HRD 2006: Learning and Development Conference and Exhibition

HRD 2006: Learning and Development Conference and Exhibition

The annual Human Resource Development conference was organized by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) and held at Olympia in London, UK during April 2006.

The conference looks at how to encourage, support and build the skills of people to add value to organizations through a range of topics such as building leadership capability, coaching skills, managing change, high-performing teams,getting senior and line managers’ buy in and the latest trends in training.

Speakers included Sir Bob Geldof (“Achieving your goals”),Professor Robert Winston (“Making the most of the human mind”) and Professor Rob Goffee (“Why should anyone be lead by you?”).

One of the keys themes to come out of the event was the importance of front-line managers or “first level leaders”. A session on this topic was held by Andreas Priestland, a specialist in organizational learning and author, and Shelley Latham from Phones 4u Ltd.

This session aimed to show how major companies had gone about ensuring that frontline managers felt committed and involved through learning and development programs that enabled them to think strategically, use their initiative and perform effectively on a day-to-day basis.

Andreas Priestland explained how a program had been designed at BP starting with establishing an identity that showed the importance of this large group of line manager whose direct reports do not manage others. Many companies struggle to provide high-quality training that enables these managers to fulfill their potential.

Throughout BP, around 70-80 percent of employees reported to these managers who themselves often found it difficult to see how their individual decisions contributed to the performance of the corporation as a whole. It was decided that the initiative chosen to improve the quality of leadership throughout the organization should be a centrally funded, single, global operation. Without this there was the very real danger of the program falling victim to local budget cuts with some regions deciding they had different priorities.

To date, more than 8,000 people have engaged in the first-level leadership program, with more than 135 events held each year in six different languages. The program currently consists of the following components:

• Supervisory essentials. Delivered primarily through face-to-face sessions, this course focuses on the basics of management and offers the possibility to discuss relevant health and safety, environmental and social responsibility issues.

• Context and connections. A two-day session that covers BP’s overall business strategy and what it means to all parts of the organization globally.

• The leadership event. A four-day session that uses action learning and briefings from top BP executives to develop participants’communication, management and leadership skills.

• Peer partnerships. More experienced colleagues are paired with first level leaders as they progress through the program.

So far the initiative has been seen as a success. The performance of leaders who have been through the program is consistently ranked above those who have not taken part, both by their superiors and direct reports.

The theme of the importance of front line managers was taken up by Charles Jennings, Global Head of Learning at Reuters, during the session, “Encouraging manager buy-in to training”. This session was run under the premise that getting management buy-in is key to ensuring a learning and development culture where people really do make the difference. In any organization the best placed person to help is a manager as long as he or she has the skills to do so.

Many businesses are run with training as a part of what was coined the“conspiracy of convenience”:

• performance analysis is not done, or is done poorly;

• business managers ask for training;

• training managers deliver it;

• no-one measures it; and

• there is little or no business impact.

Giving responsibility to line managers who are responsible for their own budgets is a way of breaking this pattern, it was argued. Within Reuters all personal development plans now come out of regular performance reviews with 360-degree feedback.

The next Chartered Institute of Personnel Development conference will be held in April 2007 at the ExCeL Centre in London Docklands as it moves away from its traditional home at Olympia to a larger venue.

More information about the CIPD can be found at www.cipd.co.uk