News: Academy joins the Franklyn Scholar / Kaplan group in Australia

Working together to deliver more

It’s been quite a week! Last Friday we officially became part of the Franklyn Scholar / Kaplan group in Australia.

We are delighted for all sorts of reasons. For a start, the fit between the two groups is complementary. We offer training expertise that adds another dimension to Franklyn and vice versa. Ultimately this gives us more options, for our business and especially for our clients’ businesses, as the Australian vocational education market continues to evolve at pace.

My colleague, and original founder of academy, Michael Wolf probably said it best, “The synergies between our two firms are significant, and will ultimately deliver a profound return for the development of our students and clients.”

So what does this mean for our clients? At the moment, it’s very much business as usual. You continue to deal with academy, our brand stays the same, our team stays the same, and you get the same tailored training solutions for your business.

In the medium term, I’m sure there will be an evolution in what we offer – as your needs change and as the two companies integrate and explore new strengths.

If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to speak with any of us. For more information about Franklyn Scholar, please see the website.

Shiny, happy people

Happy people = Happy customers

Truly great customer service comes from within

Last week I wrote down this idea:

Exceptional customer service experiences start with providing exceptional employee experiences

I am by no means the first (or even the 50,000^th!) to think this. It was on my mind because many of our clients develop their employees via our customer contact training.

A good number of companies now realise that providing great customer experiences is how they will earn customer loyalty, so they vigorously pursue the service mantra. Commendably, this involves developing the skills and careers of their employees, as well as looking at brand and processes and everything else it takes to rock their customers’ worlds.

Now I know these same companies have employee engagement in their sights, but how do we, really, make sure we have engaged employees?

This week, HR Daily published this article on a new study looking at 900 Australian and New Zealand organisations, their levels of employee engagement and what sort of initiatives make the biggest difference.

The absolute MUST dos were:

• training and development programs (naturally I support this finding(!) and the report also said that organisations that do not invest in training and development were highly unlikely to have employee engagement scores of over 40 per cent);
• recognition programs;
• non-cash rewards and incentives;
• parental leave;
• time off for study; and
• flexible working arrangements.

These are all tangibles.  When all of the above is now an expectation, I think perhaps it is the intangibles that are starting to give companies an edge in terms of employee engagement and creating exceptional employee experiences.

After all, HR initiatives don’t have to be expensive… just a few that make a difference are:

• listening;
• aligning individual goals to the company vision, helping people to feel part of something big;
• when things go well, communicate to people how their role impacted the outcome;
• celebrate milestones and wins;
• consistent messages and constant communication.

There are many more. In some ways these cheaper ‘intangibles’ require a great deal more time and effort than some of the more expensive programs, but I firmly believe this is where great employee experiences are created.

Interview: Waste management veteran, Andy Thorp

Andy Thorp, Plant Manager of Technical Services - Liquid and Hazardous at Transpacific Industries

Challenges, learning and keeping a ‘family feel’ at work

Andy Thorp runs a business unit of Australia’s largest waste management company, Transpacific Industries, but aims to keep things as ‘family’ as possible.

With over twenty years in the industry, he has seen major developments – but knows that the strength of having respected and engaged employees never changes. Many of the plant’s employees have worked together for over a decade and, despite their often hard and dirty work, they thrive as a team. Andy even has his dog, Tippy, along for the ride sometimes, which helps add to the family feel.

We spoke with Andy about his career, the changes he has seen in waste management and how Transpacific Industries looks after the professional development of its people.

Can you tell me a little about your background? How did you choose your career in waste management?

I came into the industry quite cold really, just over twenty years ago. At the time, this was with a family owned and run company called Jennings Liquid Waste.

Things have changed a lot over that time. Jennings morphed through a number of acquisitions and we’ve been Transpacific Industries for about seven years now. I was acquired along with the company!

When I started, it was my first exposure to things like vacuum tankers and so on.

OH&S standards were not even remotely comparable to what they are now, and liquid waste management was a matter of all hands on deck. If there was a de-sludge to be done, we all just got in there and did it.

