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Calibre HR Services and HR Consultancy

Calibre HR & Training provides HR services to small and medium-sized organisations without their own HR resource. Based in Boughton Aluph, near Ashford, Kent, we also deliver bespoke training programmes to large public and private sector organisations nationwide.

Calibre HR & Training Newslette

Summer 2008 Issue

Making your people’s skills work harder for you

Are you doing enough to capitalise on training investments? Or if you have training coming up, will you ensure new skills and knowledge are put to work? Our latest FREE factsheet will help you squeeze every last bit of benefit from your training investments. It will also help you capitalise on workplace skills you did not know you had.

Five alternatives to redundancy

The HR specialists at Calibre HR & Training are helping many businesses restructure to face tougher market conditions. If you need to reduce the wage bill, what are your alternatives to redundancies?

Stop recruiting − rather than automatically filling every vacancy that arises, consider the duties of each role. Only fill essential roles that cannot be managed by someone else in the firm through redeploying skills, training or promotion.

Early retirement and voluntary redundancy − reducing headcount voluntarily can help control the wage bill. However, remember to plan for how you will deal with a situation where you have to decline requests from key people.

Reduce working time – employees may welcome a shorter working day in return for less pay. Reducing the working day by an hour either end can have a big impact on costs as well as benefits to the employee. Remember to ensure the role can facilitate it.

Offer additional holiday and career breaks – unpaid leave can be popular with staff looking to take time out to travel, study or simply spend more time with the children during the summer holidays.

Expand the business – it may not seem the obvious choice when conditions are tough, but remember to find out what else you could help customers with. Talk to the people in the business closest to them and try to use existing skills to deliver that extra value.

When times are tough, a thorough look at how work is delivered can identify opportunities to cut costs and improve efficiency. Our next FREE factsheet will help you understand the best ways to restructure your organisation and how to do it as effectively as possible. For more immediate help and advice with restructuring call the HR team on 01233 813810.

Management skills training – where to start?

With a lack of management skills at the heart of many operational problems, lots of SMEs and other small organisations are looking at management training programmes for the first time. But where is the best place to start?

Steve Walker, Calibre HR & Training’s management training specialist, ran a short introduction to management skills for the Medway Adult Learning Service to coincide with May’s Learning at Work Day. The course was delivered to curriculum staff from teaching backgrounds who wanted to be as effective as possible in managing their tutors’ output.

Steve’s programme was tailored for the group, but it is a great checklist for anyone looking at management skills development for the first time – particularly where managers have had minimal or no management skills training.

Steve’s management skills training checklist:

  • What is management and what is leadership – what is your style?
  • What does your organisation want from managers and leaders?
  • Planning and organising yourself and others
  • Setting objectives and motivating your team to achieve
  • Assertiveness and communication styles
  • Delegating work
  • Managing poor performance fairly

Calibre HR & Training news

Calibre HR & Training sponsors study centres

We have partnered with Playing for Success Kent to sponsor the Kent Spitfires Study Centre and three other sports-based learning zones where children enjoy fun, educational activities outside of school hours. The centres raise standards in literacy, numeracy and ICT while improving self-esteem and confidence.
For more information visit www.ks-studycentre.co.uk or see our news release at http://www.responsesource.com/releases/rel_display.php?relid=izziL

Kent Invicta Exhibition winners

It was great to meet local businesses at the exhibition in June. The winners of our tickets to see Kent vs Yorkshire at Canterbury in July are Andrew Masters of Furley Page Solicitors, Canterbury, and Keith Lee of Demelza Hospice Care for Children, Sittingbourne.