Tom joined RWA in 2006 and was part of the executive team that helped grow the company into one of the leading general insurance FCA compliance consultancies in the UK. He is now Head of Commercial for UKGI Group's consultancy division, and has been working closely on the harmonisation of RWA into UKGI. Tom also leads the Searchlight Insurance Training team, part of UKGI Learning Solutions.
The workplace learning shift is here. The secret to growing your business is right under your nose.
A growing business typically requires a growing workforce. Recruitment can be expensive, particularly if you make a wrong hire. Not only is time and the cost of recruitment something that you must factor into the mix, but you must also think about salaries, national insurance, auto-enrolment pensions, bonuses, agency fees, office space, equipment and induction training. It all adds up. But, when we talk about growth, we don’t just mean adding to your headcount.
There is another way to grow your business, and that is by developing your existing resources. Through training and employee development you can better engage your people by allowing them to develop their own skills and in turn, they will help you to grow your business.
Yet, how many businesses when asked about training think it’s expensive and something that will take employees away from their work? If you think this, then you are doing your people a huge disservice.
Learning is something that we do every day. For years, we have talked about job appraisals, professional development, promotions, and a natural progression to develop and forge careers. Learning and development plays a role in every aspect of our careers. So why has learning and training become so commonly overlooked?
Look at the job adverts of today. Many of them will now include training days and training allowances as a perk to try and entice talent. If you are not offering these opportunities, then there is a chance that your key talent or future talent may start looking elsewhere. It comes down to ‘Mastery’ – how we grow and mature as individuals and how a business defines its approach to nurturing talent, skills and competence.
Employees will struggle to develop levels of mastery on their own. It’s important that your organisation creates a work environment that embraces development and that allows its people to benefit from having access to different levels of knowledge through collaborative working and knowledge exchange. Skills and mental stimulation need to be stretched and should be challenging to keep your people engaged.
Training supports this function. It is commonly delivered by a subject matter specialist who imparts their wisdom and experience in a classroom (online or face to face), but what’s really important is that the learning must not be a simple mix of information delivery and short-term recall. It creates a poor experience for the learner and delivers little value back into the business when it is only designed to tick a box.
This is why Searchlight delivers its training using a variety of delivery methods and why it works with a broad spectrum of different trainers who have their own experiences, knowledge and mastery levels to share with their learners, and why we avoid delivery from generalists whose main skillset is the ability to bring any training slide put in front of them to life in an engaging way.
Mastery is also not just about providing training opportunities. Think about the way in which you structure the job roles in your business. Singular fixed roles do not work anymore. Who wants to be doing the same job role day in day out for years to come? It limits the opportunities for your people, and it limits the opportunities for your business to grow.
A lot of the jobs of today did not exist 10 years ago, and they certainly require a very different skillset if we look at the pace of change during this time. Your roles have evolved, and the skills of your workforce have evolved with that.
It’s not just your employees that now demand continuous learning; it’s also now your customers, clients and service users that are expecting it, too. They all want to be part of the business relationship, to understand your products and services, your vision, your people and how you will provide the support and service that they expect.
Working with businesses to help them develop their workforce’s potential and grow from within is what has driven our passion for developing workplace learning solutions for our clients.
Searchlight, working with the MGAA, is addressing the negative views of workplace learning by giving employees the opportunities to learn and develop their skills through a process of regular and continuous learning. We are more than a training delivery business, our approach is consultative, and we support firms with managing their training needs, becoming an extension of their own training departments.
Our belief is that for any learning solution to work, it must give autonomy to your people to take ownership of their personal and professional development. If your business offers skills development, then you will motivate your staff, they will grow in confidence and in turn they will grow with your business.
Your people are your biggest asset. Look after them and challenge them to develop. More and more people in the workplace fulfil multiple roles and want to learn new skills to help them grow. If your people are skilled and have the right knowledge, then they will add tremendous value, deliver a great service, and promote your business to your customers. It’s a simple equation.
The workplace learning shift is here. The secret to growing your business is right under your nose.
Ask yourself this question: ‘Is it more cost effective to recruit someone new to do a job, or is it better to teach an existing employee to do it instead? ‘
MGAA members benefit from discounted training through Searchlight as one of your membership benefits. Get in touch with us today to discuss how we can support you – it’s what we do best.
Tom Wood
UKGI
This article was written for and published by the Managing General Agents Association (MGAA) in their quarterly magazine.