Now, of course, we have way higher safety standards. Way higher everything. We have become far more corporate… standard operating procedures, written task management, stringent safety standards, risk management and so on.

What exactly does your role entail?

Whatever needs to be done that day. I might do some HR stuff, industrial relations, OH&S, compliance, client liaison, or jump in a truck if needed. The variety is one of the most engaging things about my job.

What do you think are the biggest challenges for waste management at the moment?

There are many, but one of the biggest is compliance with stringent environmental requirements. We need to move to waste minimisation… away from the landfills. These requirements fall back on the industry, rather than the waste generators in many ways. We often have to come up with the solutions.

R&D is constant in the waste management industry. For example, waste packaging, in all its forms, which once would have gone into landfill, now goes back into the recycling program. Another example is the ability to recover heavy metals from liquid waste streams, reprocess them, and sell them back to the manufacturers who in turn re-use them.

The technology needs to be economically viable before it’s introduced. We can now treat waste from oil refineries, which used to just sit there. Our expertise, and what we can offer is growing every day.

Sometimes waste producers see us as a necessary evil… just something they need to deal with to reach compliance. However, when we work with clients who see us as a resource, we can truly help them deal with their issues. We can advise on how to minimise their waste in the first place, suggest better processes, maybe substitute a raw material for another… whatever it takes to minimise waste in an economically sensible way. We are very proactive in helping them be compliant.

Do you think the industry is set up to meet its challenges?

Absolutely. The industry is specialising and diversifying. For example, Transpacific Industries has so many, much-needed, special areas of expertise like medical waste, onsite waste management services at remote mining sites, even crossing over into manufacturing our own compactor trucks. So as the industry meets our clients’ waste challenges, we also become successful. It’s absolutely our business to find new and better ways to reduce waste – and help manage it in every way. We live by the Transpacific mission to recover, recycle and reuse.

What role do your people have in terms of waste management education?

That’s absolutely what they do. They are educators. They need to educate the waste generators in many cases. And it’s not just account managers… it’s the people in the trucks… everyone. The people in the trucks are frequently the first line of contact with many of our clients, so we equip them to help generators understand the process and what their compliance requirements are.

We train people to deal with this… of course they have all the appropriate tickets like dangerous goods licences and so on, also EPA courses on transporting waste; they know the codes of practice. The drivers sometimes assist customers to complete their paperwork correctly, and explain how and why we need to dispose of waste correctly.

What is Transpacific Industries’ approach to learning and development?

It’s given a great deal of importance. We have dedicated training departments both nationally and at the state level and they are very proactive. We are all updated regularly on regulatory issues, dangerous goods training, work safety and they are always promoting OH&S from the top down.

We are encouraged to add to this, to row our own boats, within the business units. There is reward and recognition for important milestones too, things like 2500+ injury free days in multiple yards are shared across the company and celebrated.

How do you encourage the L&D of employees? Do people want to learn?

People are very keen to update skills and keep learning. We have about 30 people in my current business unit, and the lines of communication are always open. We hold regular ‘toolboxes’ – chats about different topics. Everyone gets together and talks about areas of concern, news… everyone has direct input on their own job and their own work environment.

As you engender ownership of their roles in your people, the more involved they want to be. It’s like a big self-fulfilling prophecy. People like coming to work.

We try to assist the team with their aspirations and career development as much as possible. We help out with further education, assistance with pay and time, because our employees will benefit and so will we. If they want to update skills or learn new ones, we will absolutely benefit from their knowledge.  Some of our people are from overseas and are working to localise their skills.

What professional skill would you most like to learn?

I’m happy to witness and participate in such a dynamic changing industry. It just goes from strength to strength. It’s such a professional industry now. Some years ago there may have been a perception of some shonky operators, some cowboys.

Now it’s much more professional and can actually have a positive impact on the world, and I’m delighted to learn from this and participate.

I love contributing to the young people in the industry too, showing them there is a challenging and rewarding career path for them. Any career can be as interesting as you want it to be, but this one has so many possibilities and is so important.

