Speen Helping Hospices Annual Christmas Market

For the past few years in the Buckinghamshire village of Speen, a Christmas Market is held. This annual Christmas Market is in aid of supporting local hospices.

This year they are supporting Florence Nightingale House, Helen and Douglas House, Iain Renniw Hospice at Home and The South Bucks Day Hospice.

It is being held at the King William IV pub in the centre of the village (Hampden Road, HP27 0RU) on Friday 14th November and Saturday 15th November between 11 am and 4 pm.

Gráinne Suter of jml training Consultancy is a member of the organising committee and is inviting people who are looking for Christmas Cards, gifts, jewellery and cakes to come along.

Admission is only £1 and whilst at the KW4 you can also have a Bucks Fizz breakfast and they are also serving food all day.

Local Estate and letting agents, The JNP Partnership who have been very busy this year celebrating their 20th anniversary are supporting this venture with flyers and event boards.

Put a note in your diary now for the 14th and 15th of November at the KW4 in Speen 

Leadership Training workshop from jml Training

Leadership – it’s not always easy!

Have you seen situations that could have been handled more effectively?

Confusing action with purpose is not uncommon in organisations when people become immersed in a flurry of activity. Unfortunately it can have a negative impact on organisational performance as patterns of inefficient leadership behaviour become repetitive.

 

Give your managers time to

·       reflect on how they are currently leading their teams and

·       consider how their habitual assumptions and practices currently effecting their ability to work in different ways can be challenged.

 

We offer a number of Leadership Development workshops that we recommend to you: 

Ø  Developing the Thoughtful Leader – building relationships, trust and engagement using emotional intelligence

Ø  The Art of Communication – inspiring and motivating high performance

Ø  Understanding Your Organisational Culture –helping or hindering effective leadership and performance

Ø  Leading Empowerment – growing leadership at all levels to increase agility and effectiveness

Ø  The Art of Teamwork – tapping the benefits of collaboration within and between teams to achieve results

Ø  Building Sustainable Change – lead and engage people with on-going change and innovation.

We would be delighted to talk to you about your organisation’s development requirements and to explore how components of these workshops could be developed in line with those needs.

Who we are

jml Training Consultancy was established in 1987. We provide bespoke training, development programmes, coaching and consultancy for clients in the UK and overseas. Our consultants are highly experienced, work in the public and private sectors and have facilitated workshops and seminars and delivered highly successful training in many countries.

What we offer

We are skilled in designing and implementing distinctive, innovative and effective professional development. We adopt a work-based learning approach tacking skills based training to service provision issues.

We create the conditions in which participants feel able to share experience and understandings in order to develop awareness and understanding of alternative approaches and develop practical, workable solutions to common business/organisational issues and problems.

We seek to develop critical thinking – to think differently about different and possible outcomes.

We focus on embedding learning in the workplace.

Our services

·       Facilitation of Team Building and Team Development Workshops

·       Leadership Development Programmes

o   Emerging Leadership

o   Enhanced Leadership for Senior Managers

o   Women In Leadership

o   Inclusive Leadership (Building a Diverse Workforce)

·      Delivery of a range of Skills Based Courses, for example Developing Emotional Intelligence

·       Coaching

·       Diagnostic Assessment Tools

·       Diversity and Inclusion

 

For further information about the range of services we provide please do have a look at our website www.jml-training.com or call us on 01494 488787.

 

If you know of anyone who might be interested in hearing about our services, please do forward our details.

New Diversity and Inclusion website launched by jml Training Consultancy

Following on from the launch of the re-designed jml Leadership Training Consultancy website earlier this month (See the jml training blog here) a brand new new specialist Diversity and Inclusion site has just been launched.
This brand new site covers Diversity and Inclusion training. A subject that is certainly not new to jml Training Consultancy.

The company has been offering  diversity and inclusion services since 1997 in the UK.

During that time in-house training courses have been produced for numerous clients including Housing Associations, Colleges and Universities, District and County Councils, National Government Departments, NHS Health Authorities and in the last couple of months HM Government Ministers, MPs, Members of the House of Lords and Members of the European Parliament.

Full Press Release is here

The new jml Diversity and Inclusion website has been designed at the training company wants to encourage organisations to take a more holistic approach to diversity, to see beyond the differences and concentrate much more on the process of inclusivity. To this end it has revamped its website to make this process easier to navigate.

Most organisations will have diversity and inclusion  issues and jml Diversity and Inclusion Training Consultancy is well equipped for training in this area . This ensures that this subject stays as a key organisational priority and does not get squeezed by other demands and requirements to one side.

Find out more about Diversity and Inclusion by visiting the new site here

  

jml Training have launched a new website

Back in 2004 jml Training Consultancy launched their first website.

This was based on a major part of jml Training Services output of Diversity and Equal Opportunities. The website was updated over the years to take into account the variety of in-house training products being offered by the company.

