tfpl blog

Trainer on the move

We have always worked with a network of trainers, associates and consultants.  It's a really flexible business model, ensuring we partner with the right people for each project.  Our associates and trainers are a pretty flexible bunch of people as well.  They are geographically scattered, commuting to our office from all over the UK - and beyond - to run our training courses.   More often we are sending them into our clients to deliver training on site and they are happily letting me send them off to such places as Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, as well as cities and towns across the UK. 

Last week one of our trainers Maud Hand confirmed she has decided to leave London  after 18 years and move 'home' to Ireland - 'thanks to broadband and communication gadgets 2007 style, I'll be as plugged into London and the wider world as much as I've ever been whilst living here...' she writes.  Even a couple of years ago, we might have anticipated 'challenges' but these days perhaps it's true to say that for some of us at least location is immaterial.  Best of luck to Maud in her move.

Top tips for knowledge harvesting

On Friday, Sheetal left TFPL.  She worked with us for two and a half years and was a key member of the Blog Team.  We will miss her, but wish her the best in her new role.  Her departure gave us the opportunity to practise our knowledge harvesting capability.  Hopefully we won't be forced to pester her with too many phone calls as we should have captured her experience in a variety of ways before she left.

Ian Wooler, who leads our Knowledge Harvesting course shares his thoughts:

Knowledge harvesting is a KM technique that focuses on the capture and transfer of an individual's tacit knowledge into a more explicit format that can then be used by others.  This knowledge transfer is often completed when an individual is about to leave an organisation (exit interview) or moving (promotion) within an organisation and at times of team/project buildng and re-structuring.

The risk of knowledge loss is increasing in many organisations in part brought about by business drivers including: office relocation; merger/acquisition; downsizing; business process re-engineering and an ageing workforce.  It is now commonplace to see newspaper headlines referring to the 'fear of knowledge loss', 'brain drain' or the 'skills challenge'. 

So what can business managers do to help their organisations mitigate against these risks?  The starting point is to find answers to key questions, for example:

• what is the business driver?
• who is the customer for the knowledge?
• is the knowledge easily replaceable?
• what is the best method for capture?
• what are the best ways of making captured knowledge available and usable by others?
• what are the appropriate methods to assess success and re-use?

Fileplans work - IF they are understood!

TFPL is exhibiting, and James Lappin is speaking at, the RMS Conference in Brighton.  James will be talking about making fileplans work.  He will be sharing his five key 'rules of thumb' which are briefly summarised below:

• Tell a story - the top two levels of your fileplan should clearly answer the question 'what does the organisation exist to do?'
• Use a consistent logic - familiarity with the spaces where their own records belong will help people navigate the rest of the scheme
• Establish success criteria for each set of terms - your top two levels answer 'what does the organisation exist to do'.  The next levels should answer the question 'what does this function involve?'
• Help people learn - involve people in building the parts of the classification that apply to them
• Manage competing perspectives - facilitate a sample of the organisation to build a scheme that works for the group - you may need to review it and test it again.

For more information contact James at James.Lappin@tfpl.com.

AIIM Roadshow - and a new TFPL competition!

It's time for the AIIM 'five cities in five days' Roadshow!  The Roadshow has been running for many years and brings together a diverse audience to debate and learn about various IM issues.  This year TFPL is exhibiting in all five venues:

• Edinburgh - 30th April
• Manchester - 1st May
• Birmingham - 2nd May
• Reading - 4th May
• London - 5th May

We are running a competition with a prize of a PlayStation3.  Come and visit our stand at the Roadshow to pick up a competition postcard with four pictures on it.  Alternatively, you can enter the competition online.  The idea is to identify which one of the Roadshow venues is NOT represented by a picture.  Good luck!

CLUE - it's the only venue that is NOT a city.

Recruitment trends

A most interesting read in the Guide to Recruitment Consultancies brochure that fell out of People Management magazine this week.  It seems the trend across recruitment is 'characterised by an ongoing skills shortage, where demand would continue to outweigh supply'.  The article goes on to introduce some [new to me] recruitment terms.  How about gazumping (or buy-backs) which means a willingness to make a counter-offer to high performers who wish to leave an organisation.  The article then quotes additional research which concludes that students are promiscuous when it comes to keeping their job options open. 

I couldn't find this article online yet, but there is almost always something worth reading in the online version of the magazine.