I have learnt a lot from adding extra skills sets to my job. I am a member of the Transpacific Industries’ emergency response team too, so that adds another layer. Any time of the day or night we could be called to assist with anything from a spill to a train derailment or whatever.

Tippy sometimes goes for a ride

And how about recreational? What do you most want to learn outside of work?

Everything.

From maritime history to astronomy. Eclectic probably best covers my interest span.

I’ve always been involved in music, and am  developing my skills in singing and playing. I have an overriding passion for the high country, having grown up in the Snowy Mountains, and get up there whenever possible, whether in a canoe, on skis, or horse back.

I have a great interest in motorsport, and things of a general ‘go faster’ nature!

I’m also really enjoying watching my children become young adults.

Finally, what do you think your greatest strength as a manager is?

My ability to communicate from the shop floor to board level, as well as being genuinely interested in the welfare of those who work for me.

Definitely that I will do whatever needs to be done. I like mucking in, and I think it’s noted that I know what the team members all do, I can do it and I’m prepared to do it. I’m a hands-on working manager… it’s in my nature; I’m a farmer’s son.

Be a learning leader

The servant leader supports colleagues

This week’s lessons in humble leadership

I’ve come across two things this week that have caused me to stop and think about leadership and learning. Both made me think of leadership that is not afraid to take risks, fail, learn and support others… in other words, humble leaders.

Servant, or humble, leaders achieve by giving attention to the needs of their colleagues and those they serve. Servant leaders are often seen as stewards of their organisation’s resources. They most often have a participative management style with the highest priority to encourage, support and enable people to meet their full potential.

Life long learning according to Ghandi

The first ‘ah ha’ moment of my week came from the almost iconic example of a humble leader, Mahatma Gandhi. He said: ““Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”  Doesn’t that speak for itself?

How a fencing failure led to an Olympic career

The second thing that caused me to pause this week is a great story about a person who approaches situations in a slightly different (and often beautifully simple) way. He has made a big impact on others and has more-than-succeeded in his own endeavours.

Success in life, and leadership, is often viewed as a complex equation. This story tells us it doesn’t have to be this way. The writer wonders if Jim Wolfensohn (1956 Australian Olympian, President of the World Bank from 1995 to 2005 among other impressive CV notes!) is so successful because he approaches risk from a different angle to many of us. Instead of asking ‘Will I succeed?’, Jim’s thought processes seem to be more along the lines of ‘Is it worth the risk?’.

I am now asking myself, is it worth the risk to change the way I think about things and see if this works for me? An emphatic yes.

Please have a read of the article and let me know if it inspires you to think differently (and if it works!).

Ideas and how to get them out there

Powerful writing is more important than ever

Writing. It’s more important than ever. Even in my time in the business world, the proportion of communication done via the written word has shot up.

I’m ‘old school’ in my belief in face-to-face communication… negotiation, presentation skills, the ability to pitch an idea, sales skills and so on. These are priceless. But the digital world has upped the ante.

You need to be able to do all these things in writing as well, especially if you are a leader of a contact centre or sales team. Words, both written and spoken, carry your ideas. Words are your idea’s vehicle from A to B (and you may as well be using a sports car rather than an old clunker!).

I’m sure you are as ‘on to’ this as I am, but I thought it useful to think through some practical implications of this.

• If you haven’t already, provide templates for how your company is referred to in LinkedIn profiles, proposals and so on.
• Encourage your colleagues to develop their writing skills. Even a well-crafted email will help you, and your brand, stand out. Clear writing is a strong indication of clear thinking.
• At a bare (and I mean bare) minimum, use spell check!
• Consider business-writing courses through academy, where we can work with you to craft your ideas into compelling stories.
• If you have two equally qualified people up for a role in your company, hire the better writer. Whatever role they are up for, they will be more effective.

What else do you do to promote powerful business writing? Do you think it matters?

Training: When should you choose a RTO?

