Coming Soon: Your New Performance Suite

Effective performance management is the bedrock of good relations between managers and employees. Your organisation needs eLearning that can keep pace with the skills demanded from managers and workers alike.

That is why we’re launching our all-new, upgraded Performance eLearning suite. The new courses are already in production and will release between late 2020 and the middle of 2021.

Covering all the topics covered by the old Performance Management offering and more besides, the suite will mainly focus on skills-based short courses exploring each of the key areas of effective performance management. Brought completely up-to-date, our Performance online learning equips all users with the skills they need to thrive in the ever-changing working world.

Customer Service Skills

Treating your customers in the right way must be a top priority for any business. It can make or break an organisation’s reputation and directly affect the bottom line in a big way – customers will want to return again and again to a company that has gone above and beyond to exceed their expectations.

The Customer Service section of the new Performance suite includes courses on providing great customer service and its importance, identifying your customer and the 3 Cs of customer service.

Effective Communication Skills

Great client interaction. Smooth and productive internal relations with colleagues. Getting stakeholders onboard with your ideas. All of these vital aspects of working life share one skillset in common: communication.

In fact, communication skills run throughout everything we do, even if we are working on solo projects a lot of the time. They affect all job roles in all organisations. That’s why it’s vital your employees are properly trained. Communication is like any other skillset: it can be honed and improved with the right training.

The Effective Communication courses in the new Performance suite will cover key skills like active listening, effective writing, effective questioning and having difficult conversations at work.

Employee Relations

Companies that invest in the working relationships between managers and their staff reap the rewards in terms of a healthier culture, the ability to meet customers’ needs more effectively and happier staff, leading to lower turnover costs.

Better cooperation between employees and managers is particularly important when going through periods of change. In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when many organisations were forced to adopt a work from home model at speed, companies that had strong bonds internally were able to adapt better to the new normal.

Our Employee Relations courses explore managing change, grievances and flexible working.

Performance Management

The entire suite covers the key skills for performance management. There are also courses aimed at increasing managers’ competence and confidence with appraisals, objective setting, disciplinary matters, monitoring and improving performance, flexible working and work/life balance.

Our new Performance suite can help sharpen all the skills a manager needs to be at their most effective, whether they’re a new manager or experienced in senior roles.

Recruitment and Selection

Making the right hire at the right time can make a huge difference to the success of a business.

It isn’t always easy to conduct interviews that really get to the heart of a candidate’s experience, talents and aptitude for the role. Our Recruitment and Selection courses equip managers with knowledge in conducting interviews and recruiting the right person to ensure your organisation can power its future success.

We’ll keep you posted on all new course releases – watch this space! If you have any questions about the newly refreshed Performance Management suite, please contact your Client Relationship Manager or [email protected].

CPD Certified: All DeltaNet International Courses

Our teams work tirelessly to produce eLearning courses that add value for our customers. Every year, we launch and update dozens of courses to make sure our offering is comprehensive, relevant and valuable. We conduct thousands of conversations with our clients, new and long-standing alike, to make sure we are exceeding their expectations wherever we can.

Our commitment to creating training materials of the highest quality had previously been recognised as our Compliance courses have been CPD Certified for several years but we have recently added our Health and Safety, Performance Management and Take5 courses to our certification. Our eLearning suites were independently reviewed by the CPD Certification Service and were found to meet the exacting standards required.

CPD certification is recognised and respected across industries. It provides an independent measure of quality, giving organisations and learners alike the peace of mind that they are using tried and tested courses of the highest standards.

What Does a CPD Certification Mean for Us?

Ultimately, the CPD certification of our eLearning courses is your assurance of the quality of our courses.

We stand by the excellence of our courses – but you don’t have to just take our word for it! Our eLearning materials have reached all of the demanding benchmarks set out by the CPD Certification Service. This means our courses are consistently high quality and provide significant value to the organisations who invest in them.

Please get in touch if you would like to know more about our CPD certified courses.

How CPD Benefits Employers and Employees

Progression is the process of developing or moving gradually towards a more advanced state. This is true for both personal and professional life. On a personal level, we are constantly progressing in terms of gaining knowledge, such as learning new DIY skills around the house or experiencing a different culture while travelling.

At work, employees practice continued professional development (CPD) to become better at their jobs and contribute to the progression of the organisation they work for. How effective or fast that progression is, depends greatly on how often employers encourage employees to learn and engage in CPD. So how does CPD benefit you and your employees?

