ‘sheep dip’ in nature, the kind of training that tackles the symptoms and not the cause. Typically this approach to training results in a short-term lift but changes nothing in the long term, effectively offering very little return on investment, and in the worst case, actually disengaging staff and hindering their development.

With that in mind here are four things to think about when arranging training:

1: What are you trying to achieve?

Before arranging any training, it is vital to have an understanding of what you want to achieve, and why. Put simply, the training must be designed to address the requirements of the participants. Sending sales people who struggle to close deals on a ‘closing skills’ course, may appear to be logical at first sight, but what if the underlying reason for their difficulty lies elsewhere – for example in poor questioning skills, or in the way they are managed? So talk to your staff, and talk to training providers, be open to new ideas and be ready to have your assumption challenged.

2: Train the right people!

You’d be amazed how often our trainers hear the phrase ‘my manager needs to go on this course.’ When thinking about training, you need to make sure that you are focusing on the right people. For example, if a sales team are underperforming, then it may mean that they need some help, but what about the sales manager? Is the team’s performance down to them? Perhaps the manager lacks the skills to motivate and support their staff effectively. If this is the case, then all the sales training in the world will not address the root cause. The same goes for middle managers, ask yourself, can any of their issues be traced upwards? What behaviours do the senior management team display, and are any of the negatives trickling down. Senior people can find it hard to admit that they’d like some support, but there’s nothing remedial about good training, personal development can only be positive.

3: Make the training relevant!

Sadly we often meet clients who have previously suffered poor training. Sometimes this is down to weak delivery, but often the cause is simpler – the training was not participant relevant. If participants cannot see how to link what they are learning back to their own roles, then at best they may find the training interesting, but not particularly useful, and at worst they may be bored and irritated. In order to be effective, training must be made relevant on a personal level. In practice this means effective pre-course consultancy – ensuring the provider understand participant requirements as well as organisational ones. By keeping group sizes small you can ensure that participants are able to fully engage with the trainer, and understand how to apply what they are learning to their workplace.

4: The importance of support.

Before embarking on any training, whether it be a one day course or a full blown programme, we’d recommend that you think very carefully about how you plan to support the training. Effective support is absolutely key to the success of any training event; without support it is almost impossible to embed learning and sustain any long term improvement in performance. Staff should come back from any training event feeling excited, motivated and eager to put new ideas and skills to the test. Invariably not everything new they try will work first time, they may meet resistance from colleagues, lack the confidence to make changes, or just struggle to transfer classroom learnt skills to the reality of the workplace. If there are no systems in place to support newly trained staff, then the vast majority of them will lapse back in to old habits, effectively rendering the training worthless. On the other hand, well supported staff will maintain momentum and continue to improve and develop. There are many ways of providing support, but in our experience there are two broad methods which prove particularly effective when combined:

Firstly, ensure that management are fully aware of what the training entailed. This may mean just reading the course agenda, arranging a debrief with the provider, with the stakeholders, or just pending time speaking with their staff about the training. Only by understanding what the training entailed can managers hope to provide valuable support. There’s nothing more damaging to training effectiveness than a manager who appears disinterested, or simply expects their staff to improve post-training, without offering to support them!

Secondly, ensure that staff take responsibility for their own development. At Phoenix we ask participants to complete a personal action plan. This doesn’t have to be anything major, just a commitment to trying out some new ideas or making a few changes on the back of the training. Ideally these plans should be shared with line managers and followed up on – if the participant has met their goals then this is an opportunity for praise (and a great indicator of success), if they are struggling then it’s an opportunity to provide further support and encourage development.

James Ashburnham, Client Manager, Phoenix Training

As a relationship manager at Phoenix, I am often consulted (or even challenged!) by clients about how to measure the effects of the training they commission – a perfectly natural wish, because they have generally identified an area to improve in their organisation or business, and they want to be sure that improvement has taken place.

With that in mind, I thought I would put down my own personal thoughts on how training can be evaluated effectively, in order to check that the time & budget being spent on training are producing the desired returns at every level: organisational, departmental, team and individual.

Inevitably there is a balance to be struck when evaluating the benefits of soft-skills training.  On the one hand, the more time and resources invested, particularly up front in benchmarking of criteria, the more reliable the evaluation becomes.  However, on the other hand, there is a point at which the returns on this extra investment are outweighed by other priorities – as there is too great a ‘cost’ in carrying it out.  Remember also that even the most rigorous and ‘scientific’ evaluation will produce results which in the opinion of many commentators are indicative and evidential rather than solidly proven in the soft-skills context – there are simply too many variable factors at work in most organizations for the effects of training to be measurable in terms of a quantifiable number or percentage.  For this reason, I advocate measurement of training through the observation and benchmarking of behaviours above all else, as I believe this is the truest test of whether learning is effective over the mid- to long-term.

