5 signs your employees need training and development

1. When You Have to Teach Them a New Skill

In many cases this is the most obvious scenario when you have to train your employees because of some to change to processes, products or regulation. In such circumstance there is a twin challenge of training in the new way of doing things, the technical side if you will, but also the need to get buy in from the workforce in a way that they will embrace the change. In addition you may have to train both the internal users (your employees) and external users (vendors, third-party service providers, etc.) which brings another set of challenges to be met.
However, perhaps the biggest area is with new employees (Induction) who have to be trained in the policies, procedures, technologies, and know-how of a company to help perform their duties effectively.

However, companies are known to postpone these training sessions until the time they have several new hires that can be trained in a batch. This means that during the interim period, some new employees start working at their jobs with inadequate knowledge or skills. This is risky for a business. At other times, companies are compelled to arrange for ad hoc one-on-one training sessions, which can be costly and can result in inconsistent messages being delivered.

2. When Employees Lack Basic Skills or, Don’t Know How to Apply Their Knowledge

There are situations when an employee doesn’t know how to operate certain machinery, or carry out routine tasks that is expected of them – in short lacking basic skills. This clearly needs to put right quickly through remedial training and/or performance management. However, it should also be encouraged to find out what led to this situation arising in the first place. For example:

Poor recruitment and selection process
Flawed policies & procedures
Poor support infrastructure

Of course, an employee may have the basic skills and knowledge but lacks application to carry out their roles effectively. This is a more complex problem and may involve a combination of training interventions couple with an effective performance management programme. The question for employers here is, are your managers sufficiently skilled in managing performance?
Investing in ongoing training for employee learning and development is a great way to close these skill gaps that tend to destroy business efficiencies while also boosting employee motivation to advance further in the company.

3. When You Have to Address Skill Gaps within the Existing Workforce

Sometimes employers think that the only option when addressing a skills gap issue is to recruit externally. However, it is often the case that within your organization there are talented employees who can be trained to take on additional responsibilities or learn the required skills of a higher position. This let’s you address a skill gap without searching for the perfect external candidate (who doesn’t exist anyway)to appear and then spend time and effort to make him learn your company culture and policies and procedures which an existing employee already knows.

4. When Your Company Needs to Improve Performance

In an increasingly competitive market place with ever changing market conditions, increased customer demands and new technologies organisation are having to raise performance standards like never before.
This means upskilling your workforce through learning and development programmes that will bridge the skill and/or knowledge gap.
For example, enhancing quality standards or implementing a new customer service approach.

5. When Your Employees Have to Meet New Compliance Regulations

Along with globalization, competition and increasing demands for organisations to operate with transparency and good governance comes more and more regulation.
New legislation or policies demand training for employees so that they can comply with the standards and businesses does not risk falling foul of the law that might bring sanctions and financial penalties.

This is not an exhaustive list and other signs that your workforce may need training & development include:-

Increase in Complaints
High Staff Turnover – recent
Dip in staff morale

Remember, it is the responsibility of the senior teams in organisations to be alert to changes in those factors – external and internal – that can impact on workforce effectiveness and to ensure robust procedures are in place to offer the necessary support and training in a sustainable and ongoing way.

For more information on how we can help in developing your training & development programmes contact the Leadership Team at grow@leadershipteam.info

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5 Tips To Make Your Apprenticeship Programme A Success

According to official figure published in the last two weeks the new apprenticeship levy is yet to increase the number of people being trained, and employers’ groups has said that the government had failed to act on mounting concerns about changes to the apprenticeship system.

However, whilst a lot of the concerns raised are valid it might be worth employers taking a step back to think about how you can get the best out of your apprenticeship programme.

To help you we have put together 5 tips for running a successful apprenticeship programme:

1. Set the tone at the top – the senior team needs to believe in it or else there is small chance of success. Similarly the organisation as a whole needs to buy in and accept that apprentices are an integral and valuable part of the business.

2. Get your recruitment right – It is essential that anyone involved in apprentice selection understands the apprenticeship scheme, knows the type of candidate and the qualities and competencies they are looking for, uses clear job descriptions to make good objective hires.