Keeping the Standards Up for Employers

Employers play a key role in CPD for employees. For high performing businesses, this means that learning and development is imbibed within your culture. Employers invest in learning and development programs, actively encouraging employees to reap the benefits of CPD. The benefits of CPD for employers include:

  • Ensures high standards throughout the organisation.
  • Contributes positively to an organisation’s growth and success.
  • Enables a culture of learning and promotes a healthy working relationship with employees.
  • Boosts employee productivity and helps build a more efficient and motivated workforce.
  • Improves employee retention as employees feel valued and loyal to the company.
  • Enables employers to embrace change and react to the shifts within your industry.

Learning and Development for Employees

Without CPD, employees may struggle to keep up with the ever-changing world of work. This is especially true if your business involves compliance, where regulations and official advice is constantly being added or updated. It is also a great way to keep employees engaged and passionate about their work.

The benefits of CPD for employees include:

  • Keeps qualifications up to date, helping learners gain relevant skills on the job.
  • Plugs any gaps in knowledge and enable employees to adapt to the fast-moving world.
  • Aids in improved productivity at work and the ability to learn and improve.
  • Enables employees to demonstrate ambition, aptitude and willingness to learn new skills.
  • Keeps employees focussed on the pathway to career progression, leading to job security and achieving success at work.

CPD is, therefore, beneficial and essential for both employers and employees. CPD goes beyond just learning and development. It is instrumental in building a happy and knowledgeable workforce with a great working relationship between employees and employers. Further channelling down to customers and prospects, it can enhance a business’s reputation among customers and clients as well as future employees.

Accredited eLearning from DeltaNet International

DeltaNet International’s eLearning courses are are all CPD Certified and can be purchased individually or as one great value package.

Visit our Compliance eLearning courses, Health and Safety courses and Performance Management courses.

Alternatively please contact us on 01509 643925 or [email protected]

Compliance: The Competitive Advantage you didn’t know you had!

For too long, compliance has been relegated to risk management. Now’s the time to think differently.

It’s true that for the majority of organisations, compliance with legislation is viewed as an exercise in risk mitigation. Sure, investing money in training and developing preventative processes is the best way to avoid expensive fines and protect your organisations’ reputation in the event of a compliance breach. But should this be the only motivation?

It’s more than likely you’ve already received emails and/or read news articles reporting on the punitive nature of the forthcoming GDPR legislation and its threat of hefty fines for non-compliance. This is a good example of the sort of thinking that positions compliance as no more than an expensive insurance policy… a necessary evil that takes up both time and budget.

Sadly, in many cases something has to go wrong before sufficient investment in compliance is forthcoming, and yet, by this time, the damage is usually done.

Revitalise your compliance efforts:

Yes, a good compliance programme will keep your internal and external auditors on side. It will also help to avoid expensive legislation and protect your reputation should the worst happen. However, have you considered the way compliance provides your organisation with a competitive advantage, allowing it to gain extra sales or increase revenues/profit margins?

Think about it, in an increasingly regulated world where evermore scrutiny is placed on supply chains and third parties, there is an opportunity to showcase your compliance efforts/achievements to achieve a competitive edge. In other words, compliance should be less about keeping your head ‘just above water’, and more a way of illustrating the value you place upon your company, its employees, and its customers. After all, being the organisation who is willing to go the extra mile to protect its customers could be a real selling point when it comes to securing new contracts or adjusting pricing structures – always good news for the C-suite.

Let’s look at a couple of examples:

It is not currently a legal requirement within the UK to monitor your supply chain for signs of modern slavery, but your organisation is probably required (under the UK Modern Slavery Act) to tell people what they are doing/not doing to combat modern slavery, i.e. you are required to publish a Modern Slavery Transparency Statement. To publicly state that ‘we are doing nothing’ tells the world that your organisation doesn’t care, or that it’s drastically out of touch with what’s going on in the business-world and society today. On the other hand, an organisation that can demonstrate how seriously it takes its moral and ethical responsibilities when it comes to preventing modern slavery, and also how much it has invested in ending the practice for the good of all people, has the advantage when it comes to pitching for new contracts.

