Government announces support for sports apprenticeships
Skills Minister John Hayes has announced his support for apprenticeships in Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth disciplines. Under Government plans, regulations to the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning (ASCL) Act 2009 will be submitted to Parliament to allow a special...
Government invests in technology centres
More than £200m will be invested by the Government in a network of elite Technology and Innovation Centres to drive growth in the UK’s most high-tech industries, it was announced today. The centres, which were announced by Prime Minister David Cameron in a speech to the CBI...
Skills spending review announced
Over the course of the Spending Review period, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) will reduce its resource budget by 25 per cent. Taking into account anticipated receipts, the cut to capital spending by 2014-15 will be 44 per cent. The Department’s Administration...
Start a safety education campaign with eye safety
A survey reported by Risk and Insurance.com says that the best starting point for a safety education campaign is eye safety. The survey was conducted by Sperian Protection a manufacturer of personal protection euipment. They contacted safety directors across North America. More than two...
What makes strategic thinking successful?
A series of innovative research projects at Saïd Business School, Oxford University is providing valuable insights into how strategy happens in practice within organisations Professor Richard Whittington is working with colleagues within the School and beyond to explore...
Business urged to build stronger links with education to improve employability of students
The Education and Employers Taskforce, an independent charity, is planning the first ever national campaign for business leaders to visit state schools and colleges during the week of the 18 – 22 October 2010. This ‘call to action’ is a chance for bosses from private,...
Managers play key role in ending long term sickness absence
New guidance has been launched to help managers support people returning to work after long-term sickness and prevent workers with health problems falling out of employment altogether. The guidance, produced by the British Occupational Health Research Foundation (BOHRF), the Chartered...
Apprenticeships work for employers and apprentices
It is GCSE results week and another year of increased pass rates at higher grades is expected, but when students review their options many are predicted to decide that the tradition next steps of A levels followed by university may not be the best way to start a career. As this year’s A...
Skills crisis looms if immigration is capped
Abrupt introduction of a cap on net migration would lead to major UK skills problem, says the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development CIPD, in response to quarterly migration figures. The sharp fall in the number of work-related visas in the past year offers further evidence...
Think before you click send
A survey of 2,000 people reported by the Daily Telegraph has identified that 20% of office workers admit to sending an inappropriate email in the heat of the moment. A third of respondents also admitted to pressing reply to all, when they had intended to only press rely. One in ten also...
Learning in store: Bharti's enthusiasm wins her ULR award of the Year
Bharti Dhamecha works on the tills at Primark in Leeds. She is also instrumental in encouraging her colleagues to improve their English and maths and is setting up a skills swap-shop in the shop's canteen. It is thanks to her that the store's management has opened up a scheme which pays...
Union Learn announce Right to Request Training suvey results
Union Learn have sent a big thank you to the 623 union reps who replied to their survey on the right to request time to train. The survey results revealed: A growing level of activity to promote the right to trade union members and employers: 35% have raised policy and procedural...
Join the Workplace Learning Centre Team
Join the Work Place Learning Centre team of Sales Agents –Major Clients Abeceder is looking for direct sales agents to support the launch of the new Abeceder web shop Work Place Learning Centre. Abeceder managing director Michael Millward said when launching the search...
CIPD launches 2010 Coaching Conference
A major challenge for organisations today is to align their coaching initiatives with the strategy of the business, in order to improve performance and deliver results. This complex challenge can only be achieved through a carefully implemented coaching programme and a thorough evaluation...
IT Training Awards launched
Now in their 14th year, the prestigious IT Training Awards are among the greatest accolades in the UK training industry. Each award is judged by an independent panel of judges and presented at the Dorchester Hotel, London in front of over 450 leading industry professionals. An eagerly...
Time to train should be scrapped
Dr Adam Marshall, Director of Policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, has called for the Government to scrap the Right to Request Time off to Train commenting, “We strongly believe that the Time to Train regulations should be scrapped in their entirety. The process...
Right to request training is essential to skills development
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber has told the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), as part of the Skills for Sustainable Growth consultation, that "Ten million workers received no training last year so the Government must use every possible lever to encourage more employers...
PeopleProfitPlanet launches environmental posters exclusively on Work Place Learning Centrep
PeopleProfitPlanet, the Leeds based environmental business training consultancy, is celebrating ‘Green Britain Day 2010’ on Thursday 17th June by launching a series of eco-education posters that will be exclusively available from WorkPlaceLearningCentre.co.uk the learning...
Invest in skills to ensure economic recovery
Experts have today warned that the benefits of economic recovery and growth will only be fully realised if there is continued investment in skills. The first National Strategic Skills Audit, commissioned by the government and published by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, shows that...
Brain training does not work
Six weeks of computer brain training has little benefit beyond boosting performance on the specific tasks included in the training. That's according to an online study involving more than 11,000 participants conducted as part of the BBC's Bang Goes The Theory science programme, reported by the...
Trainers set up to challenge of the recession
As long term believers that delivering good training requires imagination rather than a huge budget the Abeceder team were pleased to read the results of a CIPD survey which shows that UK learning and development professionals stepping up to the challenge of implementing more tailored,...
Embed diversity into talent management
Embedding diversity into talent management strategy will give organisations the edge when building for recovery, says new CIPD research Diversity should be threaded through all talent management activities and strategies so organisations can reap the benefits of accessing and developing talent...
National Apprentices Week
This week is National Apprenticeship Week, celebrating the commitment of employers to recruit apprentices and urging people to look at the benefits to their skills and career of becoming an apprentice. Major UK employers are expecting to hire thousands of apprentices in 2010 and the government is...
Cross cultural differences in workers
It's not many generations ago that workers expected to have a job for life, most probably one that followed in the footsteps of their father, and his father before that. In many of today's richer societies, it's all different. Longer education and greater individual choice mixed with mergers,...
Your bullying boss has poor self image
Power corrupts, or so they say. But it doesn't corrupt everyone. Not all bosses are bullies. What is it about some people in power that leads them to turn nasty? The British Psychological Society have reported research conducted by psychologists Nathanael Fast and Serena Chen which tested one...
Jensen on driving safely
As the 2009 Formula 1 world championship closes Jenson Button finishes at the top of the leader board and in an interview with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) the 2009 world champion talks about the issues that gave him greatest cause for concern on the public roads....
Listener' body language influences speaker's language
Audiences differ. Talk to one person and your words are welcomed by a smile and nod of acknowledgment. Speak to another, less winsome listener and your words are confronted by a frown and folded arms. According to research conducted by Camiel Beukeboom, and reported by the British Psychological...
CIPD launches Internship Charter
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has launched the Internship Charter - a voluntary code of practice aimed at improving the quality of schemes - to support jobseekers, particularly graduates, and employers during these difficult economic times. Given the commitment from...
Alien intervention helps reduce homophobia at work
A problem with interventions that use role-playing to beat prejudice is that bigots usually aren't motivated to take the perspective of the groups that they discriminate against. In a new study reported by the British Psychological Society, Gordon Hodson and colleagues have tested the...
Adults learn like children
Jean Piaget, the celebrated Swiss psychologist who founded "genetic epistemology" - the study of how knowledge develops - believed that children's understanding of the world advances in discrete stages. Central to his theory was the idea that the stage a child is at can be revealed by the...