3. Get a strong training framework – Once you have recruited the apprentice the next important consideration is who and how they will receive the training to support the Apprenticeship. Remember, employers who pay the levy have the power to ensure that they receive the right service from the training provider (private, college or university) that they choose to provide the delivery of the education and learning part of the apprenticeship programme. Strong liaison between the employer and the training provider is absolutely critical.

4. Give apprenticeships opportunity – there is nothing worse for an apprentice to feel that they are just a number, or worse an inconvenience. Like all of us they need to feel valued and encouraged to develop their skills and use their training within the apprenticeship programme

5. Create a strong support system – This is of vital importance both for the organisation and the apprentice. Providing the right practical support and guidance to an apprentice will help ensure they settle in well, develop with your organisation and help contribute to the success of your business. Practical elements of support should include:

  • giving apprentices a clear outline of expectations and a safe supportive environment to learn and develop
  • encouraging them from the start to own and drive their programme targets and to seek regular feedback to self-assess their performance
  • up-skilling and developing line managers so they can coach their apprentice and act as a role model
  • putting a workplace learning mentor in place to further enhance the experience, adding and creating a proactive environment that builds on their eagerness, motivation and commitment.

In summary the above tips are some of the key considerations that employers should take into account when they are looking to develop apprenticeships that will deliver long term value for the business.

For more information contact The Leadership Team today.

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The Leadership Team are pleased to announce a partnership with Michael Page

The Leadership Team are pleased to announce a partnership with Michael Page Recruitment and Page Outsourcing.

PageGroup will be handling all of our client recruitment activities and we will be their outsourcing partner in Education.

PageGroup is a global leader in Professional services recruitment, specialising in over 25 core disciplines ranging from Marketing and Legal to Human Resource and Sales. Page Group recently launched its fourth global brand, Page Outsourcing which utilises the wide-scale presence and expertise of PageGroup and focuses both on supporting organisations experiencing transformational change, ranging from expansion, re-organisation and M&A’s (projects), and on organisations looking to simplify and streamline their recruitment strategy.

The partnership means that we can assist with business development activities, non-levy and advanced learner loan contracts and with making the most of the opportunities presented by the apprenticeship levy.

Working together with Page Group will mean we have an unprecedented capacity to tackle any recruitment challenge you are faced with, not least the complexities which training providers, colleges and universities face.

David Kitchen, Managing Director of The Leadership Team commented: “We are really pleased to announce our partnership with Michael Page Recruitment and Page Outsourcing. The Leadership Team are now the outsourcing partner for Education with Page Outsourcing College, University and Training Provider clients. Likewise all of The Leadership Team’s recruitment activities will now be handled by the professionals at Michael Page Recruitment. We look forward to a fruitful partnership that will benefit both organisations.”

For more information contact us at grow@leadershipteam.info and someone will be in touch to discuss your Education recruitment needs with you.

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INFOGRAPHIC: Apprenticeship Levy Overspending

In our last blog update we explored the following area of concern: what happens if the levy pot is overspent?

To support that, we have produced this handy info-graphic so that you can clearly see some examples of how much the Apprenticeship Levy costs different businesses.

apprenticeship levy infographic

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What happens if the Apprenticeship Levy pot is overspent?

It is fair to say that there is still a lot of confusion among employers about the mechanics of the Apprenticeship Levy. One area of concern, and particularly relevant to smaller levy paying employers, is what happens if the levy pot is overspent?

For example, those who are only paying a marginal levy might not have enough funds in their ASA account to cover the cost of training and assessment for all the apprentices they want to take on.

Just to remind you: only companies with a payroll of over £3 million will pay in to the levy, so for example if your annual payroll is £5,000,000 then you will pay 0.5% of anything over £3,000,000 – £10,000 – into the levy pot.

So what’s happens if you don’t have enough in your levy pot, as your training requirements are far in excess of the £10,000 in the above example?

Well the answer is co-investment – and this occurs when a levy payer simply runs out of money in their digital account (the pot).

