Farscape Development — Reach Your Goals Faster

Innovation Through Collaboration Can Cut Costs

L&D departments can help to create powerful training and cut spending costs by innovation through collaboration, according to L&D professionals.

A recent seminar held by leadership training group Farscape Development, saw L&D professionals gather together and share recent experiences around challenges they are facing.

Sessions included career development workshops, experimenting with experiential learning tools and introducing theatre techniques into coaching.

Delegates agreed that one of the challenges facing them was in engaging potential leaders. Farscape told TJ that potential leaders want the opportunity to shape their own career and learning, in addition to feeling a key part of the business.

Coaching was also brought into a more personal context. Delegates moved away from some of the traditional, structured approaches to coaching and spent time understanding how to create coaching contracts with individuals based upon co-active listening and genuine curiosity.  These simple theatre techniques quickly create rapport which leads to far more effective coaching relationships - and thereby allowing a personal approach to developing high potentials.

The main challenge on the day though centred around budget and return on investment. With L&D budgets being squeezed, companies are being asked to do more with less, and Farscape\\\'s managing director, Ruth Moody believes a way to try and combat this is by creating innovation through collaboration.

\\\"We know it\\\'s tough for learning and development professionals,\\\" she said.

\\\"Often they are juggling a large number of different priorities on a tight budget and it\\\'s easy for them to feel isolated.

\\\"Engaging the employees in your workplace and building up a close bond through experiential learning techniques can engage the workers more, leading them to delivering better business results in the long run.\\\"

Farscape's facilitator Deena Gornick talks on The Business Hub radio show about some of the pitfalls when presenting and gives some top tips for making presentations powerful and memorable.

Presenting is one of people's worst fears.  Yet anyone can learn to deliver powerful and memorable presentations with the right training and support.  Forget about the PowerPoint and think about how to get to the emotions and feelings of your audience.  Listen to Deena's interview to hear how you can make your presentations deliver the results that you need.

http://thebusinesshub.fm/the-business-hub-show-podcast-30-october-2011/  The interview starts 19 minutes into the show – you can forward the presentation to this time!

For further information, call 0117 370 1800 or email mailto:info@farscapedevelopment.co.uk

Making Learning Stick When you’re over budget and running out of ideas

With threats of a double-dip recession, employers are looking for innovative ways to develop their staff without it costing the earth.  With the grim reality that tough times are here to stay, even the most jaded businesses know that to keep their good staff and have any hope of weathering another storm - they can’t just baton down the hatches.  So how about looking at it from a different angle and identifying the creative, exciting and cost effective ways that learning can be kept lively and most importantly delivering the results that you need?

With reports from the CIPD that many organisations have put talent management and development back on their agenda, are businesses going through a box ticking exercise or are they genuinely interested in how they can reinvigorate their attempts to retain and attract key talent?  Because, let’s face it, the usual suspects just won’t work anymore.  All organisations need to demonstrate that they identify talent, that they offer a talent development programme and that they show career progression for their high flyers.  But what makes this different to what anyone else is doing? 

Ruth Moody, Managing Director of experiential learning and development company Farscape Development, comments “High potential employees are looking for more than the standard approach to talent development.  They want to feel genuinely excited about the opportunities that are on offer to them and emotionally engaged with the company they are working for.  Most importantly they need learning to be personal – to deliver development that is relevant to them, their life and their career progression”.

Some organisations are now moving towards the concept of open innovation. This is allowing the talent pool to get creative about what training they take part in.  However “this only works where clear guidelines are given about company objectives and required business results, otherwise there is a danger of the tail wagging the dog”, comments Ruth.