With positive cooperation from participants, evaluation processes can even contribute to the fixing and application of new learning, rather than simply measuring it; another reason to evaluate wherever possible.

It may be that the depth and scope of evaluation varies from course to course, depending on the topic or the group; but a workable ‘full’ evaluation would consist of the following:

1. Benchmarking of participants’ behaviour in relation to the course topic, at some point pre-training.  “Where are they now?”  This can be established through assessment centres, 360-degree feedback, through the Personal Review process, or simply by self-scoring.  Phoenix are able to help with the preparation or implementation of these as required.
2. What are the objectives for the training, in the light of step 1?  What will success look like (i.e. expressed as behavioural change)?
3. TRAINING TAKES PLACE
4. Post-course feedback forms check that participants appreciated the training, and that their initial response to it was positive.  It is important for a culture of learning that training be enjoyable, and that participants return from courses inspired and energised by it, and advocating it to others.
5. The next step is for line management to de-brief participants, make an initial check that objectives as expressed before the course have been addressed, and to review any new objectives that have been set as a result of the course.
6. Next, at a period of between 3 to 6 months, behaviours in relation to the course topic should be re-assessed, preferably by the same method as before the training, in order to ascertain that positive change has occurred.  This is the most important stage of all, since it provides the evidence that participants are using what they learned.  In some cases it may be appropriate simply to ask participants to self-report what they are doing differently as time goes by – but in others, something more objective, such as 360s, will be preferable.
7. Finally, it is important to recognise that even the most high impact training needs to be supported internally, and the right behaviours and practices reinforced positively by line managers and the overall culture of the organisation.  If the prevalent culture is at odds with the training messages, the status quo will erode the changes.  In line with this, it is useful to recognise that the best messages bear repeating, and thus we would recommend that all training be followed up by refresher workshops of a similar nature within a 12-month period.

Tim Holmes – Account Director, Phoenix Training

The focus of the day was about working more effectively together and increasing trust and communication throughout the team. Following a consultation with two members of the Executive team, an event was designed that would highlight the business challenges that were currently being faced and the positive impact that effective teamwork, communication and collaboration would have on both the results and the engagement and motivation of the whole team

I had heard a lot about team building days previously and I always wondered what they were about and what participants actually learn on a day like this. Even more importantly, I had questioned how what happened on a team building day would link back to the everyday working environment. I have to say though that the whole event really opened my eyes; it was delivered in a really unique style, incorporating high levels of creativity, interaction and challenge!

One of the things that I noticed was that initially the participants were a bit reluctant to put all their trust in each other believing that they were in competition, although that was never in the brief they received. Once they realised that by working together they could achieve more, they began to share information and resources with amazing results.

Through effective communication, collaboration, teamwork and trust, everyone worked more efficiently and tasks were finished far quicker. The difference in the levels of individual and collective motivation, commitment to the task and quality of the results was astounding.

As we started the review of the activity, one of things that I found most interesting was that it was the participants, rather than waiting for the facilitator to do it, that recognised and highlighted many of the things that I have mentioned. Talking openly about what had happened during the activity and the impact that it had on them, they also started to relate many of the examples to work specific situations. Finally, and without much prompting, they also began to plan how they needed to take the ‘learns’ from the activity and apply them back at work to achieve a truly collaborative result.

Having observed the event and spoken with the members of the Executive team, it is apparent that the Team Building day is simply the first step towards the embedding of a new set of team behaviours that will improve results even further. The Executive team were quick to recognise that to embed and sustain the change, will require their time and continued focus to make the new behaviours habitual.

Yapp Brothers have begun this process and are already beginning to establish their ground rules. It is these behavioural ground rules that will underpin the vision, values and performance of the company going forward.  Phoenix has and will continue to support this process. Three months later it is clear to everyone that the day was not simply fun but more importantly it has created a real difference in their work environment with the participants consistently still demonstrating the collaborative team behaviours and seeing a tangible difference in motivation and results .

One of the conclusions that I drew from attending the event is that a day out of the office rather than just being fun needs to give people a chance to stop for a moment, step back from their day to day tasks and spend a bit of time re-evaluating their strengths & development areas.  People need to be given the opportunity to ask themselves – what works for me currently or what am I good at? What is more challenging or more difficult?  How can I begin to work or build upon and address these areas? And finally what help, direction or support do I need for others around me?  From a team perspective, a day like this offers the chance for people to get to know each other again even often after working together for years. It can be a real eye opener for people to become more aware of and appreciate others’ strengths. They can then truly start to recognise and implement  their strengths to achieve the maximum individual, collective and business potential.

