Notes and news

Citation

Pollitt, D. (2015), "Notes and news", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 47 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ICT-01-2015-0012

Notes and news

Article Type: editorial From: Industrial and Commercial Training, Volume 47, Issue 3

Balfour Beatty develops new apprenticeship standards

Balfour Beatty has developed ten new apprenticeship standards in an example of an employer linking the needs of an industry to raising the standard of skills in its sector.

The standards have been approved through the UK Government's Trailblazer initiative, which sees apprenticeships being developed by employers.

Skills minister Nick Boles said: “Through working with leading employers such as Balfour Beatty we have reached our target of creating two million apprentices since 2010. Two million is just the start. I want more employers to follow suit and start making apprentices a key part of their growth strategy.”

Sue Flavin, head of the Balfour Beatty Academy, which led the work to agree the new standards, said: “We recognize that the UK infrastructure industry needs to be able to compete in increasingly tough global markets. The only way we can do that is by up-skilling our workforce and ensuring that we replace valuable skills which will be lost when employees seek to retire from the industry by the recruitment of apprentices.”

“As a member of the 5 percent club we are committed to getting more apprentices and graduates into the workplace. These new apprenticeship standards mark a step change for apprentices joining our sector.”

“Working closely with my colleague, Tony Ellender, Balfour Beatty's emerging talent development manager, we have ensured that the professional institutions support these standards along with our clients and other industry employers.”

“Other construction companies, large and small, have joined the Balfour Beatty-led consortium to develop these standards and to recruit new apprentices from across the UK. Our aim is to launch these Trailblazer standards by September so new recruits can benefit from an apprenticeship and employment before the end of the year.”

“The next steps are for Balfour Beatty to work with the consortium of construction organizations, potential training providers, professional institutions and clients to agree the assessment and delivery criteria for the new apprenticeship standards as part of the Trailblazer scheme roll-out.”

Accor employees take professional challenge

Some 1,000 young employees of the Accor hotel group were able to show their skills in a “professions challenge” for people aged 18-25 working in bar service, cooking, table service or reception.

Around 25 countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and the Americas were represented in the regional and national heats. The 70 finalists were assessed by a jury of journalists, hotel employees and human-resource managers. The challenge is divided into two age categories, 19-22 year olds and 23-25 year olds. Each challenge consists of a role-play.

Evelyne Chabrot, senior vice-president for human resources, commented: “The professions challenge enables us to spotlight our young talent and showcase the flagship professions in our hotel business. Every year we recruit more than 3,200 receptionists, 350 barmen, 2,200 waiters and waitresses and almost 1,600 commis-chefs worldwide. This year's candidates demonstrated great creativity and precocious professionalism during the contests. We are very proud of these talents who represent the group's future.”

Pastry chef Pierre Hermé, who handed the winners their prizes, said: “Know-how is a heritage handed down by our predecessors which we have a duty to transmit to each generation. The Accor professions challenge is a great opportunity to share our expertise with young people from all over the world.”

Philip Addison, vice-president for human resources, Accor UK and Ireland, commented: “Young people are vital to Accor's success and the success of our industry. It is important that we inspire and engage our employees throughout their careers but it is crucial in the early stages. The professions challenge is an interactive way for them to experience different areas of the business and get them thinking about all the different career paths available to them within Accor and the industry.”

Accor has more than 3,600 hotels and 470,000 rooms in 92 countries. Its brands include Sofitel, Pullman, MGallery, Grand Mercure, Novotel, Suite Novotel, Mercure, Adagio, Ibis, Ibis Styles, Ibis budget and HotelF1.

Sew-Eurodrive steers toward new learning-management system

Sew-Eurodrive has developed a new system to train more than 16,000 employees worldwide.

The German provider of drive-automation equipment was confronted with the challenge of efficient knowledge management on a global scale. With products and services becoming increasingly complex, the company needed a learning-management system (LMS) that would enable the distribution of training content quickly and efficiently to all its employees.

