Thinking of growing your business this year but afraid of the cost of developing your staff? How would you like to accelerate your growth plans at no extra cost? With these new training grants you can claim up to a maximum of £2,000 per employee as match funding so you can effectively double your training budget!

Eligibility

Organisations can access the funding if they are Ltd, PLC, Sole Traders  with less than £40 million turnover and have less than 250 full time equivalent staff – organisations with:-

• 2 to 5 staff can show contracts that will provide growth over 3 years by 20% year on year
• 5 to 49 staff and show growth plans over 3 years (20% is ideal – but depending on turnover, this can be more flexible)
• 50 – 249 staff and due to size, 20% is not as important, as long as there is justification on growth

This is no conjuring trick the money actually exists

The Funding

This new fund is called the Growth Accelerator Programme, which is made up of various elements – two are specific to our clients; these are:-

• Coaching Service
• Leadership & Management Service.

To access the Leadership & Management Funding, the organisation must sign up to the Growth Programme.
This is of huge benefit  as it enables the organisation to not only access the leadership and management funding but also have a coach work with them over 3 to 6 months to support the facilitation of the learning that is taking place and therefore ensuring the key changes / development e.g marketing, strategy, vision, processes are developed and implemented to meet the growth aspirations across the organisation.

Delivery can be covered across the following areas:-

• Effective Leadership & Management [strategy/leadership]
• Leading and Managing High Performance [people/skills]
• Planning & Developing an Effective Organisation [finance, operational)
• Creating an Enterprise Culture [finance/change]
• Sustaining Growth and Continuous Improvement [operational]
• Innovation [people, organisation]
• New Market Entry [sales/marketing]

The Benefits

Firstly we lead you through the whole process so you’re not bogged down with paperwork. The overall programme has little if no financial cost to the organisation, but can provide you with a dramatic return in terms of improved performance at half the normal cost. The significant financial increase  will ensure more diverse development can be established, which can be impactive for all the business and their staff resulting in:-

• Performance
• Proficiency
• Improving effectiveness – quality, costs, delivery
• Management accountancy
• Market presence
• Succession planning (franchisee and franchisor) staff development & promotion
• Store required training

What Our Recent Clients Have Said About Us

“I thoroughly enjoyed the alternative way the course was run. It was very thought provoking and memorable. The various activities we took part in was a great way to learn. The facilitator met our needs brilliantly, has very good techniques and is a brilliant tutor”

“My initial impressions of the course are beyond expectations. I enjoyed the structure of the course and the fact that it wasn’t a normal classroom layout. I thought the facilitators did a fantastic job of facilitating. I found it very thought provoking and exciting.”

“Really positive, came away from the 2 days feeling inspired about my role as a line manager”

“EXCELLENT! I feel it has really inspired me. It has reconciled all of the skills that I have learnt to date and given me motivation and drive to succeed moving forward.”

Responding to the review on apprenticeships carried out last year by entrepreneur Doug Richards, the Government has said apprenticeships should be more focused on the needs of employers as some businesses find they are not tailored enough to their requirements. Clegg said he believes it is “vital” that apprenticeships are tailored around what employers want.

Clegg thinks this will enable the employer to design their own qualifications and choose their own training provider, rather than getting a “one-size-fits-all-programme” that is “bad for apprentices” and “bad for employers”.

The Government’s plans include:

• Employers putting recognised and meaningful industry standards at the heart of every apprenticeship.
• Every apprenticeship should be targeted at a skilled job, involving substantial new learning that will provide the foundations for a career and a springboard for progression.
• Training and accreditation of existing workers who are already fully competent in their jobs should be delivered separately.
• Apprenticeships should be focused on the outcome: clearly setting out what apprentices should know and be able to do at the end of their apprenticeship
• Apprenticeships will move to a final holistic test which has the full confidence of employers.
• All Apprentices will work towards a level 2 qualification either through GCSEs or functional skills in English and maths, from August 2014, if they have not already achieved this.

Dereth Wood , writing in HR magazine states that the HR Lunchtime Debate survey showed businesses agree, with 56% saying it’s very important for employers to be involved in the design of skills programmes. However, recent opportunities to get involved through programmes such as the Employer Ownership Pilots don’t appear to have caught on. In this survey, 72% of respondents hadn’t heard of the scheme and more than half said they were unlikely to apply.

