Your CPD

You can provide evidence of your CPD by completing the following questions.

Part 1 Reflecting back

Q1 What do you consider were the three most important things (planned or unplanned) that you learned last year? Please also briefly describe how they were learned?

1. Talent Management and succession planning masterclass Attended a course in order to broaden my knowledge on how to manage talent successfully. I had implemented a half yearly people day in my last organistaion and wanted to look at ways to review and develop talent in a much larger organisation.

2. Myers Briggs step 2 Having atteded step one over a year ago and seen the benefit of using the tool with teams, the step 2 has developed my understanding to a much greater depth and has helped me to facilitate team building sessions to a greater depth. I have started to develop and roll out team building residential courses as part of my remit and have found that this has been a great toll to discuss peoples differences and to get teams to learn about each other and understand why people behave in different ways.

3. German business language coaching One of the territories that I support in the German territory in Berlin and although I am a fluent speaker, my business German is poor. I have one to one coaching sessions on a weekly basis to help me develop this. This has helped me to engage the territory much more fully in the HR projects that I am rolling all across all territories.

Q2 Please summarise the value youve added to your organisation/clients/customers over the last 12 months through your professional development?

The ability to design more creative programmes using the Myers Briggs indicator as a basis to work with teams in helping them to work trhough a number of different issues. Examples of this are firstly the need to work as a team more effectively and also the ability as a group to cope with and manage change. Myers Briggs provides a number of development activities that can be tailored to the groups issues which I have used to support team work. A real understanding of the needs of our leadership programme and after extensive research and work with academic institutions on what we can deliver and how. I have much more confidence in my ability to understand what is on the market, what is a fit with our organistation and what would be best fit delivery mechanism. A very creative accelerated learning approach to training and development events as most staff are creatives. They are more difficult to engage fully than people within my last organisation. I have had to consider new innovative methods to ensure that concentration is not lost. Some examples of this are coaching using darts as a way for people to practice the GROW model; Cookery events as a way of team building using the Ready Steady Cook approach. These are examples of learning to engage a completely different type of individual.

During training events there has been a need to ensure that many different mediums have been employed to keep people interested such as group work, outdoor activities, videos and role plays.

Q3 What have been the tangible outcomes of your professional development over the last 12 months and what aspects of your work have changed as a result? Please give a brief explanation of why youve chosen to comment on these specific activities?

The development of a Management Development programme from Supervisory to leadership level. Design and creation of Emergent Managers and Middle Managers and the continued design of the Leadership programme in partnership with an academic institution. This has started to create a valuable learning culture and people going through Emergent Manager programmes are now looking at ways to qualify for the Middle manager programme

The design and implementation of the Graduate programme including design of assessment centre and process. This forms part of the talent management task force whose strategic intent is the retention, attraction and development of talent. I have led this project and have just completed the recruitment of six high calibre graduates.

The reinstatement and development of a synergy group which brings together all sister companies, of which ours is a part of and looks at synergies, savings and sharing of best practice. The synergy group was a previous initiative of a large media company that had failed and had little buy in. By concentrating on the key needs of the sister companies I was able to create buy in and also to get the group up and running successfully.

Q4 Who else has gained from your professional development and how?

Finance team senior management team. I ran a 2 day team building event with outdoor activities where we examined personality types and differences in approaches to work. This helped them to understand their differences and helped them to discuss and resolve work issues that had escalated. There is a significant change in behaviour as a result of this 2 day event in that they are able to work much better as a team and have learnt to work with different styles and have understood personality types. Work is now completed by individuals on time and is shared according to preferences. Junior mangers we have completed 2 of the emergent managers programmes to date this year and I have worked alongside Heads of departments since the 3 day event. I have spent time coaching them on their PDPs developed on the programme. There has been a real change in behaviour as many of them had previously found delegation difficult and had now started to delegate more confidently. As a result 2 managers reported bring ahead of schedule as they had become more productive.

Part 2 Moving forward

Q1 How do you identify your learning and professional development needs?

1. I seek feedback fro Board members on a regular basis to understand what has worked or not worked so that where necessary I can upgrade my skills. 2. My annual appraisal sets out clear development needs which are discussed with the HR director in December every year. 3. Internal course feedback allows me to look at areas where I may need to improve some of the delivery mechanisms and subject areas. 4. Coaching I have a few unofficial mentors and coaches who challenge and support me and who will help me to looka the next 3 years and what development I need to have to get there. This has been particularly useful as impartial and objective advice from an outside source enables me to look at my own career in a different way.

Q2 What are the three main areas or topics you wish to develop in the next 12 months and how will you achieve these?

Organisational development self learning on best practice through reading and attending conferences with good external speakers and experts.

Employment law knowledge attending next Employment law course in order to refresh and upgrade my own knowledge. This is in order for me to coach senior line mangers on best HR practice and ensure that they have the basic skills to deal with people issues.

Coaching qualification I have attended coaching masterclass and would like to develop my coaching style to a much higher degree. On average I coach 2 to 3 people per month on the basiscs of managing teams and developing their own confidence and expertise. I would like to look at ways to improve my own performance and ensure that the executive coaching programme can be evaluated more deeply and improved upon.

Q3 What are the key differences that you plan to make to your role/organisation/clients/customers in the next 12 months?

Gain more understanding of the way in which to influence a diverse group of people Work closely with department heads to understand their roles and personalities in much greater depth. I can achieve this by continuing the coaching sessions with them but also by spending more time shadowing and understanding their roles more clearly. Attend coaching courses to further skills at engaging and influencing using coaching as a model.

Q4 When will you next review your professional development needs?

I review my development needs on a half yearly basis looking at what I have achieved from the original plan and what changes and additionas need to be made to it. This keeps the plan a continuos working document.