Getting started

Identify your learning objectives

In order for your business to stay competitive and thrive, you need to ensure that you and your staff have the right skills.

Knowing what your organisation’s/staff members learning objectives are is essential. There may be very obvious areas that you need to improve or perhaps you are introducing a new activity that they need to be competent to deliver. Knowing what your needs are will help you focus on those areas and to target resources.

Be clear about what skills and knowledge the team need to have

Once you have identified what your learning objectives are, you can begin to understand the individual tasks are within these and how these translate into skills and knowledge. The key thing here is in identifying the skills and knowledge the team already have to achieve these and what the gaps are. In the process you may also find ways that you can use existing skills in different ways.

Don’t forget to talk to staff about their skills, knowledge and wishes, you may be surprised what they can already do but which you didn’t know about. They may also have ideas about what skills might help them do their job more effectively.

In summary you need to know:

• Existing skill and abilities
• Where existing skills and knowledge could be improved
• New skills that your organisation/team would like to gain

Be clear about what competencies the team need to have what national guidance and best practice national bodies such as CQC, RCN/NMC, NHS England, NICE and others, as well as local commissioners, are saying is needed now and in the future to ensure you have a workforce with the right skills to deliver the best quality service.

You may also consider, where appropriate, whether training existing staff or bringing new people in to the organisation who already have these skills is the best approach.

Design a learning strategy

This doesn’t have to be elaborate and wordy but should clearly identify what your learning objectives are, what skills and knowledge the team already have, what the gaps are and therefore what training you need. You should also identify the most urgent training needs and those that can be met over perhaps a three, six or even twelve month period. You may want to focus on the gap between existing skills and the skills your business needs.

You should consider:

• Your priorities
• How your skills gap can be best filled
• The money and time you can invest
• The training your team is interested in
• The training available to you

Each team member would also benefit from having their own personalised training plan. This will help the organisation and the individual to track their learning and development and help to identify ongoing gaps. Valuing your staff is essential to meeting your organisational goals and by regularly reviewing these individual plans you will be able to see how their skills have improved and what opportunities for future development there are.

Identifying training that meets your needs

There may be training that can be delivered in-house by suitably qualified members of the team but if there isn’t, consider whether commissioning a training course to be delivered to a number of your team members is needed or whether it would be more economical to buy a place or places on an open course that is already organised.

Ensure that you are clear that any course considered meets your learning objectives, is competency based and provides you with the peace of mind that your team will leave it able to practice proficiently.

We are here to help

This guide gives summarised information on identifying your training needs but we realise that this task can be a lot more complex and time consuming within busy organisations where resources have to be carefully considered.

Heron and Gull has an experienced team who can help you apply tools and techniques to guide you through this process or even undertake this on your behalf. We are very happy to discuss this with you further, free of charge, and to identify how we may support you. To ensure you get your plans in place as soon as possible, call us on 01424 427 430, email us at office@heronandgull.co.uk or contact us via the website enquiry page.