It was a brilliant day and I’m really looking forward to getting involved in another event soon!

Well, my last few weeks have felt like a real rollercoaster ride.  Eight weeks ago I was happily leading a successful team of sales managers, delivering financial solutions to the mass affluent market in Yorkshire.  Today, I’m sat in my new London office with my new colleagues enjoying excitement and challenge in equal measure and looking forward to a new chapter in my life, returning to a dedicated role in people development.  When asked if I’d like to contribute something to the blog my thoughts went back to a previous role – that of Induction Delivery Manager looking after the needs of around 3000 new hires for a large corporate. In particular my thoughts turn to two key areas.

Firstly, close attention to the emotional journey any new-hire is likely to go through is crucial to their success.  The on-boarding process needs to recognise that journey and help the new-hire celebrate and retain the emotional and motivational ‘highs’.  It also needs to anticipate and recognise the potential lows and help the new-hire deal with the associated emotional impact.  Having now been both recruiter and ‘recruited’ the experiences have, once again, put the different perspectives into sharp focus.  One thing is undoubted, both the hiring manager and the new starter have a common interest at the outset – success.  The question is what does ’success’ look like for both and are they similar?

The challenge this throws squarely in front of the hiring manager – ‘how do you have a generic on-boarding process that caters for the needs of individuals?’.  It boils down to one thing – know your people.  Not just your new-hire but those people you already have that are likely to be the key influencers in the individual’s early development.  Checking in regularly with you new-hire is crucial.  You need to pulse check motivation.  As managers we often correlate motivation with productivity.  What’s missed is the link – development.  In order to be more productive I need to develop.  A strong belief I have brought with me to Phoenix is that, in order to develop, individuals have to have to want to learn.  For new hires or ‘old hands’ or indeed anywhere in between, the effective manager will know how to motivate the individual.

This brings me to the second part of successful on-boarding of the ‘new-hire’.  That of being aligned with the company vision, goals and values.  I spent my first day in the training room with Bill (MD and trainer) observing Phoenix’s Essential Management open course here in London.  It re-affirmed the pre-hire belief that my own values and beliefs were aligned with that of my new employer.  Imagine if they weren’t!  And it’s not just being ‘told’ the company values – as a new hire it’s vital to see those values coming through in the behaviour of leaders, managers, peers and teams.  Again this confers a responsibility on the manager to explore the individual’s values and ensuring that those of the company are communicated in a way that demonstrates that ‘you’ve made the right choice’.

Having had my confirmations that I’ve made the right choice I’m now on the lookout for lots of work – ah, the power of motivation!

Our experience in Oman focuses on the training we have delivered for Haya Water – a government owned organisation – responsible for building and operating a world class wastewater system in the Governate of Muscat (the capital of Oman).  Having initially delivered some highly successful Presentation & Time Management Skills events, we were then asked to design and deliver a Customer Service programme for team members throughout their Commercial Department.  Crucially, the programme had to go way beyond the simple straightforward transfer of skills – it needed a permanent legacy!

To begin with, we designed a 3 tier accredited programme, with an exam at the end of each level.  The participants duly responded to this challenge and so far we have awarded 8 Distinctions and 16 Merits which really is a fantastic effort.

With the customer service skills of the team developing nicely, the next step was to provide Haya Water with something more sustainable and to achieve this we created a ‘Developing your People’ programme.  Also known as Level 4, the most outstanding participants from the Customer Service programme were joined by two colleagues from the Training Department and we set to work ensuring that they would soon be able to train, coach and develop their colleagues with little or no external assistance.

Delivered over six days, in two separate sessions, each participant has also been required to build their own portfolio, recording every time they have had the opportunity of putting their newly learnt skills into practice.  In addition, they all delivered a range of developmental team events and presentations which were observed by myself and one of our Senior consultant’s, Richard John.  I am delighted to say that the standard was extremely high indeed and the take up of skills was even better than we could have expected.

Haya Water are now well on their way to having a fantastic internal resource that will enable them to develop the customer service skills of individuals throughout the organisation without relying on external providers like us!  All in all it’s clear evidence of how by working in partnership with our clients, we can create sustainable solutions with long term benefits.

