The Learning and Skills Councils Annual Report and Accounts for ...

Taking Care of Our People
To meet our goal of building the nation’s skills
base, it was essential that our own staff had the
knowledge and skills needed to help us deliver our
ambitious plans, as well as supporting them to
prepare for the Machinery of Government transition.
Development and
training
In 2009–10, a key focus was preparing
our staff for the Machinery of
Government changes, with many staff
needing to adapt to new roles and
responsibilities and the associated
knowledge and skills. We continued our
emphasis on accredited development
programmes that increase business
and management skills, as well as
continuing to focus on performance
improvement.
Key programmes over the last year
included:
•
the development and delivery
of a corporate learning and
development programme that
focuses on transition, knowledge
and skills acquisition and improved
performance
•
continued work to help embed
the Oracle Human Resources
(HR) system, providing staff and
managers with direct access to the
information they needed
•
the rollout of a new and successful
Maximising Your Potential transition
programme, and
•
the final cohorts in our Introduction
to Management and ProActive
management development
programmes, leading to Level 3 and
Level 5 qualifications.
12 LSC Annual Report and Accounts 2009–10
Our aim has been to provide a flexible
approach to development that has
met key business requirements and
ensured that our staff have had the
knowledge and skills to perform
effectively. In addition to workshops
and courses across the country, we
have offered a range of more than
200 online materials and courses in
association with Ashridge Business
School and SkillSoft. These have
allowed staff to learn at work or at
home and to progress at their own
pace. We continued to demonstrate
our commitment to up-skilling our
staff by monitoring attainment against
the Skills Pledge and building on
existing good practice to maintain
our Investors in People corporate
accreditation, achieved in March 2008.
Learning and development managers
and union learning representatives
have worked closely with the business
to drive up the performance of our
people through a robust performance
management and review process. We
believe in continuous improvement,
and introduced an evaluation
and review framework so that we
could measure the success of our
Programmes through our online learner
management system.
Communication
and consultation
Employee communications were
an integral part of business
planning. We aimed for clear and
consistent messages; made sure
that communications were properly
targeted, relevant and fit for purpose;
and listened to feedback and acted on
it. We communicated on every aspect
of our business and performance
to our staff. We used a range of
communication tools, including the
weekly staff bulletin, management
cascade briefings and notes, as well
as a dedicated intranet site that
contained key information on HR
policies and procedures. To help deal
with common queries and particular
HR or management issues, we had
a central HR telephone service and
online toolkits for managers and
employees to explain key HR areas.
We worked closely with the Public
and Commercial Services union (PCS),
the recognised trade union that
represented our staff, meeting them
regularly to discuss a range of subjects.
We continued to be committed to
building on the positive partnership
approach with the PCS at both national
and local level. The Open Forum, an
employee information and consultative
framework, had groups operating at
local and national level, and was a
further mechanism for management to
have direct contact with staff. It was
designed to complement the existing
channels of communication that
we had with the PCS. Our aim was
to be open and transparent in all of
our communications, and to respond
positively to queries.