Blogs & Articles

The majority of us will work for around 40 years, meaning being happy with our jobs and workplace is essential for confidence, positive mindsets and high levels of productivity. It will become very tiring doing something you don't enjoy day in and day out for all that time.

Anyone who has ever delivered training will be able to recall the look of shock coming from at least a few delegate's faces in the room after the suggestion of 'Role-Play' within the course. This is due to their fear of what they think a role-play is going to be when in reality it should be fun, informative and of course challenging.

Although the concept of communicating is easy, communicating well and in different forms takes skill and practice to master, and even then, there is always room for improvement. Different members of your team will need and prefer different kinds of communication depending on what works for them, the same goes for you so you must be adaptable when it comes to communication.

This is making huge waves at all levels of learning and development, and companies are also realising that what is really important is not that employees sit through training, but that they can do something useful at the end of it.

Recently in one or our commercial meetings, I was asked by a new starter in our business what the difference was between ‘selling’ and ‘consultative selling’. As I began to explain I could hear myself starting to make this sound all very windswept and interesting but ultimately I realised it was actually getting to be a little confusing for the inductee as I found myself talking about it being a much more deeper and complicated process than merely selling something to someone.

For many years the HR Community has religiously collated learning and development requirements via the organisations' Performance Appraisal process. From this data, a schedule of interventions is normally put in place to satisfy employee needs. Putting necessary compliance requirements to one side, what would happen if we stopped doing them? Some would say not much as they spend too much time chasing managers to complete them on time and when they do receive them the request is simply a course title, no clear development objectives have been agreed and no other learning and development methodologies considered.

eLearning refers to online courses that take around 20 minutes in our course case, which allows flexible learning for those who may be pressed for time within their working day. Our eLearning courses cover over 200 topics allowing you to learn anything you require within a short space of time, while still being accredited for it.

Sometimes it is quite difficult to discern between the two and there are occasions when we can walk away from a sale because we have taken the objection at face value and not sought to dig into whether it is real or not. Usually when it’s not, it is because we have somehow created doubt in the buyers mind and they are nervous about committing. Whilst there are many reasons for this, it can be as simple as we have not explained our proposition clearly enough or perhaps even the pricing structure.

Industry shows and trade exhibitions can be a great way of getting in front of a large number of prospective clients in a short space of time. Whether you are selling B2B or B2C, these events can effectively bring buyers to you. But it’s not simply a case of rocking up on the day with your wares and expecting to meet your annual sales target by the time the event closes. It’s important to properly plan if you are exhibiting at events and in doing so you should consider the following:

The learning and development industry is saturated with different approaches, models, tools, and techniques for leading and inspiring others to achieve great things. However, sometimes, simple things done well and often can help you engage, lead, and empower others to truly gain high levels of performance.

Keep Growing Developing, growing and improving ourselves = healthy interactions What is also important is what you think of other people, especially in your relationships at work. Thinking positively about others and building relationships and trust is important, it makes us feel connected and ourselves. Research shows there is also a clear link between putting you aside, building positive relationships with trust and business performance

The shift towards digital learning is becoming inevitable. The convenience and cost-saving of learning taking place ‘on demand’ at the learners own desk or home is the biggest driver. There is likely an element of online learning already taking place within your organisation – quite possibly done by individuals using their initiative because of the growing wealth of content that exists on the Internet.