Leadership and Management Skills – Abilities Most Lacking

By taking an active approach and tailoring the learning to suit the context and sector, employers can help equip their staff with the skills their business needs to succeed. The survey showed the abilities businesses felt were most lacking are management and leadership skills, time management and communication skills. .

These skills, explains Dereth, should be developed in the context of the workplace and for this it’s got to be developed in partnership with employers.If employers are able to work together with their delivery partners to create a blended programme of learning which encompasses all these essential skills, the benefits are clear. Staff are more motivated, productivity increases and the business has the opportunity to grow and diversify.

Blended Learning

Once the skills gaps are identified and the benefits understood, employers also need to consider how they are going to deliver the learning. Whereas in the past they might have needed to take a more formal and regulated approach to learning, we now live in a digital age and with this comes great chances for employers to tackle it with a more creative and flexible outlook.

We often hear from employers – and this showed in the HR magazine survey results too – that finding the budget and sparing time off for staff to complete learning are barriers for them. But it’s now much easier to take learning into the workplace, using technology to provide a seamless link between the employer, the trainer and the learner.

This corresponds with Call of the Wild’s approach to developing the staff of our clients. We have been offering leadership and management development using a blended approach to delivery. This is in response to our clients needs and recognising their budgetary and time constraints. For information on our graduate and apprenticeship programmes click here.

Succession planning is essential for any business intent on long term survival and is critical to ensure the future leadership of the organisation. That’s why ILM set out to find how businesses identify and develop the people who will become their future leaders, and what potential future leaders could do to improve their career prospects. Whether the aim is to develop potential leaders for the organisation internally, or to recruit the most talented external candidates to nurture and promote, in an increasingly competitive world, the search, retention and development of the leaders of tomorrow is complex and challenging.

The ILM conducted in-depth interviews with senior HR professionals in predominantly large corporate organisations and consulting firms. The sample size was large enough to provide a breadth of coverage, while the approach ensured a richness and depth of response which meant that the subtleties of the respondents’ different approaches were captured.

The Most Important Traits for Future Leaders

1. Leadership traits

Respondents emphasised a distinct set of personal characteristics that future leaders need to possess. These were principally in the relationship and inter-personal domain – they sought people who are:-

• visionary;
• motivational;
• inspirational people;
• emotionally intelligent;
• trustworthy;
• natural leaders and communicators; and
• driven and ambitious.

The ability to motivate (36%), emotional intelligence (34%) and being a natural leader (24%) were the most important characteristics when recruiting senior leaders.What’s more, they emphasised that future leaders needed to demonstrate a broad mix of all these characteristics if they were to be able to progress to the top. Strengths in one area do not compensate for weaknesses elsewhere.

2. Skills and knowledge

Future leaders also need a range of skills and knowledge to support their personal characteristics. These fall into three main strands. The first, cited by over half of respondents (56%), is appropriate technical and professional skills in relevant areas like law, accounting or engineering.

The second strand comprises commercial and financial skills (54%), so that future leaders understand how business works and can demonstrate high levels of business acumen. The third strand largely supports the personal characteristics the respondents identified, and includes skills in people management and development (26%), communication (24%), coaching and feedback (20%), and team management skills (20%).

3. Education and Training

Although it is expected that future leaders will have a good standard of education (a first degree is generally taken as a given, but the right personal qualities trump any gaps in the educational record), most businesses see it as their responsibility to develop leadership and management abilities.

What’s more, they want training that will transfer into improved performance, knowing about leadership and management isn’t enough – future leaders have to be able to put what they know into practice.

4. Depth of Experience

The right mix of personal characteristics supported by the appropriate skills and knowledge are necessary but not sufficient – those young managers keen to advance their careers to the top of business also need to ensure that they have a broad range of experience.This experience should encompass different roles and, where appropriate, different industries.

What’s more, future leaders need to show that they can cope with pressure and failure with nearly a quarter (24%) of respondents stressing the importance of being able to deal with difficulties and challenges. A path of unbroken success suggests that they haven’t really been tested.

