Supporting Business Teams

Many of our clients find that they don’t have the resources to deliver all the work expected of them.  Ian is always ready to help his clients meet their business needs and get the job done.  These are just some of the projects in which he’s been involved.

Developing Business Proposals

Ian’s skills at ‘creating clarity from confusion’ and creating bespoke solutions are often used by his clients when they wish to develop clear and concise business proposals.  Ian has worked with a number of different teams to help them clarify their thoughts and then put together proposal documents for onward presentation to senior managers.

“Looks good Ian, thanks.  I like it a lot and it flows well.”
Project Manager

Writing Job Descriptions

Our client’s HR team was facing pressure from different parts of the business to clarify people’s roles and responsibilities so that decisions could be made about pay, grade and seniority.  Ian interviewed various job holders, along with their line managers to determine how each of these roles fitted together.  He then developed a series of easy to understand job descriptions, which clearly showed the requirements of each specific job.

Measuring The Effectiveness of Training

Our client wanted to introduce eLearning but wasn’t sure how it would be received by the workforce.  Ian worked as part of the project team who were testing eLearning within the business.  He developed a feedback questionnaire for each person who took place in the trial.  This helped to prove, contrary to what was currently thought within the organisation, that its field force regularly used computers at home, that their confidence in using PCs had dramatically increased as a result of the trial and that they not only liked the concept of eLearning but they would use it if it was introduced within the business. 

Ian also worked with one client to look at measuring the effectiveness of its training courses and to ensure that the right people attended the right courses.  Ian worked with the client to produce a set of proposals which ranged from changing the training course outlines that appeared on the client’s intranet (to make it clearer what each course contained) through to amending the course feedback sheets.

“I’m impressed to say the least with this document Ian, you have captured our discussions and ideas perfectly and it now gives us some food for thought about the recommendations and how to take this forward….Many thanks once again for your help and support with this important piece of work.”
Operations Manager

Ian helped the client to understand that the right questions weren’t being asked at the end of the training courses and that there was limited benefit from their current system.  Ian worked with the client to produce a new feedback mechanism which now gives the client results which can be used to determine the ongoing effectiveness of its training and which enables realistic comparisons to be made between individual courses.  

Ian also discovered that, although the training course outlines initially looked fit for purpose, there were numerous inconsistencies between them.  It also wasn’t clear what delegates would be able to do as a result of attending these courses and what the courses did and didn’t contain.  Ian developed a new format for these outlines.  He then worked through all the outlines, once they had been revised by the in-house trainers, removed any inconsistencies, and helped the business to develop clear progression routes through its training courses.

Amending Induction Handbooks

Our client’s induction handbook was rapidly going out of date due to changes, both in legislation and with the company’s business systems.  Ian took our client’s existing materials and, using his knowledge of their business, augmented by additional discussions where appropriate, amended the content of their induction handbook before returning it to the client’s marketing team for layout and design.

Conducting Job Interviews

Although not a recruitment specialist, Ian has also produced graduate recruitment exercises to help one of his clients select the most suitable candidates.  He has also used his significant interviewing experience to help clients select the right candidates when they’re looking for new team members.

Writing Scripts for Training DVDs

Our client was a successful video production company.  Due to its success, the company’s internal resources were being overstretched.  Having just been awarded a contract to produce an Induction DVD, the company realised that it didn’t have the resources to get the project started.  Knowing his background in writing training materials, Ian was asked to write the full script for the Induction DVD.  Both the video production company and the production company’s client were very happy with the result and the DVD was soon put into production.

Facilitating Meetings

Ian has also frequently been asked to use his training and communication skills to facilitate client meetings and to analyse the outputs from these sessions.  His non-confrontational, questioning approach helps him to discover and, where appropriate, challenge people’s opinions and to discover what they really think.

Editing Training Materials

Our client was about to launch a new training scheme.  Unfortunately, due to a breakdown in communication, the details of how the programme would be delivered hadn’t been quantified.  Ian was brought in at short notice and, working with a senior member of the client’s training team, quickly edited a separate training programme which Ian had previously produced for the company.  All the scheme materials were developed in only a few days.

“Many thanks for pulling this off in quick time.  Knew you could!”
Head of Training and Development

“Thanks Ian, your help with all this is much appreciated.
 I couldn’t have done it without you or your help.”
 People Development Co-ordinator
 

Copyright © 2011 
Ian Woodward 
DLD Solutions Ltd
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