Browse all articles across people aspects of regulation and people development within UK financial services
Like most of us, in the last couple of months you’ve probably been through the appraisal process. You know, that time when you sit down with your line manager and negotiate what rating you have achieved and then agree some goals for the coming year.
I read an article the other day that suggested that poor management was driving nearly half the UK workforce to seek a new job, citing the three main reasons as being getting better satisfaction elsewhere, getting better remuneration elsewhere, and that nearly a third felt their skills weren’t valued by their current employer.
You won’t have guessed this if you have trawled through any of these articles in my 108 years of contributing to this esteemed organ but I studied English at University (in the days when everything was black and white). It was great and I still love books, literature and colouring books.
We’re going through exciting times of change in the world of corporate learning. In early 2017, Josh Bersin, founder and principal at Bersin by Deloitte, predicted that “the $130 billion corporate learning market is about to be disrupted”, and we see that happening all around.
Sorry, that’s a very bad pun and a poor start. Which is important when you make presentations: get the start right and the rest should follow. (And get the end right. Then the middle bit looks after itself.
I heard a phrase the other day that stuck with me. Is your sales manager a coach, a mentor, or a tormentor? More importantly, as a sales manager yourself, do you regard yourself as a coach, mentor, or tormentor?
Match vigorously Becoming like them will lubricate communication. Listen and use their language and key words. Note how much emphasis is put on their words and use these yourself. Some coaches note down just the key words on paper to use later. Naturally you mirror their physiology, their energy, eye contact.
How to run a quiz to teach a subject Many trainers run quizzes or tests during their training courses or at the end to help capture learning and events. But have you ever run a quiz to actually teach something from scratch?
It is a tricky subject feedback; sometimes it is wanted, at other times it is not. Sometimes it is helpful, at other times not. Sometimes it needs to be caring and encouraging, whilst at other times a strong arm suffices.
One of the most powerful weapons (really, weapons?) that a manager has is the ability to give people positive and motivational feedback… stop sniggering, it’s true. Sadly, we are currently British and we, as Brits, don’t like that nice sort of thing. We prefer cynicism and satire and self-deprecation.
Times are changing and more and more firms seem to be adapting their T&C schemes to accommodate moving from the traditional live competency assessments where the assessor accompanies the adviser to a client meeting into assessing meetings where the assessor is absent from the meeting but the meeting is audio recorded, with the client’s agreement…
It’s always interesting, when you review action plans with delegates as they come back on a programme of courses, what they have done. It’s just sometimes nice when they have done anything but this year there is a theme running and it’s a good theme. Listening.