5.Business Schools

When asked about the role of business schools and MBAs in developing future leaders, half of respondents were neutral about the effectiveness of business schools, while 36% thought they were effective. While they recognise that business schools had some strengths, their major weakness was that they do not have that deep understanding of the business and its particular characteristics that they looked for in training providers. These perceptions encourage them to see business schools as more relevant to the needs of individuals rather than for businesses seeking to build their future leadership capacity.

There is a disconnect  between what is learnt in business schools and the workplace. Business is focused on creating potential future leaders who can cope with the realities of the workplace. From their perspective, an MBA demonstrates that the person has the intellectual capacity to lead, but not that they have the actual ability to do so.

To view an example of our creating future leaders programmes click here or to view our ILM courses click here

To view the full ILM report on creating future leaders  click here

You’ve heard about walking the talk now the new fad is “walk-and-talks” according to the Sunday Times and the author Nilofer Merchant. Well what’s so new? We’ve been offering and delivering walking the talk events for many years with our clients seeing the benefit of this innovative approach.

So what exactly are “walk-and-talk” events? Well they are the art  of conducting business meetings on the move and in our case in an inspiring environment taking people out of their comfort zone.

When Nilofer Merchant, the Silicon valley strategist and author, requested a coffee meeting with the venture capitalist Heidi Roizen and was told Roizen “didn’t do coffee”, she jumped at the chance to accompany her for a dog walk instead. In fact, she liked the idea so much she introduced “walk-the-talks” into her own schedule. “It struck me that I had managed to do a fitness thing and get a meeting done at the same time.”

Walk-the-talks have become increasingly popular in Silicon Valley as companies focus more on incorporating employee wellbeing into hectic schedules. Nilofer goes on to say that:-

” I find myself, probably like many of you, spending way too much time in front of my computer. When I do face-to-face meetings, my colleagues and I typically met around some conference table, sometimes at an airport lounge (nothing like getting the most out of a long layover), and quite often at coffee shops (hello Starbucks!). But that means that the most common denominator across all these locations wasn’t the desk, or, the keyboard, or even the coffee. The common denominator in the modern workday is our, um, tush.”

As we work, we sit more than we do anything else. We’re averaging 9.3 hours a day, compared to 7.7 hours of sleeping. Sitting is so prevalent and so pervasive that we don’t even question how much we’re doing it. And, everyone else is doing it also, so it doesn’t even occur to us that it’s not okay. Chris Tomkins, head of personal health risk management at Axa PPP Healthcare says:-

“What organisations in the modern service economy are experiencing is a steady reduction in productivity as the cognitive performance and energy of their organisation are being sapped…..”

Is this really the most healthy or productive way to undertake meetings? Can you really clear your head, seek inspiration and get those creative juices flowing in another homogenous coffee shop or hotel lounge! As Nilofer says “If you want to think outside the box you have to get out of the box.”

Benefits of Adopting this Approach

We believe the landscape creates a place and a space for ‘deep reflection’. In addition it creates a powerful place for engagement and sustainable learning experiences. We term this our ‘green meeting room’ approach. The benefits are:-

• Moving people out of their comfort zone allows for greater engagement with meeting participants
• Allows for more creative thinking – literally thinking outside the box
• Health benefits as above
• Leave the smart phone and tablet behind for once!
• Immersion in  inspirational landscapes can began to create new ways of thinking and change of mindsets
• More  pleasurable, enjoyable and productive meetings

View this video to find out the reasons why we won this award. Click on “More”

Only 18% of employers expect candidates to have received management training prior to being appointed to a management position!

To complete successfully on the global stage UK plc needs a steady stream of management talent capable of delivering strong economic growth. Creating business leaders and managers should be a top priority for UK business and requires a fully functioning management talent pipeline.

These are the findings of a recently published report by the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM). They set out to understand the state of the UK’s management pipeline and where it could be improved. An independent report was commissioned with 750 UK organisations across the public and private sectors to identify the challenges they face in recruiting and developing skilled leaders and managers.

By talent-pipeline they mean a joined-up approach to leadership development that enables a flow of skilled and capable individuals through an organisation. A talent-plan meanwhile is the means by which a talent pipeline is implemented and defines the skills and knowledge required to ensure the future needs of a business are met.

