Training and Development

The Objective

When organizations decided to ditch their premises and take training outdoors, the key objective was to enthuse employees about training. They believed that the more excited an employee gets about the training program, the more receptive he would be. This, in turn, would have a positive impact on engagement and retention.

While the argument sounds logical, what began to happen was that organisations concentrated more on getting their employees excited than on selecting a ‘training venue’. So while the venues took care of the entertainment factor, they failed to be conducive for training. Employees would be more excited about hitting the pool, the bowling alley or sight-seeing, and training would just get side-tracked.

The counter-measure to this was taking employees to locales that were close to being ascetic! This obviously created a dread about going outdoors to train. Ironically, it is not that organisations have to choose between going overboard either way. They can select a venue, which, in addition to being conducive to training, takes care of after-training-hours entertainment.

Location, Location, Location

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Travel Destinations – How You Too Can Get The Most From Your Travel Destination – Part 2

This is by no means an exhaustive list but certainly is useful in helping you achieve your objective. Here are 8 tips which apply to pretty much all travel destinations:

1. How is the place rated by other writers?

Never take one person’s work for anything that is subjective. Scan through a few reviews and you’ll get an accurate picture of your holiday destination.

2. Does the electricity voltage match yours at home?

Today, you have more electronic gadgets than ever before. Make sue it will work where you are going or else you’ll carry extra weight with you. Worse still, you may damage your devices.

» Read more: Travel Destinations – How You Too Can Get The Most From Your Travel Destination – Part 2

Six Tips for Great Off-Site Meetings

As an executive coach, one of the decisions I help new leaders make is whether, when and where to hold their first off-site meeting.

Off-site meetings can be constructive team-building experiences and can catapult your staff to perform at higher levels.

However, without the proper vision, planning and execution, off-site meetings can have just the opposite effect: disrupting and polarizing your team.

Here are six tips for optimizing your off-site meetings:

1. Focus and clarity of purpose is paramount. If this is your first off-site as a new leader, relationship building should be your priority. Only after the team has learned what to expect from you, should you move ahead to discuss other business topics such as strategy, operating upgrades, etc. Relationship building comes first.

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