Is the current credit crunch forcing your organisation to slash training and development budgets? Zara Seager explores how our shorter, highly focused, high-impact 90-minute workout training sessions can help your organisation get out of the pits and back in the race in record time

If you’ve ever watched a Formula 1 race, or parts of it at least, you will have undoubtedly noticed the cars heading into the pit stops and then whizzing out again throughout the race. From what I’ve seen there are usually twenty mechanics at a pit stop who have just a few seconds to carry out any maintenance on their team’s car, such as refuelling, changing tyres, making adjustments and performing minor repairs with the aim of getting the car back into the race as quickly as possible. It’s short. It’s intense. It’s an efficient and very practical way of ensuring they have the best chance of success and winning the race.

Wouldn’t it be great if this type of service and maintenance could be offered to today’s organisations?  Of course, an organisation’s parts are much more complex because we are dealing with people. But there’s no reason why we couldn’t explore people’s strengths and development areas using a similar, short, sharp, high-impact formula. This is exactly the question that some of our clients have been asking us to provide. A formula that could identify which employees’ competencies are operating at peak performance, and which areas could do with being refreshed and updated. This would certainly go down well with employers who have to tighten their purse strings in the current credit crunch.

Funding for off-site training courses is often the first victim of budget cuts, because of the cost and timing implications. Although these one or two day events have their merits, when HR or management are feeling the pressure to cut costs, they don’t feel they can justify the expense of long off-site training programmes. Having said that they are still keen to explore other avenues and possibilities in the training arena, but just didn’t know what alternatives were available to them.

Yet, this is exactly the time when organisations should be reassessing its skills and resources, and actually considering what training and development will get them out of the pits and back into the race again.  Training needn’t be cut out altogether as there are shorter, high-impact, high-energy and cost-effective alternatives that will give an organisation and its people just the right boost to get it back on track.

ER Consultants’ dynamic 90-minute workout sessions offers just that. As with the Formula 1 pit stop team, these sessions offer practical tools to not only reenergize employees, but also offer just the right amount of training and development, which can help their organisation get back in the race within a very short time-frame.

So what do the 90-minute sessions actually involve?
Our short, sharp, focused 90-minute workout sessions are packed with practical tools, which are both fun and interactive that can be implemented immediately.  There are numerous sessions to choose from, including:
•    Change management
•    Conflict management
•    Delivering a presentation
•    Designing a presentation
•    Giving feedback
•    Improving communication skills
•    Influencing
•    Managing meetings
•    Mentoring
•    Setting objectives
•    Time management

Organisations can pick and mix these 90-minute sessions according to their individual requirements.  Some of our clients book a series of sessions over a half or a full day, whereas other clients have used these sessions to form part of a larger training event. Either way, they have been a huge hit with many of our clients because they are highly focused, exciting, innovative, high-energy sessions that are extremely engaging, and more importantly, both cost and time effective. Another huge benefit is that employees leave every session with practical and personally applicable tools that can be applied immediately in the workplace, helping the organisation get back into the race in record time. See case study below.

Popular sessions
One hugely popular session is ‘Delivering a Message with Impact’. We work with many individuals whose main aim is to take away some practical ideas, but don’t want to waste a complete day attending a course. We also run full day versions of this workshop, however reflecting on our client insights we created this 90-minute session, which has proved to be invaluable to them. This course is very popular, as a lot of our clients have told us that they find their anxieties and ultimately their nerves tend to kick in when they need to deliver a message with impact. I remember one client, in particular, who was extremely confident and charismatic speaking in groups and in one-to-one sessions, but as soon as the communication needed to be presented in a more formal format he froze.  This 90-minute session allowed him to pick up a few tips, which could be put into practice the next time he speaks to a group, and it really made a difference. This session gave him the tools and techniques to be able to get through the communication brief with impact, which was something he struggled to do before.

Another popular session is ‘Giving and Receiving Feedback’. In my experience, managers often find this topic challenging. In our 90-minute session we offer practical tools and outline the importance of feedback in terms of both giving it and actively seeking it to increase self-awareness as well as development.

Everyone who attends these 90-minute sessions always walks away with practical skills they can utilize in their workspace immediately. So even if the current conditions are forcing your organisation to slash training and development budgets, don’t completely miss this pit stop. Why not make a quicker pit stop with training alternatives like ER Consultants’ 90-minute workout sessions, which will hopefully get your organisation back on track.

Case Study
Trained in 90-Minutes

Several of ER Consultants’ clients have chosen to train and develop their staff through our 90-minute workout sessions. One of our clients, a European utility company, is a case in point. This organisation had already identified several areas where they felt employees at varying levels would benefit from some training. The problem they were facing was finding a way to deliver key messages to a broad audience in a cost, and time, effective way.

The solution was a series of our 90-minute training sessions, which we delivered on-site. We created the high-energy, high-impact events to cover areas such as how to run effective meetings, improving personal communication and time management.  The length and location of the training made it accessible to the majority of employees, which meant that a significant number of people were able to pick up useful tips, which they could quickly and easily apply at work. Feedback we received from the sessions showed that participants found these 90-minute sessions extremely useful, and were able to quickly absorb the useful tools and techniques demonstrated. The sessions were regarded as a huge success as staff found the tips both personally and practically applicable.



For more information contact:  Zara.seager@erconsultants.co.uk

© er consultants Topics Issue 3, 2008