Moreover, the firm wanted to provide targeted and personalized learning to its workforce at the moment of need. Because of its decentralized organization structure, it needed flexible learning that could be adapted to the specific needs of the different countries and to the preferences of individual employees.

“We were seeking a new solution to enable us to increase flexibility by providing various learning opportunities to our workforce, such as social and online learning. We also wanted to increase learning on-the-job as well as improve reporting. The goal was to establish lean processes for learning and development at a global level,” explained Sabine Kühnlein, project manager, learning-management systems at Sew-Eurodrive.

After an extensive evaluation process, which included approximately 400 criteria, eight solutions were shortlisted. NetDimensions was selected because it covered the highest number of functional criteria. The team at Sew-Eurodrive felt that it would be the best fit for the company culture.

“The coverage of our functional requirements, the fitting to our in-house information-technology systems and the ability to implement the system on the premises were all critical. Our LMS needs to interface to several other systems, like our core HR system and our authoring tool. The solution we chose is a flexible, multi-language one. It enables us to personalize the visual design and make the learning experience engaging for our users.”

Learning is an integral part of the talent-management process at Sew-Eurodrive. The company's goal is to encourage staff to learn more autonomously on a daily basis, with the support of line managers. Even though the focus is currently on learning and development, it is also critical that integrating the LMS with a complete enterprise talent-management solution is available to the company.

Dr Hilmar Döring, head of HR at Sew-Eurodrive, commented: “With the new system we create a way to multiply learning opportunities in the company, which is a major step on our way to truly becoming a learning organization.”

L’Oréal reaches out to male undergraduates

L’Oréal UK and Ireland has teamed up with the Target Jobs Undergraduate of the Year awards 2015 to launch the Male Undergraduate of the Year award.

The company has sponsored the award in a bid to raise its profile among male undergraduates and challenge the perceptions that they often have of working for a cosmetics giant.

The award winner will receive a ten-week summer internship with L’Oréal, including a week in Paris, and two days spent with senior managers of the company.

Negin Lankarani, L’Oréal UK and Ireland's graduate-recruitment manager, said that the sponsorship would help to attract male undergraduate talent, ensuring L’Oréal maintained a diverse workforce.

“Our internship program is a gateway to our graduate scheme, which is our pipeline of future leaders. We are always looking for creative, daring and driven young people – people who make it their mission to challenge the status quo and believe that nothing is impossible. L’Oréal has set itself the task of attracting one billion new consumers globally by 2020. In order to do this we need talent who understand digital, beauty and retail and have what it takes to help us reach this goal.”

The Undergraduate of the Year awards, now in their sixth year, attract thousands of entries from undergraduates studying at close to 150 universities. The awards involve a series of online tests and assessment centers.

Rolls-Royce cruises into virtual learning

Rolls-Royce is using a virtual approach to deliver learning and development to customer-service employees.

The program was developed to enable learning and development experts across the world to interact and learn from each other, to facilitate learning for both their internal and external customers.

A delivery approach was developed to combine live and recorded webinar sessions with action-learning sets, work-based projects, podcasts and other social-media tools. This combination reinforces learning and provides the opportunity for Rolls-Royce employees to tailor their program, depending on their specific learning and business needs.

“This has been a very exciting project,” said Joseph Grech, senior consultant at Watson Martin Partnership, which is collaborating with Rolls-Royce on the program. “It led us to rethink the way we deliver learning and development qualifications. As learning and development specialists we need to lead from the front and use the delivery methods that we know work best.”

“The collaboration with Rolls-Royce was a fantastic opportunity as the company embraced our values and ethos for adult-learning programs. We have implemented a global learning and development program that made use of the latest learning technologies and knowledge-sharing activities and I firmly believe this is imperative to the success of the project.”

Kingston Technologies finds out more about renewable energy

Kingston Technologies Group is among the business benefiting from a series of workshops designed to give advice on how to gain access to opportunities in the emerging renewable-energy sector in east Yorkshire.