Today a brand new site has just been launched. This has been designed to make it even easier for clients to navigate and to arrange for their in-house training and development programmes for their employees.



To quote the press release that has gone out today -  "More importantly, jml Training Consultancy looked at the many business challenges organisations were facing. For example;

• developing the capabilities of teams to manage in a volatile environment

• developing the ability of managers to inspire, motivate and build the capacity of teams to deliver change

• improving internal communications, relationships and collaboration between teams

• developing more empowered work cultures, where leadership and team work was enabled at all levels,

In response they have designed a range of leadership programmes, courses and other services – a one-stop shop – designed to help organisations integrate the most appropriate elements of learning and development to address these challenges" See Press Release Here.

 

jml Training Consultancy has been providing training services for over seventeen years now and is run by Grainne Suter who has more than twenty five years delivering training.

 

For more information about the training services offered by jml Training Consultancy visit the Learning and Development Services page here After all There has never been a better time to invest in your organisation's future than investing in training now

Is there a momentum growing for greater gender equality in the workplace or do we need quotas?

Grainne Suter of jml Training Consultancy - Professional Trainer ♦ Executive Coach ♦ Facilitator ♦ Results-focused training and development that works. 

I have always believed that quotas were an insult to women and that women should be accepted on boards and in senior positions because of the skills, knowledge and experience they had to offer.

However, Chris Blackhurst’s article in The Independent 29 January 2014 has made me reflect on this again. I found some of it very disconcerting.  He suggests that in places where men gather, for example bars, football grounds and golf clubs true feelings about gender equality are expressed. These voices are far from supportive of women in corporate directorships, in fact commitment is only skin deep and many actions are lip service. He argues that quotas are unavoidable if targets are to be met as progress to date has been so slow.

Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, has also come to this same conclusion. 

“I grew up in a big international law firm that I love but the number of female partners was so low and had been so low for such a long time that I soon realised that unless we had at least targets, if not quotas, there was no way we were going to have numbers of females in the partnership” Now, says Ms Lagarde, she is, “pro-quotas, pro-targets.” 

Francis O’Grady the new boss of the TUC has also advocated the need for quotas and the EU has approved proposals to make large companies fill 40% of their non-executive board posts with women.

But before we move further down this road surely more effort needs to be focused on better childcare tax breaks for women returning to work, casting the net wider for female talent and companies investing in mentoring and development to help the women in their organisations rise to the top.

The IoD has appointed a senior consultant in diversity, as they continue to focus on gender equality in boardrooms. Let us see more appointments like this building networks and bringing women together to promote female participation in senior positions.

Whilst on the subject of equality, the gender pay gap is at 19.7% or 9.6% excluding part-time work. Women are still waiting for pay parity with men even in high-performance work places where there is greater emphasis on team working and functional flexibility.

An inclusive leadership approach pro-actively adopting best practice on equal pay, building an executive talent pipeline, tackling the organisational obstacles and, most importantly, challenging the institutional mindsets in both public and private sector may help us avoid the introduction of quotas.

Let us all work within our sphere of influence to encourage those we know  with clout, to show leadership and take steps to break this monoculture. Do it not only because it makes good business sense but because it’s the right thing to do.

Grainne Suter February 2014

Looking for Diversity and Inclusion training for your organisation?

Visit the specialist jml Diversity Training website here or email us at enquiries@jml-training.com  

 

 

Unemployment levels are falling so it is a good time to arrange more training for your organisation

UK unemployment rate drops to 7.1% is the headline on the BBC News website earlier. It is now close to the point at which the Bank of England has said it will consider raising interest rates.

According to the Office for National Statistics 

• The employment rate for those aged from 16 to 64 for September to November 2013 was 72.1%, up 0.5 percentage points from June to August 2013. There were 30.15 million people in employment aged 16 and over, up 280,000 from June to August 2013.
• The unemployment rate for September to November 2013 was 7.1% of the economically active population, down 0.5 percentage points from June to August 2013. There were 2.32 million unemployed people, down 167,000 from June to August 2013.

Commenting on this the CIPD issued a press release saying  the Labour Market Statistics released today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Mark Beatson, Chief Economist at CIPD, said: "We have recently seen unemployment start to fall quickly and forecasts being revised downwards but, even so, today's figures are a surprise with the headline unemployment rate falling from 7.4% to 7.1% in a single month. 

We should remember these figures are statistics with margins of error attached to them and this does not mean we should expect to see falls of this size every month.  Nevertheless, today's figures are consistent with the state of the labour market last autumn." 

Minister of State for Employment  Esther McVey MP told the BBC "Creating jobs and getting people into employment are central to our economic plan to build a stronger, more competitive economy, so it is very encouraging news that we've seen a record-breaking rise in employment over the last three months"

With more people being employed and workforces growing it is vitally important that work standards are maintained and productivity increases. One way of making sure this happens to arrange TRAINING for your staff. Whether it be a Leadership Training Development programme, one to one coaching or a specialist course on Equal Opportunities this is the time to arrange your organisation's training.