We can apply the same logic to GDPR. Why not be proactive in reassuring your customers and clients how seriously you take the upcoming shift in legislation, and how you are preparing to protect their data in-line with the new laws? Rather than a chore, then, compliance can be a great reason to reiterate the trust between you and your customer-base and reassure them that your organisation is on the ball – over and above the competition.

Don’t forget, making room in the budget for compliance becomes much more achievable when senior management view the investment as it directly contributes to your bottom line through sales and profitability.

Positioning compliance as more than a box-ticking exercise, but instead as a strategic business partner (as well as risk mitigation) makes for a compelling case indeed.

Work Mates Behaving Badly? What you can do to Prevent Bad Behaviour in the Workplace

Any behaviour that makes someone feel intimidated or offended at work could be classed as bullying or harassment. However, due to the ill-defined nature of bullying (there is no legal definition for the term), it can often be the case that only extreme forms of workplace violence get reported (e.g. physical attacks, verbal abuse, and threats). Managers might even dismiss accusations of bullying and harassment as simple personality-clashes or someone’s robust management ‘style’, but this attitude severely undermines the damaging effects bullying and harassment can have on the workforce – even in organisations which have implemented anti-bullying policies.

Sadly, it appears that bullying is on the rise in Britain’s workplaces; Acas recently released a report stating they receive around 20,000 calls each year relating to bullying and harassment at work, with some callers even contemplating suicide and many reporting that the experience of being bullied has caused them to develop health issues such as anxiety and depression. Acas’ report also highlights areas where bullying seems to be more prevalent, e.g. for women working in male-dominated environments, LGBT workers, and for public sector and health-care workers.

Bullying is repeatedly named as a top-five workplace hazard in polls, which begs the question: why aren’t anti-bullying policies working? We know such policies are widespread in Britain’s workplaces – they are widely recommended by Acas both as an educational tool and as a deterrent for those who would commit workplace abuse – but it remains that simply having a policy isn’t enough.

It’s up to top level management to model and promote a culture of shared responsibility, one in which employees are empowered to report unacceptable behaviour, and feel safe in the knowledge that it will be swiftly and appropriately dealt with. It’s also important to outline what constitutes workplace bullying and harassment, to show examples (particularly of more subtle instances of bullying/harassment), and allow employees to explore bullying scenarios and grey-areas in a safe environment. After all, simply putting something in writing will not change peoples’ behaviour if they lack a full understanding of what it means and how it can affect the people we work with.

So, how can VinciWorks help?

We offer a number of eLearning courses that are designed to educate members of staff and help prevent abusive behaviour in the workplace. Useful as induction tools as well as refresher training for your employees, our courses employ a number of learning techniques and devices to ensure staff stay motivated, engaged, and retentive to the key learning objectives of each module.

What courses do you offer in this area?

Introduction to Equality and Diversity – familiarise your employees with equality and diversity principles, and encourage a fair, honest, and respectful workplace.

Manager’s Guide to Equality and Diversity – Lead by example with this course especially designed for managers. Learn about your responsibilities when it comes to equality and diversity legislation and how to implement principles of equality and diversity in your day-to-day working practices.

Violence and Aggression – Approved by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) this course focuses on nurturing a safe and happy work-place, and takes a closer look at how employees can avoid violence and aggression in the workplace and protect themselves should it occur.

Code of Conduct – Equip your employees with a common framework and set of values from which they can work. A code of conduct is a reference point for members of staff, it guides behaviour and helps explain away any grey-areas they may encounter during their time with the organisation.

Additionally, we offer a range of online compliance and health and safety training courses covering a variety of important topics. All our training is developed in collaboration with subject experts and accredited by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. To view the complete collection, please click here.

Why your business suffers when employees are too busy to take holidays

A recent study conducted by GoCompare.com found that nearly a fifth of workers would rather sell their holiday entitlement back to their employers than take a break. However, 68% of the respondents surveyed said that they valued time over money, and a study conducted by Oxford Economics last year concluded that well-rested employees boosted workplace productivity and morale significantly.

“Time away from work and proper rest are important, so working more and having fewer holidays is unlikely to be a long term recipe for success for most people,” said Ella Hastings from GoCompare.

Adam Sacks, president of the Tourism Economics division of Oxford Economics adds: “It is a misconception that employers are ahead of the game when workers don’t use the time they’ve earned. Leaving earned days on the table harms, not helps, employers by creating a less productive and less loyal employee.” Research conducted by Alertness Solutions backs him up: it found that a break from the office can result in an 80% increase in employee performance, with reaction times improving by 40%.

