Learning and Development Strategy

2008 - 2010

Background
St Mungos has internal and external reasons to change its approach to learning and
development. Internally, the staff survey, the diversity audit and other reports and
anecdotal evidence all show that there are significant learning and development
challenges that the organisation is not fully addressing. Externally, the evidence suggests
that we need to get our approach more in line with best learning and development
practice. This paper sets out the strategic change.

We are well placed to address the challenges. We have a developing group of talented
and enthusiastic staff in Learning & Development, and with strong learning and
development experience.

Over the years there has been some excellent work in St Mungos training department.
Many courses receive very high satisfaction ratings. Much of the training has directly
helped staff to do their jobs. But there are also problems with St Mungos approach. We
are too inclined to consider one problem at a time. And we all too often produce the
same solution: an off the shelf classroom training course, which is not necessarily
targeted on improving the individual staff members performance.

Training and Development is too often seen as a separate activity, not closely
associated with the work staff undertake or aimed at helping them to do it better. St
Mungos needs to change its approach so that it is less training and classroom based
and more learning and workplace based. To reflect this shift we have changed its name
to Learning and Development
More people need to get involved in learning and development and across St Mungos
learning and development should be treated as an important competence for managers..

St.Mungos is committed to Learning and Development activities which balance the requirements of:
Statutory, mandatory and essential requirements
Organisational objectives and priorities
Professional and national occupational standards relevant to the housing, health and care
sectors.
Individual and personal aspirations for development.

Scope
This strategy applies to all full-time and part-time permanent staff and long term contract employees
of St. Mungos. Learning and development needs of volunteers/locums and those employees on a
short-term contract will be identified as part of the development of local induction and requests for
training and development made to the training department.

Purpose

St. Mungos Learning and Development Strategy is to provide a structured framework that offers
employees a range of routes to continuous professional development and enables continuous
improvements to the services currently delivered by St.Mungos.

There are five strands to the strategy. We propose that the future Learning &
Development should:
 Help St Mungos to link all its learning and development directly to it business
objectives and to improve performance.

To tackle the causes and consequences of homelessness

To equip people to realise their potential

To deliver client centred services which are creative and of demonstrable quality

To influence policy which affects homeless and excluded people?

This strategy will be implemented and reviewed in line with St.Mungos business plan 2007-2010.

1. Help St Mungos to link all its learning and development directly to it

business objectives and to improve performance

We should be very clear about why we undertake learning and development. To meet our
business objectives we need staff who have the right competences and who share our
values. So we propose that the reason for any learning and development should always
be to improve the performance of our staff in meeting the business objectives.

This may seem obvious, and of course much of our training and development activity has
always benefited staff performance. However a tight focus around performance
improvement through the use of competency based delivery and effective evaluation will
clarify our approach to learning and development. Staff and managers should always ask
the question is this learning and development idea the best way to improve my / your
performance?

Senior level - Learning & Development will consult top management about critical corporate
skills issues to meet the business objectives. Executive Management should expect to
receive impact evaluation reports that allow the costs and benefits of corporate wide
learning to be systematically analysed.

Area level, Group and Project level - Learning & Development will work with Directors,
Service Managers and Area Managers to help form Staff Development Plans that support
the areas in making their contribution to the business objectives.

Individual level - staff will have support in determining what learning and development
solutions will address their performance improvement (including immediate personal
development and longer term career related) issues. They will also be able to see more
clearly and consistently how their own personal improvement fits with their areas
contribution to the business objectives. The support will be more sophisticated than
choosing from a list of classroom-based courses. For example it will include coaching
arrangements and modular e-training. It will involve support from other practitioners
outside Learning & Development such as mentors; coaches, and in particularly their line
managers.