Pipeline Deficiencies

Most organisations lack a functional talent pipeline with many having no talent plan at all. In fact 93% of respondents expressed concern that low levels of management skills are having a direct impact on their business achieving its goals.

Reliance of External Recruitment

UK organisations are heavily reliant on external recruitment for management vacancies, especially at senior level. This is driven in large part by shortcomings in internal leadership and management development. Only 55% of managerial vacancies are filled internally, with the proportion of these appointments decreasing the higher up you look, going from 61% at front-line management level down to 58% for middle management and to just 50% for senior management.

At the same time almost half, 47%, of employers cite the lack of internal staff capability as the single biggest barrier to ensuring an effective pipeline of leaders and managers.

Recruiting the Wrong Skills

Often first line managers are recruited on the basis of their technical skill and knowledge, but whilst these skills are deemed useful for  junior managers they become less important in senior management, when strategic and financial  skills become crucial. Employers who recruit in this way are likely to end up with teams led by “expert novices” – technical experts with low awareness and poor leadership and management skills

In fact first line managers receive very little training. Only 18% of employers expect candidates to have received management training prior to being appointed to a management position. First line managers are expected to learn on the job creating a sink or swim scenario.

Poor Talent Planning

Only 57% of employers have a plan in place to ensure they have a pool of leaders and managers that are suitably skilled to fill future vacancies.

Recommendations

1.    A talent plan is critical in helping employers match skills development with internal needs

For more information on developing talent click here

Call of the Wild have been awarded contracts to develop the leadership and management skills of staff within both Councils. These will be accredited Institute of leadership and Management courses for managers at various levels from first line, aspiring and senior management.

The courses being delivered are:-

• Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) Level 3 Award in First Line Management
• Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) Level 4 Award in Leadership and Management
• Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) Level 5 Certificate in Leadership & Management
• Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) Level 7 Award in Strategic Leadership

Sunset Over Plymouth Sound

Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) Level 4 Award in Leadership & Management

Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) Level 3 Award in First Line Management

Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) Level 5 Certificate in Leadership & Management

Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) Level 7 Award in Strategic Leadership

Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) Level 5 Certificate in Leadership & Management

Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) Level 7 Award in Strategic Leadership

MD Geraint Lewis said:-

“It’s great news for the Company as it again proves that we offer quality courses that meet the needs of our clients whether they are in the public or private sectors. These contracts add to our portfolio of clients across reinforce the importance of developing leadership and management skills to ensure the future needs of a business or organisation  are met. A recent report by the ILM found that 93% or employers expressed concern that low levels of management skills are having a direct impact on their business being able to achieve its goals.”

Comments From Those Who’ve Attended

The feedback has also been excellent and here is a sample of the type of review we’re receiving from delegates:-

“The facilitator has very good techniques and is a brilliant tutor”

“Very interesting with different and stimulating ways of learning”

“The information is delivered very subtly to suit all our needs and making us do the work enables a deeper understanding. He is a good facilitator”

“Very good, great ideas and good approach to learning”

“The course catered extremely well to the group’s needs being flexible enough to accommodate these whilst covering all necessary course elements. The variety in presentation and the interactive format was great – not a power point in sight! The leader was an extremely good facilitator.Highly recommended!

Fabulous. It’s been a breath of fresh air in the way it’s being taught and had influenced my thoughts and actions already. Looking forward to the second part of the course.

“I thoroughly enjoyed the alternative way the course was run. It was very thought provoking and memorable. The various activities we took part in was a great way to learn. The facilitator met our needs brilliantly, has very good techniques and is a brilliant tutor”

Reasons Why They Chose to Attend

“It sounded interesting and worthwhile, I needed to gain more professionalism in my leadership of the business, I wanted to improve my management skills.”

“Felt that the degree I have just completed did not cover leadership and management in as much detail as I need to carry out my role effectively.”

“Great for CPD.”

In partnership with one the foremost social media training companies in the UK, Marketing Tom Media, we have jointly designed this groundbreaking social media course entitled Social Media Interactive.

It represents a break from traditional social media training and combines social media tools with management training and team building approaches.

 Why is it Unique?