So it’s clearly in your interests for your employees to feel comfortable taking a well-deserved break, but, in a study carried out by TravelSupermarket.com, the pressure of work was cited as the main reason employees fail to take their annual leave entitlement. A further 9% reported feeling guilty that a colleague would have to take on extra work during their absence.

So what can you do to encourage your employees to take their full holiday entitlement?

Some employees feel stressed not because they are overworked, but because they have never developed good time management skills to help them cope. For example, employees may not know how to prioritise their tasks, how to minimise distractions, or how to delegate tasks to appropriate colleagues. If employers can help their teams to develop these essential skills, employees can manage their work more successfully and feel more confident about taking breaks and holidays – which in turn boosts long-term productivity.

Creating a clear plan for cover will allow employees time for a handover, and also provide fair warning for those who may need to pick up extra tasks for a week or two.

Ensuring that goals and deadlines are both reasonable and clearly communicated in good time will assuage fears of nasty surprises on the eve of a holiday – or upon return to the office.

Finally, maintaining a culture of wellness and communicating that employees are encouraged to recharge their batteries will encourage individuals to use their holiday entitlement.

Have traditional performance reviews had their day?

Have traditional performance reviews had their day?

This summer, consultancy firm Accenture joined Netflix, Microsoft, Adobe and Deloitte in ditching annual performance reviews. Does this spell the end for this cornerstone of traditional performance management?

A survey recently conducted by Deloitte found that 58% of executives questioned believe that their current performance management approach does not drive employee engagement or contribute to high performance – so clearly there is opportunity for improvement. According to Hannah Priest, behavioural psychologist at Mind Gym, the key to an effective performance management system isn’t the process you chose, but “in encouraging the right behaviours to build a high-performance culture.”

This means that whether you stick with annual performance reviews or consider some alternatives, the important element to ensure optimum levels of engagement and productivity is your approach.

Priest argues that the six conditions necessary for an effective performance management system are:

Purpose: conveying to employees that their work counts and is noticed.

Challenge: setting performance-enhancing goals that are aligned and achievable – but just out of reach.

Attention: communicating that performance is noted and appreciated. “Employees who think their manager always knows what they are up to and how they are doing are far more likely to feel appreciated and raise their game,” says Priest.

Growth: instilling a belief that goals can be achieved and performance can be improved.

Recognition: based on clear criteria and focussed on the employee.

Choice: ensuring that employees have a strong sense of their autonomy within the organisation, and are empowered to make choices that align with wider goals, but allow them to contribute according to their individual strengths.

Keep in touch

One approach now being adopted by many companies is an ongoing performance review process comprising of check-ins throughout the year, involving consistent feedback (and follow ups), goal-setting and self-reviews as opposed to the traditional once-a-year review.

“Basic psychology tells us that if you’re going to reinforce or punish some behaviour, you want to do it as soon after the behaviour happened as possible,” says Mark C. Frame, associate professor in the Middle Tennessee State University Department of Psychology. “Waiting a month is not a good idea and waiting a year is definitely not a good idea.”

This approach will also ensure that your rankings are kept up-to-date throughout the year, and will allow you to effectively deal with any performance-related issues as they arise.

Whichever approach is right for you, there’s no doubt that an effective and well thought out performance management system is essential to keep your organisation both streamlined and on track.

How can you help employees deal with the back-to-work blues?

How can you help employees deal with the back-to-work blues?

New research commissioned by MetLife Employee Benefits has found that 73% of employees will experience stress upon returning to the workplace after a break. Given that nearly 10 million working days a year are lost due to stress, this is cause for concern for employers.

“It seems a concern for many people is they worry about catching up with backlogs at work. Workplace stress is a major issue for employers and employees and it has a real impact on business performance,” said Tom Gaynor, Employee Benefits Director at MetLife UK.

Here are three simple measures you can take to combat back to work stress, and minimize disruption to your team’s productivity.

Be flexible
Nearly half of the respondents to a study conducted by NOW: Pensions cited early starts as the main reason for their back to work blues. Octavius Black, CEO of Mind Gym, suggests that employees should be encouraged to work to their natural rhythms. Those who are morning people should tackle big projects first thing; but for those who take a bit longer to get going, scheduling such work for later in the day is a more effective solution.

