Professional Development Learning programmes
Whatever the challenges you face, we can develop a learning programme that will transform your organisation and the way you develop your people. We know that successful organisations focus heavily on developing the capability of their people and ensuring they are actively engaged in driving the business forward. Learning professionals and business leaders are increasingly concerned with aligning learning to specific organisational goals, and ensuring the learning solutions they use create genuine business value. At QA, we are passionate about helping our clients to gain competitive advantage by working together to develop targeted learning solutions and strategies that really get to the heart of the challenges you face. Our experienced consultants help you to understand your business requirements, analyse and define the changes needed in your teams’ knowledge, skills and behaviour and build a learning and development solution that has measurable impact. We use a range of innovative methods to deliver and embed the learning, combining classroom training with techniques such as coaching or mentoring, eLearning, interactive workshops or online discussions. While Professional Development often delivers ‘softer’ skills, there’s nothing soft about our approach to learning evaluation. We make sure that all the outcomes of your learning are fully measurable, and your return on investment is clear.
I reviewed “the market and decided to partner with QA because they have the breadth of experience to support me to achieve my strategic objectives.
”
Kevin Crabtree HR and Learning Advisor Royal College of Physicians
You can read more about some of our exciting and effective programmes on the following pages, and find out how our learning programmes and consultancy can make a real difference to your organisation. Our learning programmes can help you: Get more value from your investment in learning Develop management and leadership capability Explore more innovative and flexible ways of delivering learning Update your learning processes and practices Create learning and development pathways Deliver large scale transformational learning programmes
0845 757 3888 |
[email protected] | www.qa.com
Our customer programmes These are just two of the innovative and exciting programmes we’ve delivered to a wide range of private and public sector customers. Business partnering programme for Unilever Unilever wanted to change the culture of its IT function with an innovative IT business partnering programme to support the change from a ‘deliver all’ function to one with a far more strategic and proactive focus. IT would become more business focused - building a strong relationship with the business and working with it to identify strategic opportunities.
Delivering new skills
time “EveryI meet someone from IT I am now enthused.
”
Senior business representative Unilever
QA created two modules for the programme. The first focused on the changing role of IT, the need to embed relationship skills and relevant personal development skills. Delivered to over 200 participants, this module was also rolled out across Asia/AMET (Africa, Middle East and Turkey) and the Americas. Module two combined relationship skills with professional IT consulting skills and is developed and delivered by a combination of learning partners, including QA. This has enabled Unilever teams to pre-empt, prompt and inspire the business to think of better ways of doing things. Relationship skills are improved to enable the participants to manage a conflict situation, for example managing a service disruption and having to say no to a senior business leader because the requirement is outside of the service level agreement. Modules one and two were adapted to create a blended learning solution comprising a combination of virtual sessions, eLearning and a three-day intensive classroom session. This successful programme has started to change the image of IT within Unilever enabling the business partners to have strategic conversations with business leaders.
Creating conflict resolution strategies for the Ministry of Defence Guard Service Defusing workplace grievances at source to ensure they don’t escalate into full-blown conflicts can be an uphill battle. QA’s intervention with a high-quality, highly effective strategy has helped the Ministry of Defence Guard Service (MGS). The MGS had identified an initial key training need for first line managers to help them manage low-level conflict amongst their staff. While the issues weren’t at a level requiring formal resolution, if not diffused early they had the potential to impact much more deeply in the organisation. The collaborative design and high-quality delivery partnership between QA and MGS learning and development professionals was the first of its kind. The collaboration of experience, ideas and constant feedback enabled us to design and deliver an innovative learning event aligned with MGS performance goals.
Practical communication skills Our solution provided practical refreshment of communication skills, with a focus on improving questioning, listening and intervention techniques. A large part of this was also about building confidence to effectively deal with issues at an informal level. We developed awareness of conflict management styles and resolution strategies. In scoping possible activities to meet the specified training objectives, we took into account all learning styles. The final solution included a workbook covering the knowledge elements and three one-day participative, facilitated workshops. The tools used helped people to view how different conflict-handling styles affect interpersonal and group dynamics and provided a practical way to initiate safe and appropriate dialogue to resolve conflict. We also used ‘forum theatre’ as an engaging, entertaining, energising and educational approach that enabled the managers to see, experience and influence possible outcomes from different scenarios. Small workshop numbers meant that each learner had enough time and opportunity to practise their skills, receive very specific and effective feedback and develop individual action plans.