With more pressure on internal Learning and Development professionals in businesses to pull the rabbit out of the hat, what options are available to them when budgets are still tight?  Learning and Development experts Farscape Development and HR Consultancy Penna PLC have joined together with conference venue Cotswold Conference Centre to share some of their ideas and insights. In a free seminar on ‘Lively Learning’ on 7th November they will be tackling the problem of achieving memorable, high impact learning for less. One of the key attractions for the day will be motivational speaker and BBC TV Presenter, Ken Hames, talking about how to unlock talent.  And each delegate will be automatically entered into a raffle to win a new Amazon Kindle.

“The Lively Learning Seminar is all about raising Learning and Development professionals’ knowledge in this important area” says Farscape’s Ruth Moody.  “It’s going to be fast paced, fun, informative and packed with practical tools and techniques that people can take away and actually use in their businesses.” 

To book your place on the Lively Learning Seminar contact sam.rowley@penna.com or for further information about the event contact Catherine@farscapedevelopment.co.uk or you can follow @FarscapeDev , @PennaPLC and @KenHames  on Twitter.

Engaging and challenging development for your High Potentials

Lively, ambitious and needing a challenge – your High Potentials are looking for  imaginative and engaging learning that will quickly help them realise their full potential in your organisation. Learn directly from our experience and expertise in working with this tough audience.

You will receive:

• Ideas on how to make development engaging & sustainable
• Ways to retain your talent
• Free development tools
• The view from two leading L&D organisations
• Networking with L&D peer group across a range of organisations
• Access to Working Futures – an on-line career development tool

Three main sessions:
‘To be or not to be’ - The use of theatre in coaching and development
‘Beyond Boundaries’ - Making learning experiential
‘Owning and shaping your career’ - Career activism

Plus a motivational talk from Ken Hames

Ken is well known as a television presenter. When not presenting documentaries, his main focus is as a coach, trainer and motivational speaker in business. He combines over 25 years of military experience (including the SAS) with over 10 years training expertise,
which has seen him working alongside leaders in many organisations. Ken is driven by a passion to help people achieve extraordinary things.

Ken’s TV work is about people and their development. He has recently been on television in the third series of the acclaimed Beyond Boundaries (BBC2). This sees Ken leading a team of people with disabilities across the Andes and Amazon in Ecuador. Shown as a series of four one hour documentaries these expeditions have broken new ground as a
real example of inspirational leadership and teamwork.

The total number of participants per session will be approximately 20 in order to maximise your learning experience.

Places are free. For more information and to book your place, please contact sam.rowley@penna.com or catherine@farscapedevelopment.co.uk

Investors in People Scotland ‘practice what they preach’ and invest in key staff to save money

Investors in People Scotland ‘practice what they preach’ and invest in key staff to save money

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) over a third of all workers aim to leave their current employment once the recession has subsided and the job market has been re-ignited. This could leave UK organisations with a bill of £63 billion upwards to foot over the next year, unless they take immediate action to hold on to their talented employees.

Investors in People Scotland have proven the claim published on their website that they ‘practice what they preach’ by investing in two of their own people.

Phil Hendry and Gregor Megson; two of the organisation’s high potential employees, were sponsored by the company to take part in a recent Overseas Learning Experience run by Farscape Development which took place in the Kenyan bush.  Like many other forward thinking organisations, IIP Scotland are speculating to accumulate and investing in the valuable staff-members who they want to remain within the company.

The current generation of employees no longer considers a ‘job for life’ and instead pursue employers who offer them rewards in order to maintain their continuing interest.  As such, travel incentives, strong green credentials and flexible working hours can be an effective method of saving the business money, not only through reduced recruitment costs but also through increased engagement, better performance and retention of talented staff.

With the average cost for replacing staff estimated by the CIPD at £6,125, rising to £9,000 for senior managers, organisations should pre-empt any threat of an employee exodus by looking after their valued staff now, as IIP Scotland have demonstrated. The CIPD comment that “prevention is better than the cure so installing engaging total rewards solutions that offer employees aspirational incentives for achieving long-term goals could well prove to be the best strategy”.

Organisations like IIP Scotland are proving themselves to be ahead of the game. 

