Management Blog

Staff Training & Development Survey - Trends for 2010

Over the past twelve months much of the UK economy has been hit, to a greater or lesser degree, by the downturn of the global economy. Budgets have been slashed, people laid off and companies have had to re-appraise (cut back?) on their training plans. Like many other companies Call of the Wild has also had to carefully look at its business models and client base to see how we can come out of the recession as a leading player in the management training industry.

To this end, during the third quarter of 2009 the directors of Call of the Wild held a series of executive meetings to discuss budgeting for 2010 and to try and anticipate what effect the current worldwide financial crisis may have on the training and development plans of our clients. One of the outcomes of these meetings was to ask our clients directly what their plans, in terms of training, were for 2010.

We came up with a short customer survey which included four of the following questions. The responses are included after the question.

1.    Has the current recession had an impact on your learning and development budget for 2009?

78.7 % of respondents thought that the recession had a negative effect on L&D budgets

2.    Has the current recession had an impact on your learning and development budget for 2010?

60.5 % of respondents thought that the recession had a negative effect on L&D budgets

3.    What areas of learning and development will you be focusing on in 2010?

42% of respondents thought that leadership development should be the focus and 60% of respondents thought that team development should be the focus

4.    What areas of learning and development do you see as essential to focus on post-recession?

51.1% of respondents thought that leadership development should be the focus and 81.1% of respondents thought that team development should be the focus

5. Which delivery methods are you considering using in 2010?

63.6% of respondents said that they would be considering Workshop/Programme on site and 54.5% said they would consider E-learning.

The response rate was considerably higher than expected with 17.4% of those e-mailed replying. The results of the survey illustrated that the crisis has had indeed had an overall detrimental effect on L&D budgets for 2009 and 2010. However it was extremely encouraging to see that the large majority of respondents thought that the main areas of focus for L&D for 2010 and post recession should be Leadership and Team Development.

What is obvious is that our clients see that great leadership and teamwork is even more important in the current financial climate, where more needs to be done with less resource. It appears that they are using the current situation as an opportunity to think carefully about what areas of L&D are really important to their organisations.

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Call of the Wild Work with John Lewis

On September 24th 2009, John Lewis opened its second largest Shop outside Oxford Street London. The anticipation and buzz created by this event was palpable on the day as huge crowds from Cardiff and South Wales finally had the opportunity to get the John Lewis experience.

 As an organisation with its roots in South Wales, it was a real privilege for Call of the Wild to be asked to work with the Cardiff MD Liz Mihell and Training Manager Will Read to design and deliver an intervention as part of their leadership development strategy for the new shop.

 The brief given to Call of the Wild was very clear- create an environment in which the whole management group are able to come together, get to know themselves as individuals and as a team and help enable them to transfer this as smoothly as possible into the opening of the branch.

 The development of the intervention was done in close collaboration with the MD and Training Manager. It was essential that the message received was consistent with those of John Lewis.

 Given the quality and can-do attitude of the individuals involved it was possible to create a truly innovative intervention that took delegates and teams outside of their comfort zones resulting in a real and lasting learning experience.

 The process which took place over 6 days culminated in the entire management team working with the Cardiff Arms Park Male Voice Choir to learn and sing a traditional Welsh Hymn in a four part harmony to the partners on opening day-a real welcome to Wales!

To be a part of the transformation of a group of hugely talented individuals into a team that will deliver an outstanding retail experience to the people of Cardiff and South Wales was an extremely enjoyable experience for the Call of the Wild team.

 We welcome the confidence in Cardiff and Wales shown by John Lewis and wish the new shop every success in the future.

For more information on team building, leadership development and management training then visit our website

Call of the Wild Appointed by John Lewis Partnership

To coincide with the opening of John Lewis’ prestigious new store in Cardiff, Call of the Wild have been appointed to create and deliver a series of events and development interventions for the new management team. John Lewis are due to open their impressive new store in September 2009. It is due to form one of the anchor stores in the St. Davids 2 Shoping Centre in the heart of Cardiff City Centre

Call of the Wild have been appointed to create and deliver a series of events and development interventions for the new management team who are presently taking up their new positions prior to opening.The intervention will be delivered on an incremental basis with all levels of management working with the Call of the Wild team over a series of four experientially based learning events. Each event will focus on a clearly defined set of outcomes such as familiarisition with the management team and  also an introduction to and celebrationof the City of Cardiff and South West Wales.

The events will take pace in Cardiff, the SWALEC Stadium and the Team Working event will take place in Call of the Wild’s Training Centre. The centre itself sits in 70 acres within the Brecon Beacons National Park. The grounds also provide a truly inspirational “classroom” from which to run the experiential learning element of the programme.

Visit our website for more information on team building, management training and leadership development programmes

Remington Team Event Case Study

Focus: Team event to support a new product launch

Objectives: Call of the Wild were given the challenge to create an event that brought the launch team from Remington together in an environment that would inspire,challenge and allow them to celebrate the launch of a major new hair care product into the UK marketplace. From the outset the client stressed the need for an event location and programme that really provided the wow factor-Call of the Wild responded to the challenge by listening very carefully to the exact requirements of the Remington event team and then added value by facilitating a discussion which further explored and refined those requirements.