Training is very cost effective, you might think you are spending out a lot of more, but do remember the average company will be able to gain tax relief on their profits. For local Government, NHS divisions, Housing Associations, Colleges and Universities the staf are more efficient and more productive.

jml Training Consultancy has a great selection of training programmes. The advantage of going to a bespoke training company like jml Training Consultancy is that they make the training to suit the individual client's requirements. Training programmes are all in-house. Open courses are not held.

For more information visit www.jml-training.com  or www.jml-diversity-training-services.co.uk     

Forget the gym professional training will keep you ahead of the game in 2014

The February 14 edition of "The Negotiator" arrived in the post last Saturday.

The Headline "Fit for the Job? Forget the gym, professional training will keep you ahead of the game in 2014" caught my attention.

Moving swiftly inside the magazine I came across the article. Naturally being a lettings agent and estate agent's publication it is geared to that market however the objectives are the same no matter what business you are involved in.

The majority of topics covered apply to all - Professional Knowledge - Efficiency and Standards - Cost  Implications - Return on Investment - Greater Earning Potential - Competitive Edge and Quality Assurance.

If you are wanting to get more from your staff in 2014 and everyone needs to keep up standards and develop learning skills, or you are a member of an organisation that could do with more training, then this is the time to plan ahead.

jml Training Consultancy does not hold open courses, but designs bespoke in house courses for organisations. Courses can be a one off course, a series of courses or a complete development programme over many months.

Keys areas are Leadership, Coaching, Team Building, Diversity and Equality and International Training Services.

The company has been delivering training services since 1997 and during that time have provided training services for  Government Ministers, Government Departments, NHS Trusts, Housing Associations, Local Authorities, establishments in the University and College sector Corporations and smaller companies.

Size does not Count: It does not matter what size the organisation is, to stay ahead of the competitors or purely to achieve greater goals in the present workplace it is essential to keep training up to date and be fit for the job. Find out more about jml Training Consultancy Here 

New Diversity training site is launched

jml Training & Consultancy has just launched a specialist Diversity and Inclusion training site.

The company has been providing training in this specialist area since 1997 and offers in-house training courses for UK based organisations.

Over the past seventeen years diversity training programmes has been provided for Housing Associations, National Government Departments, Government Ministers, Local Councils and Authorities, NHS Departments and Private and Public companies and corporations.

The new jml Diversity Training Services  site contains a great deal of articles and information on Equal Opportunities, the Equality Act and other relevant topics.

If your organisation is thinking of running a course, the place to find out more information is http://www.jml-diversity-training-services.co.uk   

In support of middle managers

I read an article recently that rather unkindly referred to middle managers as the “muddle in the middle”. This got me thinking about how often middle managers get a bad press. I wonder if the “squeezed middle” might be a more appropriate description.  So, I write in defence of the middle manager.

They are required to communicate the organisational vision, frequently when this vision is not being clearly communicated from the top leadership.

The have to motivate tired employees, threatened by job insecurity from yet another organisational change, and this is no easy matter.

Securing cross-functional collaboration when resources are more and more constrained is a challenge they face on a daily basis.

But that’s not all they face! At times middle managers are also in the firing line from their staff. They are a readily available target when someone from “management” is needed to take the blame. Yet many employees are unaware of how frequently their managers shield them from poor leadership.

Middle managers are bridging the gap between executive managers and front-line managers, and at a time when they need to be developing and up-skilling they are not getting enough organisational attention.

Behavioural capabilities such as fostering co-operation, securing employee engagement and ensuring best practice are core aspects of a middle management role. They are also key requirements for organisations facing volatility, trying to negotiate change and seeking to encourage innovation.

The link between organisational capability and business performance has been made many times, there is no need for me to repeat it here. Developing the behavioural capability and empowering middle managers, who are able to respond and adapt to changing environments, will increase such organisational capability.

Yet learning and development opportunities have been curtailed in many organisations as part of cost cutting measures.  So, let’s support the middle managers, recognise their contribution to the bottom line, and invest in their development.

 

Find out more about jml Training's Leadership and Management Training Services Here

Heavy workloads, organisational change, long hours, doing more with less

These are factors that can lead to people feeling out of control and therefore stressed.

If the work pressure is building up within your team and reducing collaboration or even leading to conflict, maybe it’s a good time to intervene and help your employees reflect on the different ways that people respond to stress and how to build resilience.

MBTI is a particularly useful instrument when you wish to get a team to work together more effectively. It provides opportunity to reflect on differences and how they can be used constructively, rather than being a point of irritation or even conflict.

Fostering resilience in your team will increase confidence and team work and give your organisation a competitive edge.

Contact us here for more information.