Not all RTOs are created equal

First, what is a RTO? (for those of you who don’t know)

A RTO is a registered training organisation, accredited to provide your people with nationally recognised qualifications… a qualification and skills they can take with them as they develop both professionally and personally. Because of this, a RTO can deliver a program that  is more than just a course; it is a career pathway.

Another big advantage of working with a RTO over a non-accredited training provider is that RTOs can often help you access Government funding for use training your people.

Given that academy is a RTO, you might assume I would say you should always choose to work with a RTO.  But that’s not the case.

Not many, but some, RTOs are very focused on the funding they can access on your behalf – and much less focused on your people. You might call these ‘tick and flick’ providers, companies that aren’t really doing it for the training.

My advice is always to find a training provider that fits your needs and values, a firm that will work with you to identify your skills gaps and really work on meeting your specific needs.

While RTOs have nationally-recognised courses and therefore a framework they need to follow, the best ones are flexible in how they present content and will work with you to tailor it for your company’s needs.

In short, you want to look for RTOs that:

• put people and training needs ahead of funding (but who can still help you access these in order to be cost efficient)
• work with you to understand the real issues you are training for
• customise content
• employ full-time trainers, committed people who know the course inside-out
• own their intellectual property, again showing a commitment to content

Training is a precious resource, for you and your teams. Like all precious resources it should be valued and enjoyed. It’s possible to get great training and funding if you partner with the right RTO.

If you have any questions at all about the difference between a RTO and a non-accredited training provider, please do get in touch. What do you look for when you are appointing a trainer?

Customer service as a profession: DuPont

Congratulations to the DuPont Customer Contact graduates

Eimer Boyle, learning and development consultant for DuPont in Australia and New Zealand, is clearly a woman who gets a great deal of satisfaction from her job. Her eyes light up as she talks about development – of people and their careers – and she describes DuPont as a company that really lives its values and ‘walks the talk’.

The company embraces learning and, with this philosophy behind her, Eimer knew she would have support from leadership to help shift DuPont customer service jobs to become customer service careers.  We spoke with Eimer after the recent graduation of DuPont’s customer service representatives from the academy Certificate IV in Customer Contact, a nationally recognised qualification.

How big is DuPont in Australia?

We have approximately 350 people in Australia and New Zealand.  We are mostly a sales and marketing organisation with offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland, with two small manufacturing plants in NSW and many employees working from home based offices.

Why the Customer Contact program?

Our customer service employees are often the first touch point our customers have with our company and the level of service they receive will determine their first impressions of our company.  We don’t have a call centre as such, we run what we call the Customer Service Centre of Excellence. In earlier days our customer service representatives were located with the direct business they supported but now we have the representative sitting together, supporting and learning from each other.

Sitting together in the centre of excellence helps us – and them – manage their professional development much better.   We can coordinate access to training more easily whether on the job, through others eg. buddy systems or in formal face-to-face workshops.

We were attracted by the fact that this program is nationally recognised and this provided participants the opportunity to understand the best practice behaviours and mindsets associated with a customer service professional.

This has helped us reposition customer service as a career option within DuPont and think about job roles, job progression and succession planning in a more structured formal way.

We now define customer service as a profession here, not just a job, and part of this journey is allowing our people the chance to earn a formal customer service qualification.   It is satisfying to know that when our employees achieve the qualification it is something they will always have on their resume and can be proud of.

In the last year, this team’s awareness of customer service, their place in the organisation, the contribution they make, has been significantly boosted.

What did you want the graduates to learn?

We wanted to raise the awareness of best practice behaviours and mindsets and then ask employees to benchmark themselves against these standards so they could see how they were doing ie. what were their key areas of strengths and where they could improve.  We also wanted them to get exposure to an external trainer who worked with many companies on a regular basis and bring these stories into our organisation so our employees could become less internally focused.

How did you choose a training provider?

We look for a values ‘fit’ when looking for partners to work with.  That is always very important to us.  A company that would understand the DuPont culture and be able to reflect that in the training.  academy matched our core values very well.

