Wednesday 16 December 2009

Association for Coaching 2010 Conference

The Association for Coaching has announced Speakers for Going Global Coaching Conference in London on 11th and 12th March 2010.

The Association for Coaching (AC) has announced the key speakers for its 4th International Coaching conference, “Going Global 2010”. The event will take place over two days, the 11th and & 12th March 2010, at the Victoria Park Plaza, London. Participants can now book online via www.acconference.com, estimated to sell out once again at 500 participants.

Going Global reflects the expansion and progression of the coaching profession worldwide, with an international range of speakers. As the profession increasingly addresses global elements such as diversity, advanced coaching techniques and coaching across cultures, the conference aims to deliver an informative mix of thought-leadership, case studies, workshops, research, networking, theory and practice.

Day one will open with keynote speaker Julio Olalla, a pioneer in Coaching and Transformational Learning. Olalla is highly regarded to be one of the early founders within coaching, and facilitates coach-training throughout the world. He will be comparing the difference between a ‘good’ life and a ‘better’ life and whether we are in danger of becoming trapped in wanting more, better, faster and stronger at a cost to our overall happiness.

Dr. Reuven Bar-On, a professor at the University of Pretoria and at the University of Texas, will provide a keynote talk offering valuable insight into Emotional Intelligence - what it is and how it is measured. He has been working in emotional intelligence (EI) since 1980 and is internationally acclaimed as one of the world’s leading theorists of Emotional Intelligence.

Day two will open with Veera Johnson, Chief Executive Officer of ProcServe. Over the last 10 years she has played a key role in the development of the UK Government’s policies and strategies in the areas of e-commerce. She will examine how the success of an organisation lies in its ability to embrace and channel the diversity of its people, using and in particular its leadership team, and using coaching to draw this out.

A case study on coaching in practice will be provided by Syl Saller, Global Innovation Director for Diageo. Syl Saller will share her views on coaching as an integral part of Diageo’s growth and people strategies and will provide a valuable insight into how coaching is integrated into the company culture.

In addition to the above speakers, workshops are available in the following areas: Executive Coaching; Organisational Coaching; Personal & Business Coaching; Global Coaching - Diversity and Cross Cultural, and Beyond Coaching.

The fourth International Conference for the Association for Coaching is produced for organisations, internal coaches, executive and personal coaches, consultants, trainers and coaching/service providers.

Meanwhile in Dublin, Ireland, "Rewriting The Rules of Leadership and The World of Work" The Association for Coaching Ireland Conference 2009 took place 27 November 2009 – Crowne Plaza Santry Dublin

The conference will radically challenge the way we think about the future world we live in. They debatet how these changes will influence the way that we conduct business. They offered ideas and insights on the opportunities this presents for us to thrive as business leaders and as coaches.

The objective was of this conference was to offer business leaders, HR professionals and Coaches new insights on the need to rewrite the rules of society, business and the world of work.

jml Training & Consultancy are an Organisational Member of The Association for Coaching - More information Here

If you are looking for training services in Ireland find out more Here

Thursday 10 December 2009

Uk's Pre-Budget Report viewpoint from CIPD

The CIPD - The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development which is Europe's largest HR and development professional body with over 135,000 members issued the following Press Release on Wednesday 9th December 09 before the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling made his Pre Budget Report.

Measures to reduce risk of 'job loss' recovery must be priority for Pre-Budget Report

Commenting ahead of this week's pre-budget report statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the CIPD's Chief Economic Adviser, Dr John Philpott, says that fiscal policy must remain expansionary until the economic recovery is strong enough to support sustained growth in employment:

"Although the Chancellor should use the pre-budget report to demonstrate he has a credible medium-term plan for cutting the record fiscal deficit, now is not the time for aggressive austerity measures.

"The Chancellor's immediate priority must instead be to bolster economic confidence and offset the risk that a weak and uncertain recovery will trigger a further bout of redundancies in 2010. A 'job-loss' recovery would not only be a kick in the teeth to millions of workers who have accepted shorter hours or pay cuts in the hope of staying in work but might also cause the economy to fall back into recession.

"In order to bolster confidence the Chancellor should consider delaying the restoration of the rate of VAT to 17.5% until 1 April 2010. Mr Darling should also extend the Job Guarantee for long-term claimants of Job Seekers Allowance aged 18-24 - due to take effect in 2010 - to those aged 50 and over. The Chancellor could offset the cost of these measures by introducing a freeze on the public sector pay bill for all non-military personnel. This would be good for the public finances and make the employment consequences of unaffordable pay awards clearer to public sector managers and unions."

CIPD also calls for the Government to:
- Abandon the increase in employers' NICs planned for 2011
- Freeze National Minimum Wage in real terms in October 2010

The CIPD's Chief Economic Adviser, Dr John Philpot later said on the "People Management blog" Good, bad and ugly Darling in pre-budget report

Making his pre-budget report statement to the House of Commons this lunchtime, the chancellor of the exchequer, Alistair Darling, had the air of a reassuring public school headmaster. We’d all been rather overdoing it on the financial razzle and will have to make amends. But other than the kids with the biggest tuck boxes it’ll be a year before anyone gets caned.

It was one of the chancellor’s better despatch box performances. Sober, serious and almost entirely sensible. Yet while the package he delivered has much to commend it, Darling made one or two glaring policy errors that either he or his successor will have to rectify once the general election is out of the way.