The events provide businesses in Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire with advice on how to present their company, increase their opportunities, understand how buyers select suppliers and find ways to work more effectively together.

Delegates also have the chance to listen to expert speakers with first-hand experience of the renewables market to help to boost their knowledge in this sector.

The workshops are organized by the Green Port Growth Program (GPGP), which has been created to establish Hull and east Yorkshire as a center for renewable energy. The program is supported by the UK Government's Regional Growth Fund.

Kingston Technologies director Rod Walker said: “We are eager to access opportunities in the renewables sector and the series of workshops is very helpful. The first workshop has helped us to understand the routes available to market for highest growth and we are looking forward to attending future events.”

The workshop included guest speaker Fareita Udoh, utilities vendor database account manager at Achilles Information Ltd. Achilles creates and manages a global network of collaborative industry communities, enabling trading partners to share high-quality, structured, real-time data.

Fareita Udoh said: “The workshop I presented at was about understanding how buyers (utility companies) use our qualification system to shortlist suppliers for tender. We had 50 participants from 37 companies.”

“The people attending found it extremely useful to understand how buyers use our system and where they could potentially be missing out on business. I also received a number of inquiries from suppliers wishing to register, which shows that businesses are keen to make headway with gaining access to the renewables industry.”

Workshops just announced include: an introduction to ISO standards; offshore wind contract risk assessment and management; offshore wind health and safety; and introduction to the renewables sectors of biomass, geothermal, photovoltaic and solar photovoltaic.

Morrisons develops leaders of the future

Retail giant Morrisons has teamed up with Bradford University School of Management on a bespoke future-leaders program to fast-track talent to the top of the organization.

The degree aims to equip key members of the Morrisons team with the skills they will need to help to develop the business in the years to come.

Alison Rance, a general manager with the business, has completed the program. “This has been a fantastic opportunity to enhance my skills. Every aspect of the program has been really relevant to my role in Morrisons,” she enthused.

“We have been able to tackle and learn from real examples in our workplace and then understand how to implement the skills we have been taught. By getting to grips with practical applications it has helped to develop a real understanding and, most importantly, given me real confidence in my abilities.”

“Bradford University School of Management has really fired my ambitions and I have already signed up for the full MBA program. It has already given me an enhanced set of skills for my day-to-day role, but has also given me the knowledge and the confidence to operate at a much higher level. That has to be great for the future of Morrisons.”

Another student, Nigel Boyle, who is a general manager with one of the company's manufacturing divisions, said: “This is not about progressing my career, it is about me becoming better at doing my job. I wanted to really improve my performance and the school has delivered on that.”

“Bradford has made me more confident about tackling the big issues I face and has enabled me to make better decisions. Ultimately, I have been equipped with a broader business toolkit so I can overcome any challenges and deliver further business growth.”

The dean of Bradford University School of Management, Jon Reast, said: “This is another example of how the school is working with businesses to deliver the skills they need. By working with Morrisons to create a bespoke program we are ensuring it gets highly-skilled staff who are committed to the future of the company.”

“More importantly, we are helping to instil the innovative thinking Morrisons will need to maintain its place as one of the leading retailers in the UK in the years to come.”

Aston links into Jaguar Land Rover supply chains

More than 40 Aston University logistics undergraduates and postgraduates visited Jaguar Land Rover's Castle Bromwich manufacturing plant to witness the company's supply chains in action.

The visit enabled the students to meet managers from the material planning and logistics (MP&L) team as well hear from Aston graduates who work at the company.

Dr Aristides Matopoulos, lecturer in logistics and supply-chain management, said: “We are now in the third year of our partnership with JLR and we already see the benefits. It is not only the improved learning experience of our students but also the direct impact on their employability. In the last two years around a quarter of the graduates who joined JLR's MP&L team were from the Aston BSc in logistics course. Considering the level of competition for graduate jobs in JLR that is quite an achievement.”