You also need to be feel confident with the specific trainer you choose as they are going to spend time with your people month after month. The trainer who delivered this course was outstanding – consistently enthusiastic, bubbly, professional and interested in our business.   She had hands-on customer experience herself and was able to bring her personal experience into her teaching.

What were your goals for the training?

We really wanted to build a stronger sense of team so our goal was to deepen the rapport participants had with each other, to communicate better, to support each other and to learn and model what a customer service professional looks, sounds and behaves like.

Due to our numbers we had two groups on the same day.  Every few months  we mixed the groups so participants had the chance to spend time with everyone on the team.  We also wanted to ensure the training related to the DuPont customers and so we customised the case studies to reflect our current challenges and reality.

We needed hands-on support and enthusiasm from our team leaders and we certainly had that.  In our culture managers meet with employees one-on-one every month.  We ensured that these interactions become opportunities to debrief and coach team members to support the learning focus of the month.  This kept the material alive before the next training session.

To be strategic about this our team leaders met with the trainer after each workshop, so they planned how to reinforce the course content throughout the one-on-one discussions and indeed on a daily basis when applicable.

How did you measure whether the goals were met?

We sat down with academy before we began and set some learning targets.  They related to our customer satisfaction survey score for 2011, behaviours we wanted to observe more regularly in the team, attendance levels at the training plus meeting deadlines for completion of assessments, journals and workshop exercises.  The trainer had a great system of tracking completion rates, we recorded attendance and our team leaders did observation checks monthly.  Our customer service satisfaction score will be due out later in the year….fingers crossed we meet our target!  I have full confidence we will.

What other factors were critical to success?

Without a doubt the key element has been strong and consistent support from our senior leaders.   Our managing director launched our opening session, and he was also the one who gave out the certificates at the graduation ceremony. We tracked the team’s progress in our internal newsletter too with a story and some photographs.

The customer services team’s buy in was paramount.  To their credit each and every one of them has been highly committed to the process and there was a great level of support to each other in getting assessments completed.

A key learning to me has been the wonderful job the team leaders have done through continual coaching and role modelling.  They were participants in the program as well as supporting their team members through it.  This ensured they were aware of what was being taught and also they got to see first hand how their people performed in the role plays etc to make their coaching more effective during the one-on-one discussions.

Due to the success of our first wave we are now running this program at our manufacturing plant at Riverstone plant.  We are taking what we learnt from this program in terms leadership support and team leader coaching and adapting some of our managing structures at that site to ensure similar success.

What did the team say about the course?

The ones who had been around for quite a long time said it enriched what they knew to date and thus helped them feel more professional. The newer employees gained new insights into communication, their own communication style, priority management and how to deal with difficult customers.

One employee said that “it is satisfying that DuPont has invested in a course which is externally recognised”.

What is the general approach to learning and development at DuPont?

It’s extremely supportive to employees’ personal development. In a company built on innovation there is a core recognition that people need to always develop and learn in order grow and remain competitive.  DuPont is a company to believe in and be proud of.  Our miracles of science have created many diverse inventions that have changed humanity.  Did you know for example that in the Apollo space suit 11 of the 13 layers were made of DuPont product?

Formally, DuPont development principles support the model where 70% of learning comes on the job, 20% comes through others and 10% is formal training/self study.   Since a lot of employees stay with the company a long time formal and informal mentoring, coaching and networking is commonplace to share the wisdom and knowledge that exists across our businesses and functions.

Our core mantra is that employees own their own career and thus drive their own development.  We can provide the opportunity but only they can take advantage of it.   So if you step up and contribute well, say what would help you and have a business case for it… it is normally yours.

5 things corporate trainers have in common with kindergarten teachers

Learning techniques

A guide to experiential learning for trainers, L&D and HR Managers

As adults, it is easy to slip into the feeling that you know what you are doing, you’ve done it before, it’s done in a certain way.

This makes sense. It comes from experience. But sometimes it is hugely valuable to look at something familiar through fresh eyes. Gaining a new perspective can give you new ideas, and reinforce the ideas that work.