They pride themselves on their ability to increase employee involvement and focus and they have demonstrated their belief that making the most of talented people is the key to a successful organisation, by sending two employees on an Overseas Learning Experience which they considered ‘life-changing’ (Phil Hendry, IIP Scotland).

Innovative training such as this has become a popular method of talent development and retention and research indicates that now might be the right time to invest for businesses who want to save money and accelerate out of the recession.

The trip - run by Farscape Development - was designed specifically for employees with high potential and saw the group step outside their comfort zone in the Kenyan bush to undergo new challenges with a focus on developing new skills which would then transfer to the workplace, such as effective communication and team work.

The two employees commented:

‘Not long ago in my position at IIP Scotland I felt like I wasn’t being challenged enough. I began to feel restless […]. I had high expectations going into this trip and they were all met in a profound experience which provided me with exceptional personal and professional development’. Gregor Megson, IIP Scotland

‘I can really feel how much I’ve grown in confidence as a result of these experiences and it’s already having a positive impact on my work and personal life’.  Phil Hendry, IIP Scotland

Both employees returned to work with refreshed vigour and have applied their experiences on the programme to their jobs, with successful promotion in the case of one. IIP Scotland have already recognised the financial and business benefits of an investment programme of this kind.

For further information, call 0117 370 1800 or email mailto:info@farscapedevelopment.co.uk

Web-based learning in danger of replacing real learning

Web-based learning in danger of replacing real learning

As the trend for e-learning, webinars and podcasts continues to rise training could be in danger of losing its way if experience and reality are too frequently replaced with remote learning on the web. Ruth Moody, Managing Director of learning and development specialists Farscape Development, has commented: ‘to get powerful results learning needs to be attention grabbing and memorable; it can’t all be accomplished from behind a desk’.

Evidence indicates that e-learning is progressively becoming a more popular resource for providing training.

Recent research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has indicated that more than half of organisations (54%) use e-learning. The CIPD also found that during time spent training, e-learning is currently used to deliver up to 10% – and this is set to more than double.

Although Farscape recognises that there is a necessary place for e-learning as part of a blended programme, they believe that this kind of learning doesn’t work as a substitute for relevant and direct action. Experience tells them that web-based learning is more useful as a tool for reinforcing learning gained through experience. This belief is reflected in the way that they run their behavioural training programmes, as their ethos is based on experiential learning. They believe that learning through doing, followed by discussion and reflection, makes training more memorable and therefore more easily put into practice upon returning to work. 

Employers increasingly believe that a web-focused training programme is the best response to slashed training budgets and a generation of employees listening to pod-casts, responding to social media and using the web as their playground. However, evidence shows that young people are likely to be restless in their roles and no longer consider a job for life.  This new strain of ‘high potential employees’ are highly responsive to travel incentives, which can be a productive and cost-effective way to combine reward with training. Travel incentives appeal to employees because it offers them an incredible personal opportunity, but it also serves the interests of the employer because the participants return with highly developed professional skills, such as improved leadership ability and better communication.

Farscape Development has launched a series of learning ‘Experiences’ focusing on ‘keeping learning alive’ and delivering the results that businesses need. The programmes - in exciting locations such as Costa Rica, India and The Arctic - allow people to experiment with new behavioural practices in amazing and challenging locations.

A participant from a previous Farscape Overseas Experience to Namibia commented on the success of this experiential training programme, stating: ‘I learnt some valuable skills and I quickly saw the value and impact that these newfound skills created’ (Christine Bellenger, Allianz). 

Gregor Megson of IIP Scotland added: ‘I had high expectations going into this trip and they were all met in a profound experience’.

There is no question of the value that experiential learning presents to companies seeking to explore interesting ways to invest in and develop their people. Although there are many benefits to e-learning, unless used in combination with other training practices it fails to achieve the same standard of focused and lasting results.

For further information, call 0117 370 1800 or email info@farscapedevelopment.co.uk