Web Enabled Development Academy

E-Learning with Call of the Wild’s Online Development Academy

Call of the Wild’s web enabled online development academy is our exciting new facility designed to both enhance our face to face development services and also to act as an invaluable learning resource which our clients can use throughout their managerial career.

It provides practical online management education that is geared towards business managers. It is most successful as a blended learning approach i.e. linked to a company’s values, behaviours, competency frameworks, performance reviews and/or off-line training initiatives.

This has been stimulated by feedback from our clients. A number of recurring issues kept arising:

Firstly time away from the office and its associated costs. Most training and development programmes will require time away from the office. Therefore the more this can be eliminated the better.
You’re all busy people with heavy workloads but with the desire to further your vocational knowledge to enable improved performance and progression. E-learning is an excellent means of achieving this difficult balance.
Retention of learning. Course material can be posted on the site together with pre and most importantly post-course material.
CPD – For continued learning after the programme and throughout your career.

Cost Effective Learning with a Return on Investment

A blended solution i.e. able to link with a client’s own learning initiatives, for example, off-line training courses, computer-based training, policies & procedures, Learning Management Systems etc.
The ability to track and measure usage, as well as increases in knowledge/behaviour/performance
Quick and easy to implement
A demonstrable return on investment

Examples of typical applications include:

Generic management education/leadership programmes
Sales academies
Transformational/change management initiatives
Cultural change programmes
Performance management support
Graduate programmes
Policies & procedures
Accreditation
Membership Organisations
Management training and/or sales training organisations

Generic Management Education/Leadership Programmes

Senior management may need a management education or leadership programme to drive a specific corporate strategy. For example, improve overall business performance, customer service, organisational effectiveness, employee productivity etc.

Learning & Development professionals may need to:-

Improve management competency without the time burden of classroom training
Increase the effectiveness of the learning experience
Find a solution suited to employees in disparate locations
Sustain learning after classroom training to maximise time spent away from the day job
Avoid sheep-dip training i.e. cater for individual needs and knowledge levels
Reduce training costs
Improve soft skills in specified areas e.g. time management skills

Sales Academies

An online academy can be tailored to the needs of a specific functional area, for example, sales. Sales directors/managers may need to:-

Ensure consistent processes and behaviour amongst their sales teams
Train sales people to improve performance by matching their behaviour to clients values
Train sales people how to be good managers
Equip sales people with broader business skills

It is important to align your sales staff with your customers needs . Achieve this through our Customer Relationship Behaviour Tool.

Transformational/Change Management Initiatives

Companies sometimes need to standardise a company culture fragmented by mergers & acquisitions or high staff turnover due to attrition or high growth. They may need to:

teach managers what good behaviour looks like in their company
translate competencies into behaviours
ensure consistent (changed) behaviours

Performance Management Support

Another driver for an online academy is performance management. HR professionals may need to:

Put in place a programme to support leaders or high potential individuals
Find a mechanism for rewarding good (& shaming bad) learning behaviours and management styles
Give recognition to high-performers/learners
Build development action plans
Link education/learning to a 360 degree feedback process
Receive guidance on good performance management practice and a tool for ensuring consistency
Respond immediately to learning short-falls
Focus actions on areas in most need of development

Graduate programmes

Graduates often need to be taught self-awareness and be educated in areas that they don’t learn at university such as leading through change, building a team, coaching and mentoring, communications, motivation, personal profiling etc. An online training and development resource can be supplemented by quarterly workshops to discuss learning experiences, and access to external one-to-one coaching/mentoring.

A common challenge for companies with graduate trainee programmes is how to make graduates feel special in order to retain them long enough to recoup the training investment. Our blended solutions dedicated to graduates can assist with retention rates.

Policies & procedures

Our academy can be used to support HR professionals in larger organisations and managing directors in smaller organisations who need to:-

Provide an induction mechanism for new employees
Communicate and provide easy access to the employee handbook
Support diversity
Communicate discrimination, sexual harassment, health & safety, risk management policies etc and provide evidence that staff has read and understood the policies
Put an appraisal process in place