So it is with teaching, or training. Sometimes us corporate types should look to other environments to see if there is something to learn.

Kindergarten teachers regularly use teaching techniques that many trainers – or indeed anyone leading or mentoring people – can remind themselves of.

Here’s my list of five things kindergarten teachers use to engage minds and encourage learning.

If you’re a trainer, challenge yourself to do more of these. If you manage learning and development for other people, check that the programs you deliver to staff are designed to be as experiential as possible (there’s some questions you should ask your RTO here and also at the end of the post).

1. Use visuals – Show and tell, anyone?

In the corporate world, make sure it is not all just graphs, not ClipArt in PowerPoint presentations, but truly engaging visuals.

For an excellent source of amazing Infographics to inspire you, check out the Infographic of the Day at Fast Company.

2. Mix it up – the same message in as many different formats as possible. Teachers guide children through a concept by using online resources, discussion, activities that demonstrate the idea, group work, painting, whatever opens minds (and different minds grasp an idea through different means).

At academy, we use case studies, business simulations, role-plays, debating, illustrative games and video, to name a few.

3. Make it fun – Wouldn’t you rather be playing than learning? It doesn’t matter how old you are, that sounds like a good use of your day! But playing leads to learning… and isn’t that a win, win.

4. Build stuff – There is nothing like getting hands on to encourage learning. Don’t just talk about it, do it, build it, experience it. Can you push your techniques even further to create a truly memorable learning experience?

5. Create routine – While the rest of these ideas make learning fun and surprising, you still need the grounding of routine for people to feel totally comfortable in their environment. Kindergarten teachers do this by having times of the day for certain things. Trainers need to outline schedule and expectations at the beginning of the program (or day, or both) and stick to it.

I don’t mean to be flippant. You know this stuff. But can you make even more of it? Please do feel free to add to the list. What else have you seen other types of teachers use that we should remind ourselves of?

Of course, corporate trainers use other techniques that are much better for ‘grown ups’ too. Great corporate training is highly customised – it relates to the changing business, industry, economy and marketplace.  Two students from the same firm doing the same course, but two years apart, will have a very different learning experience because of that contextualised customisation.

We call the academy experiential learning philosophy ‘3D learning’, as it challenges trainees in all dimensions. The take-out for L&D and HR managers is to make sure your training provider guides learning with techniques that engage all types of adult learners.

Questions to ask your training provider

To really get the most for your staff, make sure you ask these questions about your training:

1. Exactly what audio-visual resources will my staff experience in the program?

2. What games will they play and how will that add to their learning and workplace productivity?

3. How do you innovate and create truly experiential learning?

4. Are your trainers full time employees? (This means they know the program inside and out and can spend their time and energy tailoring it for your people.)

Learning at Virgin: An interview with Clint Scobie

Virgin Mobile's L&D Manager Clint Scobie

Around ten years ago, the iconic Virgin launched Virgin Mobile in Australia. Two months before that launch, Clint Scobie joined the company’s call centre and has been with them in a variety of roles ever since.

The Virgin veteran is now Learning & Development Manager, opting for a descriptive and slightly more traditional job title than many of his colleagues. (He tells me a colleague in recruitment is known as ‘Treasure Hunter’ on his business card and I once knew a Virgin Mobile ‘PR Princess’ and ‘Maestro of Fun’.)

Business cards aside, what keeps him there? And how does Clint manage learning and development in the fast-paced Virgin Mobile environment? We had a chat just before Christmas.

Can you tell me a little about your background?

I’ve been with Virgin Mobile the whole time it’s been in Australia. I joined two months before the launch as a customer service representative (CSR)… there was 50 of us at the time.

Before that I was an apprentice chef and with David Jones in customer service.

Why, or how, did you get into learning and development (L&D) as a career?

By accident. But a very lucky accident! I was asked to help train some of the new CSRs as they joined Virgin Mobile. I was in the first group of CSRs and ended up training the second group. I thoroughly enjoyed it and started to get a sense that this was what I wanted to do.