To tackle the causes

2. To tackle the causes and consequences of homelessness
To ensure our learning and development efforts do focus on performance improvement,
Learning & Development needs to shift its efforts away from being a course provider and
administrator and towards being more consultative, facilitative and advisory. LDS will be
more proactive about developing its customer contacts around St Mungos and more
accountable for delivering a service. To be more visible Learning & Development has
changed its structure so as to be in a better position to support the whole organisation. It
will spend more time trying to understand the business of its customers in the Divisions
before offering solutions.

3. To equip people to realise their potential

St.Mungos believes that its staff are our most valued asset and that a continuous process of learning
and development is critical in both influencing and enabling the contributions they make towards the
organisations success.

As a learning organisation we strive towards creating a culture where staffs are encouraged to share
their skills and knowledge and utilise their expertise as a measure of influencing and developing best
practice. St.Mungos will operate within a culture of growing our own expertise and will seek to expand
and maximise the potential of its existing workforce, an ultimate benefit of which would be to sell our
training expertise externally.

As an Investor in People, St.Mungos seeks to ensure that learning and development is embraced at
every level of the organisation and that Managers develop leadership skills that enable them to
effectively coach, motivate and continuously develop the competence of their staff through the use of
reflective practice. These may be applied through the use of induction, supervision, appraisal and
personal development plans.

Learning & Development will agree Service Level Agreements and form and then work
with customer user groups to, for example:

assess activity reports and costs;

evaluate the effectiveness of learning and development solutions against previously

agreed needs;

agree innovative and cost effective learning and development approaches;

review learning and development policy,

4. To deliver client centred services which are creative and of demonstrable

quality
4.
Our closer relationships with our customers will allow us to share examples of best
practice across St Mungos. Learning & Development will develop a Learning
Management System (LMS) that will enhance customer contact by providing people
across with a ready source of accessible training modules; information and guidance .

St Mungos has many staff with good training capability (some have Certificates in
Training Practice) outside Learning & Development. They deliver training solutions, but
often operate in silos. This has resulted in duplication of effort, as well as inconsistent
approaches and training practices. In order to be able to ensure a consistent approach to
the delivery of training around the ethos of recovery and client centred services both to
staff and clients, all staff and some clients will be given the opportunity to advance and
develop training skills in line with the national standards in Adult Education.

Learning & Development will be instrumental in the provision of support for the Trainee
Scheme and will provide fully supported training to all successful traineess and also
support, training and coaching for managers and staff in which trainees are employed.

5. To influence policy which affects homeless and excluded people?

In order to be effective the organisation needs to be able to communicate both in the
community and with funders, sponsors and regulating bodies.

Learning & Development with support staff to achieve the capacity to influence on both a
local and national level. This may be through specific training or coaching the staff to
perform the task.

Key Milestones Nov 2008 April 2010

Actions
1. Present Proposals to Executive.
2. Form new divisionally/group aligned support
3. Communicate changes, organisation wide
4. Assign Learning & Development team responsibilities.
5. Formulate & publish policy & strategy.
6. Develop and deliver interim elements of Leadership & Management Programme.
7. Conduct strategic needs analysis at organisation and divisional levels.
8. Start meetings with Training Forum to review L&D performance across organisation
.
Performance
1. Propose process & methods to strengthen links L&D to Performance
Management.( Capability Policy )
2. Organise Learning and Development events and workshops regarding Core
competencies, Appraisals and Supervisions
3. Create service level agreement(s) in partnership with other parts of organisation.
4. Set up Learning and Development user groups within and across Areas.
5. Devise career structure & professional training for L&D practitioners.
6. Facilitate external and cross-sector joint ventures in operation.

Measurables
1. Meets (at minimum) service level agreement standards.
2. Demonstrates consistency in policy processes and practice, throughout St Mungos
3. Consistently implements value for money solutions to address skills issues.
4. Learning & Development has achieved credible status of preferred consultancy &
advisors of choice within the sector.
5. Embedded systematic and sustainable links with performance management process.
6. Cross functional wide resource database of L&D delivery capability including training
manual outlining courses, qualifications and developmental areas.