Client Testimonial

Customer service training is notoriously difficult to deliver effectively.  Working closely with Haya Water – a newly formed wastewater company, with a Customer Service department fully manned by Omanis with no previous experience of utility customers – Phoenix rose to the occasion brilliantly, not only understanding the local culture and developing a fan club from the Haya Water staff but also delivering a superb programme with very fast and effective results.  Success can be demonstrated by the fact that the recently qualified and highly enthusiastic staff set to and organised a series of workshops to deliver their newly acquired knowledge. They were able to hold their own against project engineers, consultants and contractors and persuade them how important that the right approach be used to ’surprise’ our customers with superb service.  Hats off to Phoenix.” – Omar Al Wahaibi, CEO

If carefully designed and delivered well, keeping in mind the objectives of the client and the participant, there is no doubt that a training course can make a big difference to an individual or a team’s performance.  However, it is what is done either side of the course that will make even more difference.  Careful pre course work will create a solid foundation for the course to grow from.  Too often participants arrive on the course without knowing why they are there or even what the course is covering that day!  Buyers of training and organisers of training have a responsibility to set the day up as best as possible.  They should talk to the participants, show them the agenda & discuss objectives.  As I write this I’m thinking surely this would be done, but my experience tells me that often it is not.  We offer pre course consultancy or a meeting with participants before the course but it is seldom used.

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The course itself should challenge and enthuse the participants.  It should leave the group feeling that they can try to use what they have learnt and will have practiced doing so.  Confidence will be high, so what environment will they find on their return from the course?  Too often they find an environment that does not support the training and managers do not have the skills to support the participant after the course.  Managers often hear that the course “was great” and it was “really helpful” and this lulls them into a false sense of security.  This does not mean that the job is done.  The participant will be keen to use what they have learnt and will say all the right things.  However, they will often be as confused by the training as they are excited.  Often training produces as many questions as it does answers.  Most people attend a course having been going along quite nicely, using techniques and skills built up over a period of years possibly.  They then attend a course that introduces a few new ideas or techniques to try and  they get a chance to practice these skills in the safe environment of the training room and then they return to the live environment.  They try to use the ideas and techniques and run into problems and understandably some of their enthusiasm is dented.  After a while they start to feel uncomfortable using the new skills and drift back towards their old, tried and tested methods.

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The environment that the participant returns to dictates the success or failure of the training.  Someone said to me recently that if you put a lovely new gold fish into a tank of dirty water, it won’t do very well.  Obvious I guess!  To help the participant do well, whilst they are out on the course, what goes on back in the workplace?  Does the tank and the water get cleaned? If managers and their support systems are not geared up to help and support the individual, results will not improve over the long term.   If you take training seriously don’t just buy a course.  Analyse the requirement, involve the participants, support the returning participant, follow up the training, read the reports, get the trainer back, train the managers to help their team members do anything you can to help and in short, accept that the course is the start of what could be a long process.  Overnight cures happen rarely.  Improvement can be achieved quickly but it is difficult to sustain.  Test the training company that you want to use and find out what they do to turn a training course into a successful learning experience?

I am not a great fan of trainer jargon and “a successful learning experience” sounds a bit like I am going down that route.  What I mean is that anyone can deliver a two day sales course but not many can deliver a series of events and interventions that ensure at the end of a year or any given period, techniques and behaviours are firmly embedded and results are greatly improved.

Daryon Eldridge – HR & Performance Management Training

1. How long have you been a trainer?

15 years now

2. What did you do before?

I could never decide between HR & Training so I alternated between the two & now I train on HR topics which solves my dilemma.

3. How did you get into training?

I was always bored on training courses & wanted to explore how people could learn in more interesting & effective ways. So I turned the tables round. I still continue to be a difficult delegate!

4. What do you specialise in?

Anything to do with people – how to solve people problems & management techniques through to specific HR topics.

5. Can you tell me 5 top tips?

1. Give to get – help people & they or someone else will reciprocate
2. Be positive but realistic – see the glass half full but realise it will evaporate if you don’t drink it quickly!
3. Learning is something that happens every day in ways we don’t realise
4. Find a role model & learn from their positive behaviours
5. Find something you love doing & make it a career or hobby

6. What did you want to be when you grew up?

Taller!

7. Describe your most embarassing moment

I was running a training course in the summer wearing a wraparound skirt. The tie round the waist must have got untied…..Need I say more!

8. What really annoys you?

Negative people who moan about things all the time but don’t take action to change their situation.

9. In your opinion, what makes a good trainer?

Someone who knows their stuff but is truly interested in the development of others & not their own ego. It is not about entertaining people but motivating people & channelling their energies & focus. A good trainer will encourage action back at the work place not just discussion in the training room.

10. What is exciting you in the realm of learning & development currently?

I like the idea of these team building drumming workshops – music does bring people together & helps creativity.