The employer will then be able to use the model that applies to non-levy payers, meaning the employer will have to pay 10% of the remaining training costs to the training provider while the government will then pay the remaining 90%.

Below are some examples of how much the levy costs for differing size businesses:

Employer A: 1,000 employees, each with a gross salary of £20,000

Annual pay bill: 1,000 x £20,000 = £20,000,000
Levy applied: 0.5% x £20,000,000 = £100,000
After allowance* (Employers get a £15,000 fixed annual allowance to offset against the Levy payment) applied: £100,000-£15,000 means £85,000 Levy payment

Employer B: 500 employees, each with a gross salary of £20,000

Annual pay bill: 500 x £20,000 = £10,000,000
Levy applied: 0.5% x £10,000,000 = £50,000
After allowance applied: £50,000 – £15,000 means £35,000 Levy payment

Employer C: 100 employees, each with a gross salary of £20,000

Annual pay bill: 100 x £20,000 = £2,000,000
Levy applied: 0.5% x £2,000,000 = £10,000
After allowance applied: £10,000 – £15,000 means £0 Levy payment

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Apprenticeship Levy: An Open Letter To CEO’s

Dear CEO,

A recent PWC article stated that there are four concerns that keep CEOs awake at night. They cited the concerns as, how to deal with globalisation and uncertainty; a lack of trust in their business or brand, the need to rethink the leadership model, and, tackling the talent challenge.

It is this final point I would like to draw your attention to as we all know that the competition for talent is getting fiercer and that skill shortages are a real hindrance to business growth.

You have a choice to either hire in new talent or look to develop your existing workforce. Of course, you may need to hire a specialist with skills and qualifications that you don’t have inhouse but very often our own staff have skills and expertise that is overlooked or, more importantly they have the potential to develop if given the appropriate training and development.

That training and development can be supported and enhanced by taking advantage of the Apprenticeship Levy. However, of the estimated 22,000 businesses that pay the levy, only half (50%) have actually set up the framework (nominal digital account). It could be that the information about the Levy is sitting in the intray of the FD or HRD but the clock is ticking.

Has your organisation set up it’s digital account? If not, perhaps take a look at our blog post on “What is the Apprenticeship Levy?”

Few employers understand the huge range of training this could offer nor the financial benefits of taking advantage of the Levy.It is clear that there have been issues getting the message out there to employers about the new apprenticeships and the opportunities to develop the whole of the workforce. Hopefully this letter will help you in making the right decisions around your workforce development.

Wishing you a successful remainder of 2018.

Yours,

The Leadership Team

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The Leadership Team goes live on Daltons Business and BusinessForSale.com

The North East based growth specialists, The Leadership Team are promoting their Merger & Acquisitions department through listings on two of the UK’s top sites for buying and selling websites – Daltons Business and BusinessForSale.com

The Leadership Team are growth specialists within the training and education sector whose mission is to help training providers plan, grow and sell their businesses and create value for the owners.

They have a specialist team of around 25 consultants who work with the training providers to help them be the best that they can be.

Check out the following links:

If you need more information or an informal chat with one of our specialists please get in touch via grow@leadershipteam.info.

 

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Case Study: Becoming An Employer Provider

At the Leadership Team we work with a variety of organisations to help them achieve their goals. Here is one example of an organisation that we offered support to in order to help them become an Employer Provider.

 

What challenge did the organisation pose?

The organisation wanted to become an Employer Provider.

What solutions did the Leadership Team provide?

  • We helped them in the process to become registered on the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers (RoATP), thus ensuring that they were eligible to deliver apprenticeship training.
  • We worked with the organisation and helped them put in place all of the training programmes.
  • We assisted them in putting together a Self Assessment Report (SAR) and Quality Improvement Plan (QIP).

What was the outcome of the service provided by the Leadership Team?

  • The organisation successfully obtained RoATP registration
  • The organisation is now able to deliver training as an Employer Provider.
  • All appropriate Quality Systems are now in place for the organisation.
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