There has been a marked “improvement in two-way communications and positive engagement. QA has realised instant and quantifiable savings and excellent ROI for us and the success of the course has generated interest from across the wider MOD.
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Sarah Cook, L&D Manager, MOD Guard Service
You’re in experienced hands
Our team of learning consultants and trainers has many years experience developing and delivering learning programmes. At QA we have a dedicated team of learning consultants who work with our customers to find the right solution to their business challenges. With experience working in both private and public sector organisations, they have an understanding of a wide range of learning techniques under their belt. They’ve developed learning programmes for companies including Unilever, British Airways and the Ministry of Defence and their experience ranges from complex programmes lasting several years, to short, sharp interventions affecting just a small group of people.
Learning consultancy We are working with a large academic organisation to develop their organisational development strategy. This involves working with the HR department to review all core HR practices, activities and projects and to structure these to deliver increased performance. Through engagement with key HR and business stakeholders we will review people management practices and the supporting management development programme. We are also working to understand the longer-term capability needs of the organisation and align learning activity to those needs, so the business has greater confidence that individuals have the necessary skills and capabilities to support the organisation’s longer term goals.
Liz Timoney-White Learning Programme Director
Liz excels in creating innovative management development programmes. She’s an expert in learning and development strategy, personal and career development and change management. She developed and delivered a transformational leadership programme to identify, inspire and upskill the leaders of the future, resulting in 60% of the cohort transferring to leadership posts within the next two years and significant cost savings. Liz also works with L&D teams to make competencies tangible to employees who can then self-assess and assess others. She delivered programmes to align culture and people in initiatives with international businesses around becoming ‘world class’ or adopting a ‘partnering’ approach to strategic suppliers.
Samantha Mather Strategic Consultant – Organisational Development
Sam is a highly qualified and experienced organisational development consultant with 20 years’ experience implementing solutions resulting in behavioural change. Her experience includes developing solutions to establish competency frameworks, supporting assessment of individual, team and organisational effectiveness and structural re-design. She has also designed and implemented assessment and development centres, provided training needs analysis and designed and developed leadership programmes. Recent programmes include supporting an organisation-wide retail performance initiative and creating effective and engaging learning interventions. The programme assisted in the influencing of key stake-holders to buy-in to more investment in learning and development for the whole business.
Siobhan Merrion Strategic Consultant – Organisational Development
Siobhan acts as a consultant in the design and delivery of complex, bespoke programmes which unite HR, OD and L&D initiatives: global strategic capability frameworks, talent management, succession planning, performance management and change management. She creates strategic interventions outlining organisational change programmes and initiatives, has been involved in the creation of eLearning material for blended learning solutions, delivers leading edge soft-skill events which drive the business vision and is responsible for developing and delivering engaging, creative and challenging, management and leadership development programmes. Siobhan is seen as an expert in her field and clients work with her as a ‘trusted advisor’.
Siobhan has really exceeded my expectations with the “programme design and delivery, the whole programme has a feel of quality and inspiration about it. A significant side benefit in working alongside Siobhan has meant she has been providing coaching to improve our own internal facilitation skills that have had impact not only on our ability to roll out the programme itself, but also impacted on other topics we deliver, creating a new style of delivery to engage learners better on multiple topics.
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David Farrell | Training & Development Leader Cummins Turbo Technologies
Management and leadership Kate Greaves Strategic Consultant – Leadership Development
Kate has experience of supporting organisational teams through change in both the private and public sector. She’s helped our customers develop business partnering capability for major cultural change programmes, and a major leadership development programme. She achieves behavioural change through team and individual coaching and the development and delivery of formal programmes and facilitated events. Her experience includes developing business partnering competencies for a global team of senior IT professionals using blended learning techniques, whilst working in partnership with other training providers to construct and deliver a cohesive development programme. Kate founded the very successful Henley Alumni Special Interest Group Leadership of Organisational Change.
