Industrial and Commercial Training

Jill Harris Helmer

2002 Industrial and Commercial Training

doi: 10.1108/00197850210442430

Describes a set of tools and techniques that have been designed to assist leaders in communicating and managing the change that accompanies divestiture, acquisition and joint venture. It primarily focuses on a training program that consists of best practices and learnings from previous activities and literature, focused on: tips on managing your reaction to change; dealing with the impact of change on individuals; communicating the divestiture/acquisition/joint venture; working with survivors of the change; and protecting the business and employees in times of change. Also highlights some additional steps that have been taken to design tools that assist in understanding the impact that divestiture, acquisition and joint venture could have in the organization.

Betty Collis

2002 Industrial and Commercial Training

doi: 10.1108/00197850210442449

In response to the challenge to make learning more flexible while at the same time maintaining the positive qualities of classroom and campus-based settings, the TeleTOP Initiative at the University of Twente has grown from a faculty initiative to an internationally recognised Web-based learning support product and change method. TeleTOP as a product and the educational ideas motivating it are now being used in a number of company learning settings, particularly the Shell Learning Centre in The Netherlands. Gives an overview of the growth, results, and current status of the initiative as well as key educational and strategic principles that underlie its success.

Scot M. Duguay; Keith A. Korbut

2002 Industrial and Commercial Training

doi: 10.1108/00197850210442458

A well-designed and executed training program minimizes new employee "on-boarding" time and time-to-first-contribution. This paper presents considerations for the design of a two-phase training program for new employees - an initial program (addressing training requirements of a general group), and a detailed program (requiring skill mastery by individual functional area). A process involving frequent employee-leader reviews and employing the skills of peer coaches and mentors is proposed. The effectiveness of the training program can be more accurately assessed via a leadership team review of expected versus actual progress against the training program objectives. After initial cycles of this process at Solutia Inc., learnings and next steps have been identified.

W. David Rees; Christine Porter

2002 Industrial and Commercial Training

doi: 10.1108/00197850210442467

The various pressures that managers are under to accept ready‐made solutions to problems that they face are identified. However, if the causes of the problems are not carefully diagnosed in the first instance it can be a matter of luck whether the solutions work or are actually counter‐productive. Management training needs to include an emphasis on diagnostic techniques and to enable managers to look beyond departmental boundaries for both the causes of and solutions to problems. Managers also need to learn how to deploy the right mix of people to tackle problems and in so doing demonstrate to others the importance of a diagnostic and integrated approach to problem solving.

Liz Rider

2002 Industrial and Commercial Training

doi: 10.1108/00197850210442476

Introduces maximizing the benefits of coaching at a strategic level, rather than focusing purely on individual development, using The Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBSG) as an example. Highlights how many organisations are failing to capture the broad benefits of coaching by seeing it purely as an as individual development intervention. This is classified first generation coaching with limited organisational impact. Additional benefits can be realised when the organisational sponsor takes a "quality control" perspective, and seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of the coaching intervention. This is described as the second generation of coaching. Another, and extremely powerful, element, which is rarely tapped, is the coaches' learning. The third generation of coaching achieves the benefits of the first and second generation, but also harnesses and disseminates the learning the coach gains about the organization, to the benefit of the business and its people, thus realizing the maximum benefits of the coaching investment. Applies third generation coaching and describes working with RBSG and learning with them as they transform, utilizing coaching to its maximum benefit.