Twelve months later I was a trainer… I was a Training Officer for four or five years for call centre staff, then a L&D consultant for two years and I’ve now been an L&D Manager for around two years.

What exactly does that entail?

Well, it really means I do whatever I need to do at the time! I know that sounds a bit flip but that’s absolutely the Virgin culture. You do what needs to be done, whoever you are. We all do.

I just finished helping to organise the Christmas party for example… not traditionally an L&D job. But someone from the Marketing team floated the idea and I was up for it. It was great fun actually.

I do enjoy the fun bits and pieces at Virgin… bake offs, Christmas decoration competitions, the whole company culture.

A more functional ‘to do’ list would include conducting trainer needs analysis, helping people secure traineeships and sourcing external courses

What is your role at Virgin and the top priority?

I guess the top of the tops is to make sure the business training requirements are met. Or exceeded.

At the moment, we are going to the business and asking ‘what do you need?’.  Most managers know, some are not sure about gaps.

So we are also doing a very manual trainer needs analysis, looking at every single job description, matching skills, identifying gaps, making sure the people in jobs have the skills, finding courses or other ways to up skill them.

There are 300 job descriptions so it takes a little while.

Do you have any issues with buy in from the business?

At first, yes. But once people understand the big picture of what we are doing, they are encouraging and help as much as possible

How have the priorities changed as time goes on?

In the mobile world, everything changes all the time. So yes, the priorities change along with the business. The challenge is trying to forecast what those changes will be and anticipate them.  There are quite a few goalposts moving around at any one time!

We try to stay as flexible as possible, open to change and ready to adapt.

Personally, I am able to change, but it’s a struggle when a big project suddenly gets pulled because of new priorities. Nonetheless, that’s the nature of any technology-based consumer business.

I remember doing an exercise back when I first started about ‘what do you want a mobile to be?’. This was ten years ago and we dared to dream of colour screens! It was back when Nokia had just brought out a phone with one colour and we all thought it was wonderful. It’s hard to grasp the quantum leaps in function and features we’ve seen over that decade.

What is Virgin Mobile’s approach to learning and development?

Most importantly, you as a staff member have to want it. You need to be hungry to develop. Go out and get what you want, and it’s there for you.

What business outcomes does the organisation look for?

All the normal ones… improved performance. We measure to a point. In fact, ROI is a big focus for us this year.

How is learning and development different from human resources in general?

It’s a function of HR…, which after all, is all about people, and how to get the best for people and out of people. We have an HR team of nine and four of us are in L&D.

What kind of learning does Virgin Mobile use?

We match the best kind of learning to the situation, but there is a lot of face-to-face classroom style learning. We also use webinars. They are a necessity, as is all online options, as we now have offshore call centre staff in Manila and Fiji and we want them to be included in all learning opportunities too.

We also use coaching and mentoring for managers and senior executives where relevant and needed. We tend to source mentors internally… we have people here with diverse skill sets and backgrounds and they can be a wealth of knowledge for each other.

High performance, high potential people may sometimes have some outside coaching or mentoring.

How do you encourage the L&D of employees?

It’s built into the performance review system. Together a manager and employee devise a development plan and they have regular review discussions. It can be tracked and people can clearly see their own development, which is encouraging in itself. Success breeds success.

What do you do if someone is resistant?

I haven’t really come up against this. Most people are thrilled to learn. I guess if I did encounter it, I would try to understand why and explain the benefits of training.

What professional skill would you most like to learn?

I like to constantly develop in all areas. I keep an eye out for opportunities and I also get to sit in on a few courses to see how they would be for other employees.

At the moment I am doing the Frontline Management Certificate IV, which is hard work, but I am enjoying.

And how about recreational? What do you most want to learn outside of work?

Oh wow. Music I guess. I did the recorder as a child and I wish I had moved on to the saxophone and piano. Perhaps one day!

What do you do outside of work?

I love cooking. I was an apprentice chef and actually ended up hating it for years. But I have fallen in love with it again.