The course is unique in that it bridges the gap between learning social media tools and the application/transfer of the learning and use of those tools into the workplace in order to maximise the commercial benefit to the organisation.  It provides the missing link between learning and transfer of learning to the workplace using the combined expertise of social media gurus and best practise from the business world in the context of management and organisational change.

Business Benefits

In brief it:

• informs people about the issues concerning Social Media
• equips people with the tools and knowledge to use in the organisation
• empowers people to transfer that learning  in order to make a difference in the workplace
• gives people the confidence to make Social Media a success to maximise business benefits – ROI

Social Media Interactive is a two-day course which is designed to empower individuals to apply social media in the workplace for maximum business benefit. It provides the missing link between learning and transfer of learning to the workplace using the combined expertise of social media gurus and best practise from the business world in the context of management and organisational change.

It’s not just the England football team who are champion chokers we’ve seen numerous elite sporting teams and individuals display mental resilience over the summer with much to come with the Olympics. Bradley Wiggins being the most recent example of displaying not just physical but also mental toughness in the Tour de France

Examples are Andy Murray in the Wimbledon final against Roger Federer where how many times did you hear the commentators refer to each player either displaying or needing to show mental resilience under extreme pressure. What is it that allows someone like Roger Federer to serve on match point down and display no nerves and serve an ace. What sets him apart and makes the difference between becoming multiple grand slam champion and a nearly man. The same principle applies to golf. What enables one player to stand on the 18th green and sink that 6ft putt to win the championship when the majority of others fail under pressure on the run in. Adam Scott in the British open comes to mind in the recent British Open.

With the Olympics  an entire army of sports psychologists work overtime to prevent Team GB from cracking under pressure. While we see pressure and the need for resilience regularly with sporting events it is by no means confined to sport. It can be seen and experienced in our personal and professional lives as well. Choking happens to everyone from time to time.

Fortunately the science behind mental toughness has come of age over recent years and the good news is there are psychological ways to overcome it’s affects

An analogy used by Matthew Syed writing in the Times (26.6.12) is that of learning to drive a car. When you start to learn the tasks appear to be so complex you start in a car park. But after hours of practice you perform these same tasks effortlessly without a thought. This is called conscious control another example of which is when you are able to drive to your destination at times without even being aware of how you got there. In effect experts and novices use two different brain systems. Choking is triggered when we get so anxious that we seize conscious control over a task that should be executed automatically. The problem is not insufficient focus but too much focus! Conscious monitoring disrupts the smooth workings of the subconscious . Which explains why some sports people can literally appear to become a novice again. A phrase well used in sporting circles to describe this condition is paralyses by analysis!

Walking is another good example of conscious thought. You don’t need to think about walking when you get out of bed in the morning you just put one foot in front of the other – an unconscious skill. But what happens when you’re asked to walk a narrow path with a 10,000m precipice either side. Now you really focus on how you are walking and this is precisely when you are most likely to fall.

How do you avoid choking? according to performance psychologists learn to take the pressure off and will be less likely to seize conscious control of an unconscious skill. Put the situation in context. Big sales pitch tomorrow! Well it’s not exactly life or death is it

To learn more about mental resilience in a business  context and understanding how you cope under pressure and seeking to improve performance in the workplace when dealing with the stressors and pressures then read on for more about mental toughness programmes.

We are an independently-owned, limited company set up by three friends who grew up together. Geraint,  Mark and Kevin are all local lads who have known each other since school. Having studied at University, they all returned to their home town to develop a business which encompassed their interests. We all have different but complementary skill sets  which mean we work extremely well together. Having the same background and knowing each other since childhood means we all have  the same core values which builds trust and respect within the management team.

In our opinion working with old school friends helps the business. Even in the most heated argument you can defuse the situation because you have known that person so long – for example by using nicknames from years ago. That raises a smile and can break the tension.

At the time we graduated from University employment opportunities in our locality were almost non-existent and we were forced to look further afield. The  setting up of Call of the Wild provided the opportunity for us to move home and establish an enterprise that not only provided us with a living but gave us the chance to give something back to the community. This is very much part of our Company ethos. We take our corporate social responsibilities very seriously.

More information on Call of the Wild here