Training and development

There are some projects that come along when you are a professional in an advisory role that make you excited each day about progressing with the client. There's nothing more satisfying than seeing a business, its owners and staff develop and achieve new levels of success.

This week, the theme has been on training and development. Throughout my career I have been told that a firm's most important asset was its people and most of my employers with one exception promoted that in client centred materials.

Investment in developing staff is money well spent, not only can it raise the skill level of your team but it can also broaden the horizons of your staff and empower them to be better at what they do.

And the training itself doesn't necessarily need to be core to bring great value to your business. For example, some of the best training courses I did were about selling and being able to better communicate with customers, writing marketing plans and about how to work in other countries where English is a secondary language.

As a Chartered Accountant I am required to do 40 hours of 'continuous professional development' each year. It enhances the professionalism of Chartered Accountants and it is about developing skills and remaining at the cutting edge. Now some of the courses offered are pretty turgid but you get to choose what you attend and there are others which are more enlightening.

A few weeks back I talked about how mistakes can happen in business and they need to be managed in the right way. Rather than getting upset at a mistake and chucking tissue boxes across the room, why not see the mistake as an opportunity to upskill? Better still utilise training and development in a proactive way to upskill the team to prevent mistakes from happening.

Next week Zenith Solutions will celebrate its third anniversary and, as well as thanking those that have supported us, we will open a new wing of the business - Able Business Mentors. Able will offer tailored solutions and professional development for Wanganui businesses including Strategic Management, Lean Basics and Understanding Risk.

For the strategic management course, I'm helping business owners to be more strategic in their approach and it's a combination of mentoring and training. As a result of the mentoring they are making better decisions because of the development programme that we have embarked on.

We are an approved registered provider under the NZTE  Capability Development Voucher scheme. This means that each of the courses we offer, and mentoring options, is eligible for a 50% discount.

The value in training is the increased effectiveness it can bring to your business. Imagine your corporate knowledge as bricks and training and development is the mortar which binds them together. Without the mortar you just have bricks, but add mortar and you have a house!