We are working with a global manufacturing company to deliver a modular learning programme for their current and future leaders. The programme is designed to build a leadership team which is ‘best-in-class’ through self-learning, insight and knowledge transfer into the workplace. A key goal was to create a performancebased culture through the delivery of robust management skills combined with commercial awareness and innovation. Delegates have attended eight modules, and capture their learning in a personal learning diary. The style of delivery is highly interactive and participative using a blended learning approach – it includes video, group work, business simulations and sharing of personal experiences. Participants have reported a significant uplift in skill and confidence and the client reported a 223% return on investment within four months.
Margie Jarvis Strategic Consultant – Leadership Development
Margie has extensive experience working within complex organisations focusing on leadership development, learning and development and organisational development. She has successfully worked with many organisations on transformational change programmes. She has designed, delivered and implemented development programmes to support organisational strategy. She has created bespoke development programmes for top leadership teams including facilitating executive coaching partnerships. Recent programmes include designing and implementing a leadership development programme that addressed areas including performance, people and financial management. The programme offered a variety of learning methods for managers working at different levels of the organisation and in a huge variety of fields.
Customer service and communication We are working with a software development company to make tangible improvements to customer satisfaction levels. Developing a people-focused solution that is linked to overall business goals, we designed courses for each audience so employees attended an event directly relevant to their role. The content is aligned carefully to their values, the initiative was branded and has been rolled out quickly to build momentum right across the business. The programme enables individuals to become aware of how pivotal their role is to the customer experience. They are able to share knowledge, recognise the talents they already have, and identify the skills they would need to develop to deliver even higher levels of customer service excellence. Just one month after the training, overall customer satisfaction showed visible improvements.
Business partnering Nova Ferguson Strategic Consultant – Leadership Development
Nova has extensive experience as a strategic learning and development consultant on key projects within both the private and public sectors in the UK and overseas. She’s run a company and managed teams in the private and public sector. She works with our customers to design and deliver broad based learning solutions including training, one-to-one coaching, eLearning and webinars. Her experience includes the national rollout of a change management programme for the public sector. She is currently working on the design and rollout of a programme integrating in-house training and trainers with QA’s expertise, including scoping and consultation with the OD manager and developing eLearning solutions.
We are working with a major telecommunications company to drive greater value from their supply relationships. They need the ability to manage partnership a positive, productive and progressive way. To minimise the amount of time that participants are out of the business, we developed a creative solution utilising an innovative range of methods including a blend of communications tools, theatre events and distance learning techniques. This quickly built an understanding of the behaviours that deliver positive partnering relationships and embed changes, delivering lasting results. The programme is ongoing but the feedback from the initial sessions has been extremely positive with delegates responding that it ‘was the best course they have ever been on!’
Margaret Joyce Strategic Consultant and Executive Coach
Margaret is an experienced executive coach with over 15 years’ experience working with CEOs, MDs and directors in a variety of organisations. With an outcome-focused approach, she is passionate about integrating coaching and developmental processes into business delivery for optimum individual and organisational performance. She has been involved in creating leadership coaching programmes for a range of international businesses and her experience also includes leadership and management development, and organisational change. She has developed programmes to support change management, performance management, succession planning and cultural change. Her background is in HR management, with over ten years’ in-house experience in blue-chip organisations.
0845 757 3888 |
[email protected] | www.qa.com
Why QA? Transforming performance through learning
QA provides the most complete range of training courses and learning services available in the UK. Our unrivalled range of training solutions helps people and organisations build their skills to gain real, lasting benefits. The sheer quality of what we do can be experienced at every level, from the professionalism and expertise of our people, through to our innovative solutions and services. We have a local presence within a nationwide infrastructure. As the largest provider of training in the UK, we benefit from a large community of consultants who have many years real-world experience in Professional Development. With training centres in prime city centre locations round the country from Bristol to Edinburgh and across London you can spend your budget on training, not expensive travel. Our pledge is that our highly engaging courses and learning programmes will make a real difference to each and every person in your organisation, helping to drive your business forward. With a 20 year track record of helping organisations across all business and public sectors, we are the training partner of choice for organisations such as British Airways, Unilever, Nationwide and Defra.
Let us show how you can be next.
Contact QA QA – the UK’s leading training company Rath House, 55-65 Uxbridge Road, Slough, SL1 1SG
0845 757 3888
[email protected] www.qa.com
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