On the positive side, the chancellor was absolutely right to introduce a set of measures that have a neutral impact on the public finances in 2010-11. With the economy not even yet officially out of recession, trimming – let alone slashing– the budget next year runs the risk of economic relapse. Things will look better from 2011 onward – albeit probably not the soar-away growth that Darling forecasts – making the necessary medicine of major spending cuts and hefty tax rises a little harder to bear.

The chancellor should also be congratulated on his one-off windfall tax on bankers’ bonuses. This is fair and will provide the treasury with around £0.5 billion if the banks decide to make big payouts to their staff. That sum helps provide support for groups like the young jobless and unemployed over-50s, who are suffering as a consequence of the financial crisis. Darling also announced some useful measures for small businesses – which are also struggling in the aftermath of recession – and is providing some worthwhile
investment in skills that will enable jobs to be created in emerging sectors, notably those linked to low-carbon technologies.

I was less convinced, however, by the chancellor’s plans for dealing with the fiscal deficit after 2011. It was no surprise that the pre-budget report gave little precise detail of where the spending axe will fall, other than admitting that the overall squeeze will be tight – growth in spending falling from 2.2 per cent next year to just 0.8 per cent a year thereafter. But what he did say indicates that he had made some wrong calls.

For example, limiting public-sector pay rises to 1 per cent for two years from 2011 might seem tough, but it is simply not tough enough. What’s needed is a freeze on the public-sector pay bill. Presumably Darling doesn’t want to alienate the public-sector unions this side of an election. But they won’t be happy anyway and the government would have shown greater mettle by confronting opposition head on.

Yet bad though that decision is, it is nothing compared with the ugliest aspect of the pre-budget report, the additional 0.5 per cent hike in national insurance contributions (NICs) for both employees and employers. This came almost at the end of Darling’s statement and spoiled what would otherwise have been a satisfactory package in the current economic circumstances.

The 0.5 per cent increase in NICs already pencilled in for 2011 was a bad idea – doubling the increase could be a hammer blow to what is likely to be a “jobs-light” recovery. The prospect of an impending increase in employers’ NICs is bound to make organisations think twice about hiring additional staff, even before the hike comes into effect.

While the Chancellor has shown that he recognises the short-run risk to jobs from cutting the fiscal deficit too quickly, he seems to have overlooked the medium-term risk associated with what critics will undoubtedly call his “tax on jobs”. He should reconsider this before his final pre-election budget next spring.

John Philpott is Chief economic adviser, CIPD -Chief economic adviser at the CIPD and visiting professor of economics at the University of Hertfordshire. He has been an adviser to numerous UK and international bodies.

Tuesday 1 December 2009

jml Training now working with Housing Associations for Diversity Awareness Training

2nd December 2009 - A press release from jml Training has just been released entitled "jml Training Staff in Housing Associations on Diversity Awareness"

jml Training and Consultancy have recently added to their portfolio. We have developed a Leading Edge “Diversity and Inclusion” Training” programme for a large Housing Association in the south of England.

The present day nature of the role of Housing Associations is such that Diversity Awareness in delivering services to customers is of central importance. Both customers and staff come from diverse backgrounds, having a diversity of needs, unique to each. One size fits all will not do.

Housing Associations have not only a legal, but also a service-led and moral obligation to respond to the wide social diversity in contemporary Britain.

Diversity is the freedom to be equally valued for our differences, the freedom to come together to create something more than any one of us could have done alone. The jml Training programme explores the rich mix of people we deal with every day and the complexity of meeting such a diverse range of needs. We see diversity as a resource, not a problem.

Ensuring diversity stays as a key organisational priority and does not get squeezed by other demands and requirements is essential. To achieve this requires a style of training that ensures the right leadership for diversity, one that can challenge and change values, beliefs and organisational behaviours and develop positive action initiatives. We have rigorously trained experts in experiential culture change work, highly facilitative & interactive, delivering inspirational, enduring and effective results

Housing Associations provide services to some of the most vulnerable sections of the community. Housing Association households contain higher than average proportions of people who experience discrimination and other social disadvantages. It is possible that discrimination in the housing or job market may be one of the reasons why they need Housing Association accommodation.

The course is being presented by one of jml Training’s highly experienced consultant trainers Irene Clarke who has worked for a major international airline for a number of years. She provided “Leading Edge Corporate Training”, including Diversity & Inclusion, and Customer Service Excellence, both sides of the same coin; treating people as individuals, NOT “do as you would be done by”. Irene was a key team manager, pioneering, developing and leading the largest culture change programme in Europe for the company and is now providing this service for Housing Associations and other organisations from the jml Training client base.

Irene comments “It is fascinating to explore how this type of organization operates and provide them with tools & skills to carry out day to day interactions more effectively, professionally & with compassion. It is exciting to be part of a dynamic change programme that explores the various drivers to attitudinal response with tools to enable participants to choose & change, becoming response-able.

jml Training has been providing “in house” Diversity training since 1997. The company designs and delivers training programmes to local government, universities, councils and companies - both small & multi-national. Established ten years ago, it provides training services in the UK, France, Ireland & Worldwide.

The specialist areas include bespoke Leadership, Team Development, Executive Coaching, Management Development Programmes, Diagnostic Assessment, Diversity & Inclusion, and Customer Service Excellence. More information at http://www.jml-training.com/Diversity.htm