The Leadership Factor – Dates and Venues for Training Courses

Established in 1996, The Leadership Factor specialises in measuring and improving satisfaction and loyalty. With offices in the UK, France, Spain, Portugal, the USA and Australia, The Leadership Factor has a staff of over one hundred – including project leaders, researchers, in-house interviewers and administration staff.

Current training course (Click on attached pdf below) are being held nationwide on the following subjects:

• Customer satisfaction
• Facilitating Focus Groups
• Analysing and Reporting Customer Satisfaction Data
• Improving Customer Satisfaction
• Return on Satisfaction
• Questionnaire Design
• Complaints Management

The UK office is based in Huddersfield at:
The Leadership Factor
Taylor Hill Mill, Huddersfield
HD4 6JA
Tel: +44 (0) 1484 517575
Fax: +44 (0) 1484 517676

Email: uk@leadershipfactor.com

Download the full list of dates and venues by CLICKING HERE (PDF FORMAT)

'Train to Gain' - A new Government initiative that Can Help Put the Right Skills in Your Business

'Train to Gain' has been launched across England by the Learning and Skills Council and is a development from the highly successful Employer Training Pilots. It can help businesses improve their productivity and competitiveness by ensuring that staff have the right skills to do the best job.

What is Train to Gain?

If your business is to be successful you need to compete, and to compete you need to train your employees.

For businesses, getting the right skills advice is essential to choosing the best and most appropriate training. Train to Gain helps you to do this by using experienced Skills Brokers who can:

• offer free impartial and independent advice to businesses
• match any training needs identified with training providers
• ensure that training is delivered to meet business needs.

One of the key goals of the service is to make sure that both the training and the skills advice are impartial, flexible, responsive, and offered at a time and place to suit businesses. This marks a cultural shift in how skills training will be delivered, and will ensure that the delivery of training is much more responsive to the needs of every business.

Research shows that 1.3 million people go to work every day without the skills they require to do their job proficiently. Employers are increasingly investing in staff development and reaping benefits that include improved staff confidence and motivation, higher retention rates and increased productivity.

How it works: five simple steps to great training

By ensuring your employees have the right skills to do the best job, Train to Gain can help boost productivity and keep you ahead of the competition.

Working closely with a highly experienced Train to Gain Skills Broker, you can provide quality, affordable training for your employees. Together you can:

• identify the skills your business needs
• pinpoint the right training
• agree a tailored training package
• find available funding
• review the progress you are making

Step 1: Identify the skills your business needs

Based on a clear understanding of your business goals, your Train to Gain Skills Broker works with you to carry out a free review and analysis of your business to assess what skills your business has right now, and what it might need in the future.

All Train to Gain Skills Brokers are trained by the Learning and Skills Council. They are all specialists in training and have a proven track record of providing effective advice to business. If you need it, they can also provide access to a wider network of business support services.

Step 2: Pinpoint the right training

Your Skills Broker makes training recommendations based on their skills analysis explained in Step 1. The recommendation will help you:

• pinpoint the type of training that best suits your needs
• select the most appropriate training providers (all Train to Gain training providers meet national quality standards)
• choose how and when the training is delivered
• determine which qualifications your employees will benefit most from

Step 3: Agree a tailored training package

Together with your Skills Broker and the training provider that you select, you agree a training package.

Step 4: Find available funding

Your Skills Broker can recommend the best ways of funding your training, explaining all the funding options available to you. Train to Gain provides some funding itself. This might include:

• Free training: to help employees gain their first full Level 2, and Skills for Life first numeracy and literacy qualification. This includes all training towards 5 GCSEs at Grade C or above, NVQ Level 2 or equivalent (such as Skills for Life programmes) and a wide range of other training for low-skilled staff
• Wage compensation for companies with less than 50 employees
• Funded programmes, including for Apprenticeships and Advanced Apprenticeships, NVQ Level 3 and above, such as higher education.

Step 5: Review the progress you are making

Your Skills Broker provides continual support, and works with you to review how your training is progressing.

To find out how your organisation can benefit from 'Train to Gain': contact 0800 387 326 to book a broker appointment.

The Jumeirah Way - January 2007

KEYNOTE ADDRESS at the Right Direction’s ‘Out of this World’ Service and Business Excellence Conference delivered at the Drumossie Hotel, Inverness, in January 2007 by Guy Crawford, Chief Operating Officer, Jumeirah Group. Entitled ‘The Jumeirah Way’, Guy Crawford, said: As a Dubai based luxury hospitality group, Jumeirah relies on three critical aspects that contribute to our continued success and sustainability:

• Selecting the right people
• Providing the right service
• A drive for excellence

"Our quality management system allows us to operate within a framework which supports us in striving for complete customer satisfaction. We have adopted a process driven approach, largely driven by the Excellence Model." MORE

Details of Right Direction: MORE

Event Expo North 2006

Hospitality Assured will be exhibiting at the most comprehensive and undoubtedly the most exciting exhibition promoting products and services in the corporate hospitality, events and conferencing industry for Northern and Central UK.

For several years, the South East has benefited from large Corporate Hospitality exhibitions. The North's Hospitality sectors lack such opportunities and the timing is ideal for a major exhibition, especially in light of the rapid growth in the industry.

Event Expo North is the first exhibition of its kind for the Corporate Hospitality, Events & Conferencing Industry, specifically targeting Northern & Central UK.

Organised by Expo Group (UK) Ltd, the event has been specifically designed to further develop and promote the Corporate Hospitality, Events, Conferencing & Banqueting sectors of Northern & Central UK on a National & International scale.

The Exhibition will be staged at the Yorkshire Event Centre, Harrogate on Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th September 2006.

For further information please visit http://www.eventexpo.co.uk/default.html

Customer Service Skills - Top tips for Christmas trade
Date: Thursday, 23 November
Time: 10am - 1pm followed by an optional lunch costing £15 including VAT, from 1pm onwards
Venue: Bankside EC2 Restaurant, London

Christmas is a time of year when families get together to enjoy the yearly festivities: delicious food, fine wine and spirits and more often than not, great company in catered-for surroundings.

No doubt those of you who provide a service to corporate parties for their annual 'Christmas do', or to those family members wishing to escape the pressure of the kitchen, you are likely to experience an increase in trade at a time when the hospitality industry is in high demand, be it in your hotel, your restaurant or your venue.

'Top tips for Christmas trade' will sharpen your ability to deliver an outstanding level of customer service, across the board, to a demanding audience wanting the perfect day. The personal touch makes all the difference and this seminar will provide practical tips in preparation for the most hectic period of the year.

Speakers:
Mark Jones, General Manager, Whittlebury Hotel and Spa
Steve Samuel, Managing Director, The Gayton Group
Jeremy Michael, Retail Eyes Ltd

Download resources for this seminar here

June 2005

2005 Hospitality Assured Forum

Hospitality and leisure organisations, showing total commitment to the HCIMA-led and the Meeting Industry Association (MIA)-led Hospitality Assured standards for delivering service and business excellence, will significantly improve their year-on-year performance.
READ FORUM REPORT (PDF 38K)