Resources

This topic is a collection of our favourite exercises. It has been designed for trainers requiring quick and easy access to a range of generic tools, suitable for any training session.

The changing nature of organisations and business environments, and the ongoing requirement for talent, means that organisations and individuals need to look to career management to handle uncertainty and plan effectively for the future. This topic looks at both the organisational and individual approach to career management.

Change management concerns the ways in which organisations alter their culture, strategy,values and organisational processes to better exploit the challenges presented by todays ever changing competitive environment. This topic examines the key models and techniques individuals and organisations can use to ensure the change process brings maximum benefit.

Coaching and mentoring are two forms of one-to-one paired support relationships aimed at facilitating personal development. Both promote self-reliance, self-confidence, self-awareness and learning for individuals, and mentors and coaches often benefit as much from the relationship as the individuals they support.

Effective interpersonal communication is a key business skill. It is used in many management activities and is vital for personal, team, departmental and organisational success. This topic covers the key aspects of effective interpersonal communication and offers practical advice on improving this vital business skill.

Communication is the lifeblood of an organisation, and an organisation's strategy will have little chance of success unless it is properly communicated. This topic covers the concept of organisational communication, with relation to the pace of change and the need to ensure that staff are receiving, understanding and responding to key organisational messages.

Being socially responsible is more important for organisations now than ever before. This topic covers the key aspects of CSR that today’s organisations have to consider: social responsibility; corporate governance; sustainability and ethical values.

Creativity and innovation are central to the growth and development of an organisation. This topic is designed to help organisations create a creativity culture, and ensure the right support in place to translate ideas into marketable innovations. It covers creativity management, creativity techniques, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Effective customer care is a foundation of good business practice. This topic helps organisations to understand who their customers are, deliver excellent customer service and resolve customer complaints and problems in a professional manner.

Encouraging and managing diversity is a key concern for today’s organisations. As well as being legally and ethically compliant, the diverse organisation is able to reflect and respond to the needs of a diverse marketplace, and develop its reputation as an employer and supplier of choice. This topic provides an insight into key diversity concepts, offers practical advice on diversity management, and gives examples of best practice.

Emotional Intelligence, sometimes referred to as EQ, concerns social intelligence, in particular the ability to understand and manage oneself and one's relationships with other people. This topic discusses how EQ can be used as a tool for measuring, understanding and developing individuals and organisations.

Facilitation is literally the practice of making things easier, improving process by providing an impartial, objective point of view. A facilitator can be someone who steps into a situation when the people involved have reached a stage when they cannot surmount the problems they face by themselves. However, they can also be someone who can move the process along from within the group.

Internal consulting is a strategic approach used by many organisations to improve efficiency, address problems and drive success. This topic considers the individual elements of the internal consulting cycle, from engaging the client, analysing needs and developing options, to evaluating final outcomes.

Knowledge Management is the most influential school of management thought and practice in today’s information economy. It involves creating value from an organisation's collective knowledge and information. This topic provides information on the concept of knowledge management and shows how organisations can manage knowledge effectively in order to achieve strategic aims.

The well-led organisation is one in which individual employees understand and buy into a shared vision for its future success. This topic offers practical advice on how to be an effective leader, namely by understanding key leadership concepts, cultivating a flexible leadership style, and perfecting the art of direction, motivation and delegation.

The need for organisations to invest wisely in truly effective learning and development initiatives is vital. Individual and organisational development is essential to stimulating an organisation’s growth. This comprehensive topic covers the theory of learning, the develoment of strategies and the various processes, tools and resources needed to design and deliver successful learning interventions.

Influencing others and negotiating successfully are key skills in business, and indeed in relationships with other people and communication in general. This topic delves deeper into the concepts of power, influence, successful negotiation and effective conflict management.

Partnerships and alliances have become a necessary, prominent and valuable feature within both the public and private sectors and at the interface between them. This topic follows the key features of the partnership working lifecycle, from the initiation phase to ending and evaluating success.

Performance management is the art of aligning individual performance with organisational objectives. This topic looks at how performance can be managed at both organisational and individual levels, and considers how to effectively tackle the issue of poor performance.

The ability to plan for the future and make well-informed decisions is vital to every organisation, large or small. This topic gives an in-depth view of strategic, business, project and scenario planning, and also looks at Business Continuity Management. There is a step-by-step approach to the decision-making process, from defining the decision through to implementing and communicating the decision, as well as information and tools to help solve problems encountered along the way.

Project management is a practical and common sense discipline designed to ensure the effective and successful completion of any project by planning, organising, directing and controlling. This topic looks at how to plan for, manage, implement and evaluate the success of projects, as well as how to recruit an effective project team.

In light of the contemporary war for talent, organisations must strive to find and retain talented people. This topic is designed to help organisations consider their approach to each stage of the recruitment cycle; recruitment methods, selection and assessment techniques and effective induction initatives.

Truly strategic HR functions will be established as business partners, providing an indispensable contribution to the organisation’s future through the effective management of human capital. This topic is designed to help organisations understand strategic human resource management and the evolution of the HR function. It also considers the key concepts of employee engagement, human capital management and HR planning.

Organisations need clear, robust yet flexible strategies to ensure success, growth and longevity. This topic looks at the three stages involved in developing a successful strategy: environmental analysis, formulation and selection of options, and the all important implementation.

The dynamic nature of business environments means that competition for skilled employees is fierce, and the cost of losing such valuable assets can have significant, adverse effects on an organisation both financially and in terms of production and performance. This topic is designed to encourage organisations to consider the talent management journey, from attracting and initial engagement of talented people, to retention strategies and effective approaches to succession planning.

Often the best way to achieve a task is by working with others, making the most of everyone’s skills and strengths and aiming towards a shared goal. Use the resources in this topic to help you create cohesive, motivated and high-performing teams in your organisation.

Work–life balance has real benefits for both an organisation and its employees. This topic looks at work-life balance from a strategic perspective, showing how organisational policies can have a positive impact on some of the most trying business management issues – attracting, recruiting and retaining talented workers and dealing with employee absence. It also explores work-life balance from a personal perspective, offering useful insights and advice on the practical elements of effective workload management.