Be prepared
31 per cent of those polled by MetLife said that catching up with work backlogs is their main cause of back-to-work stress, so work with employees before their holiday to ensure they have appropriate cover and that deadlines upon their return are reasonable.

Daniel Callaghan of MBA & Co suggests that employees scan their emails the night before returning to work so that there are no nasty surprises awaiting them in the morning. Consider establishing the practice of a quick catch up call with a colleague the day before an employee’s return, to help them feel as though they’re hitting the ground running.

Be engaged
Of the 17% who were looking forward to going back to work, 40% said it’s because they like their job. A return from holiday could be a good opportunity to check in with an employee’s SMART goals to help renew their sense of purpose and direction. Though NOW: Pensions found that better pay would improve job satisfaction for 46% of the respondents, Pete Pedone, president and founder of home audio/video system design firm Interactive Home told Business News Daily: “Showing an employee how much the company appreciates, respects and values them on a personal level is much more gratifying.”

Further, a recent Gallup poll reported that people who smile and laugh at work are more engaged – so maintaining a positive atmosphere that encourages creativity will ensure that employees look forward to returning to work.

Is your performance management failing to perform?

Is your performance management failing to perform?

Just 36 per cent of UK companies believe their Performance Management processes to be efficient, according to a study conducted by professional services company Towers Watson.

“These findings will not surprise many people,” said Radha Chakraborty, Director at Towers Watson, “but they do highlight the important gaps that companies will need to address if the effectiveness and perceptions of performance management are to improve.”

Efficient performance management = efficient performance

Dynamic performance management processes are essential for a company to achieve optimum levels of organisational performance. Ideally they should be should be both strategic and integrated, and must incorporate development, performance improvement and behaviour management.

At its core, performance management is about ensuring that each employee’s performance contributes to the organisation’s overall goals in the most efficient way possible. However, 45 per cent of those surveyed said that managers don’t see the value in it and 53 per cent considered that they don’t have the time to do performance management effectively.

Further, Towers Watson found that traditional – non-automated – performance management processes still dominate over three quarters of the organisations surveyed. When 87 per cent of companies surveyed report that performance management is their primary method for aligning individual performance objectives with strategic business priorities, this is cause for concern.

Radha Chakraborty continued: “Clearly, we have an opportunity to make a business impact by reshaping the delivery of performance management. How we do that must align to the culture, as well as the priorities, of the business.”

Performance Management Training

VinciWorks’ Performance Management suite provides the knowledge and steps to deliver high quality appraisals and get the most from team members through performance capability and objective setting. The eLearning courses are available on demand, so are there to support you in dealing with common performance management issues efficiently as they arise.

Half of workers don’t call in sick – and your productivity suffers

Half of workers don’t call in sick – and your productivity suffers

According to a new study, showing up for work when ill causes a greater drop in office productivity than staying at home tucked up under the duvet.

“The fact is that when people are sick and still turn up for work, productivity and efficiency levels drop dramatically,” said Andy Sumner, Managing Director of Monster who conducted the survey. His conclusion is supported by another study conducted by Staples, which found that nearly 30% of workers feel that coming in sick for work is worse for productivity than a natural disaster.

Personal productivity drops to nearly half the usual level when an employee is under the weather. Working through sickness has been found to be the cause of an increase in errors and a decrease in efficiency and performance. Further, Dr Mariella Miraglia of the Centre for Mental Health, said: “Working while ill can compound the effects of the initial illness and result in negative job attitudes and withdrawal from work.”

Why do workers show up when they’re ill?

The study found that job insecurity is the main reason people come into the office despite being ill, which is doubly detrimental as anxiety over job security is a leading cause of ill health. Researchers from Harvard Business School and Stanford University discovered that people who are worried about losing their jobs are 50% more likely to suffer from poor health – which could in turn cause absences.

What can employers do?

“Job insecurity continues to be a major issue, and employers should do more to communicate with their staff that taking sick leave will not put their position in jeopardy,” said Andy Sumner.

By creating a culture of wellness and encouraging employees to take time to rest when necessary, employers could increase their long term productivity levels.

Instituting a policy of telecommuting for when an employee is infectious but insists they want to work could at least prevent the infection from spreading and affecting the rest of the team.

Support your managers with on-demand training

Managers do not always have the skills to handle delicate personnel issues such as sickness and absences. We offer online training that is designed to cover the gaps in knowledge – whenever they occur.