Mark Capper, international plant group manager, said: “We have had very positive feedback from the students, with many showing their enthusiasm to work for JLR. This event has given students an insight into the working world of automotive logistics and the opportunity to meet teams to understand the diverse disciplines and career opportunities on offer.”

Clyde & Co. unifies training delivery to support growth

Clyde & Co. is standardizing and modernizing training delivery for its 1,500 lawyers across 40 international offices. The initiative will support the rapid growth of the company, which has more than doubled in size over the last ten years.

Clyde & Co. will use Saba Cloud, a talent-management system that focuses on the continuous learning, engagement and development of everyone in the network.

“Investing in our workforce is an essential element to help us to meet client needs,” said Chris White, chief information officer at Clyde & Co. “As the firm continues to grow, a unified approach across the network to training and development will help to provide a complete ‘Clyde & Co’ experience, regardless of where the staff member is based.”

Eight steps to spotting true talent in an organization

HR teams need to use and interpret data more effectively if they want to overcome management bias and spot who really has talent and potential in their organization.

“Organizations rightly want to identify which employees have the capability and potential to add real value in future, so they can nurture, engage and retain them,” said Debbie Hance, head of business psychology at talent-management software specialist Head Light. “But many HR teams find it difficult to articulate what they mean by “potential,” so it is often left to the opinions of managers or the views of an interview panel whether or not someone is deemed to be “talent.”

“The whole process is vulnerable to psychological bias and this could be holding back the progression of talent in today's organizations.”

Psychological studies have shown that managers, whether consciously or unconsciously, are inclined to see potential in others who look and sound like them, in terms of their background, education, gender and ethnicity. Debbie Hance argues that HR teams can make more informed decisions about talent if they use the right data from the right people.

“When 360-degree feedback is used in the talent-identification process, something very interesting happens,” said Debbie Hance. “If you examine the ratings that managers give their team members, you can create a rank order of the ‘talent’ in your organization. But then if you remove the manager ratings and focus on the other ratings for the same people – from their peers, customers and direct reports – it can completely change the rank order. A very different list of people could emerge as your talent.”

She added that HR teams can filter their 360-degree feedback data for the specific competencies or behaviors that they would like to see in their future leaders, such as strategic agility, emotional intelligence, commercial awareness, interpersonal skills and the ability to influence.

“Be specific about exactly what people in senior roles will need to do over the next three years; then, for each specific competency, think about who would have a valid opinion on that,” said Debbie Hance. “For example, an individual's peers may be well placed to assess that person's ability to think strategically; direct reports might be able to rate their emotional intelligence.”

“When you have decided on the best ‘assessors’ for each competency, you can filter your 360-degree feedback data to show those people's views of these specific areas of expertise. If you then rank people on this basis you will soon see who has the potential to succeed in the future.”

Debbie Hance explained that “bias may not be the only reason why a manager does not rate someone as having potential.” “A blind spot could exist where the manager simply does not see what everyone else sees in that person's performance or behavior. This might be an innocent mistake or it could be something more sinister. A manager may deliberately downplay someone's skills because they are good performers and they want to keep them. Equally, they may overplay someone's skills in order to move them out of their team.”

Debbie Hance recommends that, rather than removing line managers completely from the talent-identification process, a better way forward would be to amend their role.

“Rather than judging or rating people, line managers could engage in coaching-style conversations to help individuals to build on their strengths, understand their development needs, set objectives and improve their performance,” said Debbie Hance. “This more facilitative style could help people to process the feedback they have received and increase their impact.”

Her checklist for smarter talent identification is:

• define what you mean by potential;

• be clear on the specific behaviors, attributes and abilities that will be required in senior roles;

• use 360-degree feedback to assess people for these specific criteria;

• remove the manager ratings from your 360-degree feedback;

• be wary of bias creeping into any decisions on talent;

• introduce checks and balances into the process so you can minimize the impact of biases;

• involve third parties or trained facilitators in the quality checking and reviewing of your talent decisions; and

• enable line managers to undertake more facilitative, coaching-style conversations with their teams.