Safe at Home - Part 2!

I talked on my last post (check out 'Safe at Home') about the value of making an effort to communicate more readily with the customers/client groups you are meant to be serving and thought this was a great example I saw at Canada Water recently.

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This was a ‘Meet the Manager’ day on the platform, with the station manager promoting the extensions that are due to take place in the London Overground when it moves to its full ‘orbital’ capacity.


Being on the platform rather than by the barriers where people are coming and going helped I think encourage people to take time to fire a question at the manager – if you have nothing better to do than read the Evening Standard why not? (or alternatively like me you could take photos of people. This is not some voyeuristic notion I make a habit of I should add!)

Some might also argue it is the only place to grab the staff to ask them questions about service, good or otherwise – no snow to report in the area this day, so the queries were not too pressing I think.


In saying this the lady in the photo was being run through how the new extension of the London Overground will work to take in the ‘Orbital’ format which will then take on areas such as Clapham Junction to the same lines as Honor Oak Park, Highbury and Islington, Whitechapel and beyond.


In the conversation I overheard (in a non-voyeuristic sort of way of course!) the manager ran her through the time lines for the extension, how the route works, possible journey times etc. A lot of is was broached with a lot of language such as ‘expected’ and ‘approximately’ (especially with the train times) but it was all pretty informative stuff for the passenger, who was able to get a vision of what their route would look like in the future.


It showed a willingness to engage, communicate and reassure the customer about the changes that are afoot. It also showed that this manager was taking a bit of pride in the info they were giving - though they might have been asked to do it, they were not giving a performance which made it seem forced.


The point is that it shows a little bit of pride in promoting the message and preparing people for changes ahead – sound familiar to anyone HR/L and D professionals out there?


‘That’s great – but it was only one person’ I hear the cynics at the back cry.


True - but it does show a mindset that is a bit more on the front foot in terms of promoting their message, not just to the passenger concerned in this instance but also to the others on the platform. You never know – one of those passengers might be motivated to write a blog post about it. Suddenly you find a third party is promoting the merits of the scheme for you.


As if that would happen – wait hang on…

You say it best when you say nothing at all

Miscommunication can occur in so many different ways, with so much of our communication being non verbal. Go to any casino in Vegas and you will see whole tables of people keeping a grip on their ‘tells’ and what they might give away. If you need an example of how it can go wrong on a day to day professional level, ask Jackie Orme how she feels after being quango’d.

Going back to the non verbal means of communication and looking at this from an L and D perspective, how is this addressed in webinars?


I say this as someone who has yet to experience one, so apologies in advance if it is just my ignorance shining through! My understanding is that it is delivered via a link online to multiple users, with the trainer /module leader providing instructions and feeding back as the webinar develops.


There was a recent article in HR Zone suggesting this might be the wave of the future – but how does it function in a way that works and allows for free flowing communication?


My understanding of delivering a training session was that elements of the session would require you to ‘think on your feet’, reacting to how the session develops in order to facilitate the learning of the group - and yourself in doing so.


Is this perhaps a naïve vision and how does your experience of webinars fit in with the perceptions mentioned above? Is it the case that moves in L and D towards more remote learning are inevitable, especially in light of these lean economic times?


Or perhaps, in the words of the Springsteen, we need a little more of that human touch?

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How talent should be managed?

I saw a recent visible example of how talent can be managed to its fullest for the benefit of an organisation and its aims. However due to its nature am worried it might seem totally irrelevant to readers but will reveal all at the end of this post- but stick with me, I think I have a point on this one!

The CIPD is, along with the rest of the industry seemingly, pushing the idea more and more. But what of those who feel disenfranchised from the process, those who are not considered the talent?

I think the keys are communication and equality. If the processes are publicised so all parties are aware of what is required and regulated so that there is a real feeling of partnership between management and staff, introducing it should be less problematic. However it seems as though recent evidence suggests that employers are finding the balance between the two difficult- as suggested from this recent article in People Management.



But surely there are more areas to consider when implementing such projects? Absolutely- here is some ideas from HR Zone of what to consider.

In the meantime, what was the organisation that was a shining example of talent management in action? Well the case in point shows how by aligning your strategic goals with everyday work practices, whilst at the same time investing in developing your ‘talent’ can have pretty exciting results. Apologies who have no interest in the subject area but I truly believe that this was an example of talent management in action- and here is a bit of background to how it came about.