Delegate Number: 50

Venue: Call of the Wild found the perfect venue within an hours drive of the Remington headquarters in Staines, this 4 star country hotel with grounds provided a truly spectacular backdrop to the event and greatly added to the success of the product launch.

Date: September 2008

Visit our websitefor more information on this and other issues such as leadership, team building and developemnt and management training..

Swansea University MBA - Case Study

Focus: The behaviours of effective leadership

Objectives: to identify and develop the leadership capability of a cohort of senior managers

Delegate Number: 15-20 per group

Venue: Our Development Centre Brecon Beacons

Date: October 2008

Background

Call of the Wild’s relationship with Swansea University Business School has always been interesting one, so when we were given the task of developing a leadership programme for a group of senior managers which really challenged them to become the best leaders they could be, we set to the task right away.

We realised from an early stage that in order to engage this group we would need to create a solution which utilised our most senior facilitation team. with this in mind we created a programme that drew on the skills of our most experienced business coaches, expertise from the world of professional sport and a leadership master class from an associate who has managed and led a successful Everest expedition.

The Objectives

The primary objective was for each delegate to be able to recognise, and develop appropriate leadership behaviours and transfer these to the workplace. We achieved this by providing each delegate with the opportunity to increase their self awarness by the use of real. For more information visit our website.

Credit Suisse Corporate Event Case Study

Focus: A fun team corporate event to motivate and reward delegates from the Audit department of this Swiss Bank.

Objectives: To create an experience that would allow delegates to work and play together.

Delegate Number: 60

Venue: Our Development Centre Brecon Beacons | High class country Hotel

Date: July 2008

Background

Credit Suisse can call upon a long tradition and many years of experience in the banking business. It provides companies, institutional clients and high-net-worth private clients worldwide, as well as retail clients in Switzerland, with advisory services, comprehensive solutions, and innovative products. Credit Suisse is active in over 50 countries and employs more than 48,500 people from approximately 100 different nations.

Call of the Wild were asked to create a corporate event based in and around the spectacular scenery of the  Brecon Beacons National Park. Call of the Wild in consultation with the organisational team developed a two centre event designed to allow delegates to experience this wonderful part of the world, whilst enjoying the grand country house lifestyle.

The Objectives

From start to finish the event needed to live up to the expectations of a very demanding audience!

This was no simple task-from creating the right mix of activities sourcing the venues choosing the food and providing the entertainment the event needed to stress the value the organisation placed on the individuals. For more information visit our website

Barclays Bank Graduate Development Programme Case Study

Focus: Development of leadership skills for finance academy graduates

Objectives: to identify and develop key leadership behaviours and to transfer these to the workplace

Delegate Number: 15-20 per group

Venue: Our Development Centre Brecon Beacons | Barclays Head Office, Canary Wharf

Date: September 2008

Background

As a direct result of the success of other development inputs within Barclays, Call of the Wild were asked to design and deliver a leadership programme for the graduates from Barclays Finance Academy. The Objectives The primary objective was for each delegate to be able to recognise, and develop appropriateleadership behaviours and transfer these to the workplace. The Programme The programme was designed to take delegates outside of their normal comfort zones in a challenging, yet safe environment. Several developmental inputs are utilised

For more information on this programme visit our website

Case Study - Alstom Management Development Event with Call of the Wild

This is case study of a management development developed for Alstom by Call of the Wild Ltd. For more information about this programme visit the relevant web page

Case Study on TES Team Building Day with Call of the Wild

This is a video testimonial from one of our past customers - TES Aviaition Group. This demonstrates how effective Call of the Wild's training intervention can be if used in the appropriate way. This team development day was extremely successful and more information visit the relevant case study page on our website.

Case Study - Team Building Event

Company - Innogy

Event - Team Development

Group Size - 44

Venue - Gower Peninsula

For a company as large as Innogy - formerly National Power - regular meetings with colleagues from various departments can prove challenging. With this in mind customer services manager, Chris Legge brings together a number of employees each year to meet over a team-building weekend. Following last year's mountain based event in the Brecon Beacons, Innogy opted for Wales again, but, this time to take part in beach based challenges at Llangennith on the Gower peninsula.

"We had looked at holding the event on the west coast of Wales, but it was a little too far from Swindon where we're based," says Chris Legge.  "The Gower was just far enough away to be getting away from it all, but near enough for us to reach. We were looking for a relaxed, informal event so after some research on the web we saw the Gower could provde the right balance of activities, learning and fun."

Event organisers Call of the Wild, who helped with Innogy's event the previous year arranged the whole event from using accommodation in their private hotel  to the activities. In keeping with the informal feel of the event, the first evening's meal was a barbeque. Then it was straight into the activities the following morning.

"The group took part in challenges to help them win equipment to use in their hunt for buried treasure," explains Call of the Wild Director Mark Soanes. "Then the winning team was able to choose how to spend a leisure afternoon from a range of beach based activities such as coasteering, surfing, surf-kayaking or speed boating. But the loosing team got buried in the sand."

"The area and the activities met all our objectives to have a fun team building weekend  and would certainly come back again next year," said Chris Legge.