We are pleased to announce that Dr.Barrie Kennard has agreed to become an Associate of Call of the Wild.
Barrie is the Academic Standards and Quality Manager for Leadership and Management Wales, the Welsh Assembly Government funded Centre of Excellence for Leadership and Management Skills in Wales
Geraint Lewis from Call of the Wild Ltd has been shortlisted at the Leading Wales Awards 2010, which recognises and celebrates outstanding leaders across Wales.
Geraint Lewis, Managing Director at Call of the Wild Ltd is one of the three finalists in the “Developing Leaders” and “Business Leadership in the Community” categories sponsored by Leadership Management Wales and The Church in Wales respectively.
The real cost of Christmas and New Year for many companies is the holiday hangover blues. After the partying, eating, drinking, socialising, lay-ins and general time for reflection with New Year’s Resolutions comes January and back to the reality of work. Little wonder January is the month with one of the highest number of resignations and a time when people are looking to change jobs.
So how do you combat this all too familiar trend? In business, a good company keeps its most valuable people by treating them fairly, rewarding their performance, and creating opportunities. The optimum time for re-engaging, reinvigorating, motivating and renewing the commitment of your staff is NOT when they resign, but long before that. Read On >>
John Lewis Cardiff
On September 24th 2009, John Lewis opened its second largest Shop outside Oxford Street London. The anticipation and buzz created by this event was palpable on the day as huge crowds from Cardiff and South Wales finally had the opportunity to get the John Lewis experience.
As an organisation with its roots in South Wales, it was a real privilege for Call of the Wild to be asked to work with The Cardiff MD Liz Mihell and Training Manager Will Read to design and deliver an intervention as part of their leadership development strategy for the new shop.
If you are considering sending your staff on a training course or are putting it off due to the cost then take a look at this update on the funding available in England and Wales.
£1,000 per SME organisation
Train 2 Gain and European Social Fund
Aimed at reskilling the newly unemployed and those under threat of redundancy. Between £270 and £1,200 per learner.
Learning and Skills Council
Used for workplace entry support and business start-up.
£100 to £600 for funding to train women in England within occupations or sectors where women are significantly under-represented.
ReAct
The Redundancy Action Scheme is a package of support to help individuals who have been recently made redundant or under threat of redundancy.
ProAct
This is a financial support package designed to help well-run businesses cope with the downturn. It provides additional training for employees who are on short-time working.
Management and staff assessment and development centres offer a robust method of selecting and developing new or potential managers and staff within an organisation.
The aim of such centres is to present the selected individuals with an environment that reflects the reality of the roles they have applied for and therefore should provide the individuals with a wide range of opportunities to demonstrate the competencies required. Call of the Wild have now developed a programme to assist clients with recruitment and development of new and existing staff. The aim is to reduce costs for the client through the selection of individuals with appropriate skill sets and behaviours best suited to the needs of the job. This avoids costly probabtion periods during which it is discovered that the individuals are not appropriate for the position.
The last six weeks have been an extremely busy period for Call of the Wild. Having come into 2009 not knowing what to expect given the so called experts predictions about the economy the year has actually been better than expected. In the last few weeks we have worked with Prudential, Qinetiq, John Lewis, Network Rail, Michelin, NHS, Barnados, Cable & Wireless and Barclays Bank.
Call of the Wild have added another award to add to the those already in the display cabinet. Our accommodation , known as Merlins, has been awarded a Welsh National Food Hygiene Award. This is pleasing given the amountof time and effort our team put into providing a quality service for all our clients. Well done team Merlins.
Merlins is one of our properties used for certain of our programmes. It contains a meeting room, lounge, bar and dining area. The property also sleeps 38 people.
To coincide with the opening of John Lewis’ prestigious new store in Cardiff, Call of the Wild have been appointed to create and deliver a series of events and development interventions for the new management team. The impressive new store which is due to open in September 2009 is one of the anchor stores in the St. Davids 2 Shoping Centre in the heart of Cardiff City Centre
The intervention will be delivered on an incremental basis with all levels of management working with the Call of the Wild team over a series of four experientially based learning events. Each event will focus on a clearly defined set of outcomes such as familiarisation with the management team and the also the City of Cardiff
The events will take pace in Cardiff, the SWALEC Stadium and the Team Working event will take place in Call of the Wild’s Training Centre. The centre itself sits in 70 acres within the Brecon Beacons National Park. The grounds also provide a truly inspirational “classroom” from which to run the experiential learning element of the programme.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is becoming increasingly important to many Companies. Call of the Wild are being asked to get involved in designing programmes to complement the CSR initiatives of such Companies. There are many definitions of what Corporate Social Responsibility actually is and what it means in reality. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development state it is the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large.
In Europe it is very much focused on operating the core business in a socially responsible way, complemented by investment in communities for solid business case reasons. Call of the Wild have designed a number of such programmes with the latest being to Tanzania in July 2009. Dave Thomas our Director, led the group, which included a trek up Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. It also included a big game safari.
These programmes can include charitable projects in Tanzania. The country is one of the poorest countries with more than 12 million people living below the poverty line. Participants can get involved in projects such as school renovation, irrigation schemes, community building, orphanage support, teaching and soil conservation work. Such project can be integrated into existing personal development programmes which can help to embed and focus learning in practical surroundings.
The pleasing thing about this latest trip is that Dave successfully led the whole group to the top of Kilimanjaro without altitude sickness preventing any of them summiting. This was a once in a lifetime experience which the group will never forget.
