DAVID WRITING FROM PECS

As you saw from yesterday’s blog entry, I am in Hungary at present speaking at an International Conference for HRD professionals.

In addition to my own offering, there was a really interesting key note speaker in Mrs Ildiko Szutz, CEO,  Hungarian Postal Service.  Amongst other things she said that an important response to the many changes today is the need for “lifewide” learning.  Also, Professor Monica Lee, predicted that in the future there will be an increase in outsourcing.

Both of these comments are very much in tune with our direction here at OFQT Ltd, as we are renowned for ever pushing the boundaries and working on issues that are at least 6 – 12 months ahead of current learning and training thinking and future business needs for quality in training and excellence in learning

Our prediction is that businesses, large and small, who have had to remove their training functions or simply cut back dramatically on activity will find it somewhat difficult to ramp up the learning amongst their workforce again, which in many case may also have been depleted.

We know that as the upturn starts (we hope to see something move in this direction from early 2011) many of of these businesses will once again be thinking about training and staff performance.

However, it would be foolhardy to simply do what they have always done before without first taking the opportunity to reflect upon what their previous training actually gave back to the business in terms of improved quality, cost, time or management.

Certainly, for those who want to do this kind of reflection we have an evaluation and ROI consultancy service

However, in addition to looking backwards and measuring impact, there is also a need to learn from this and put in place a new learning and training infrastructure that saves money, is cost efficient and effective in terms of adding value to the business.

To meet this growing need we have introduced:

The Virtual Training Associate UK http://the-vta.co.uk

and its sister site

The Virtual Training Manager in Europe http://the-vtm.eu

I will write more about how this approach can underpin and support business recovery when I return from Hungary.  However, from now, goodbye from Pecs!

Post written by David, Director, Research & Development at OFQT

http://ofqt.com