Corporate Training Events

We are pleased to announce  that Martin Davies, MSc, has joined the Call of the Wild team as  an Associate. Martin has  nineteen years experience in Human Resource Management within the Training & Development field. He has worked both in the public and private sectors, including international experience in Germany, Canada, and China.

In both the pre and post privatized Rail Industry, he was instrumental in establishing competence management systems; together with developing the first Rail Industry Modern Apprentice framework, and, a Graduate Training Scheme accredited by the Institute of Electrical Engineers.

His real passion lays in designing and delivering Leadership Development programmes. He has successfully delivered bespoke programmes both in the UK, and in China. In 2004, Martin presented and published a paper on Leadership Development at the Asian Conference of the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) in Seoul, S. Korea.

He is currently an External Examiner for the CIPD courses at the University of Wales, Newport; and Swansea Metropolitan University.

Through its partnerships with Staffordshire and Birmingham City Universities, Call of the Wild is able to offer fully accredited programmes of study at undergraduate and post graduate levels and to meet professional CPD requirements.

These accredited programmes, which are supplied as an added service on a client organisation’s bespoke academy, are all accomplished by distance learning thus bringing the academic standards and educational expertise of the Universities into the heart of the individual learner’s workplace.
In addition, the vocational nature of the programmes offered, ensures that academic study is blended with on job application and real-time project work, to bring immediate returns in the workplace for the employer.

Available Programmes

Call of the Wild’s accredited academic programmes range from Foundation Degrees in Leadership & Management to Retail Management and also Customer Service. All the Foundation Degrees have automatic access to full Honours Degrees in Business, through shorter CPD awards and post-graduate certificates in Innovation and Entrepreneurship to Masters Programmes in business and management subjects

Call of the Wild have this week been informed that we have been awarded  the prestigious Investors In People Standard. The Investors in People Standard is a business improvement tool designed to advance an organisation’s performance through its people. Developed in 1990 by a partnership of leading businesses and national organisations, the Standard helps organisations to improve performance and realise objectives through the management and development of their people

Call of the Wild, being one the foremost business tourism and staff development companies in the UK already provide innovative solutions for Companies to develop their people. Our mission statement contains at its heart our objective of delivering business improvement through the continuing professional development of our own staff.

Kevin Gould, Director of Learning and Development, said “We want to formalise our existing training culture and demonstrate a continued commitment towards developing ourselves and others. By achieving this Standard it will reinforce to our clients that we are a progressive Company fully committed to delivering business improvement through people development.”

Call of the Wild see this as the next step in its development as one of the UK’s leading providers of MICE, team building, leadership and management development training. Over the last 12 months we have achieved the prestigious title of National Team Building Company, Welsh Small Business 2008 and become an Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) Accredited Centre.

Call of the Wild  Ltd’s Development Academy, our web enabled learning platform, is currently on a 3 month trial with one of the UK’s largest public sector bodies. Not only is this a coup in itself but it is being trialled with Harvard Business School’s online learning facility.

Harvard Business School in Boston, USA, is one of the world’s pre-eminent Business Schools drawing on its experience in working with organizations worldwide, and the insights gained from their research to educate generations of leaders who have shaped the practice of business in every industry and in every country around the world.

Call of the Wild’s e-learning online development academy is our exciting  interactive website. It is a facility designed to both enhance our face to face development services and also to act as an invaluable learning resource which our clients can use throughout their managerial career.

It provides practical online management education that is geared towards business managers. It is most successful as a blended learning approach i.e. linked to a company’s values, behaviours, competency frameworks, performance reviews and/or off-line training initiatives This has been stimulated by feedback from our clients. A number of recurring issues kept arising:-

1. Firstly time away from the office and its associated costs is of paramount importance in the current economic climate. Therefore the more this can be eliminated the better.
2. You’re all busy people with heavy workloads but with the desire to further your vocational knowledge to enable improved performance and progression. E-learning is an excellent means of achieving this difficult balance.
3. Retention of learning. Course material can be posted on the site together with pre and most importantly post course material.
4. CPD – For continued learning after the programme and throughout your career.

“To be competing with the likes of Harvard Business School is a real compliment  and reflects the world class quality of the service we offer our clients,” explained Kevin Gould, Director of Learning and Development at Call of the Wild.

The client will be assessing the attributes of both online systems over the next 3 month period after which they will decide on the best system to suit their requirements. It will then be rolled out across the organisation as a staff performance development tool.

Award Winning Call of the Wild

Barclays Outstanding Training Organisation Award

This caps an outstanding 18 months for the Company having won a list of accolades.
In December we were named finalists for the Outstanding Training Organisation Award at the Barclays Bank Finance Academy  Supplier Awards 2008. This is for development programmes designed and delivered for the Barclays Graduate Development Programme across the UK.

“We are absolutely delighted to named as a finalist in this prestigious award category with one of the largest financial institutions in the UK. It is recognition of the effectiveness of our work with Barclays. It was our innovation and creativity in offering not only results but something different for our clients that was commented on by judges. This, combined with the other awards won in 2008, puts Call of the Wild up there as Wales’ premier personal development and events company competing on the UK stage” explained Director Kevin Gould.

National Team Building Company of the Year

We are currently the National Team Building Company of the Year. This demonstrated that our work in the fields of management training, team building and leadership development is recognised as some of the best in the country.

Welsh Small Business of the Year

Although we were delighted to win the National Team Building Company of the Year Award, in May 2008 we were also named the Welsh Small Business of the Year.

If possible, it was even more pleasing to win this award. This is because this award is not just restricted to our market sector. “We were competing against all business’ in Wales  and therefore the award means so much more in terms of overcoming the fierce competition in this category, ” explained Geraint Lewis, Managing Director.

The Western Mail Business Awards for Wales, is  now in its eleventh year and continues to honour and acknowledge the very best in Welsh Business. This award is to recognise the achievement of  outstanding business performance in recent years. The company’s potential for growth, innovation and commitment to Wales was key to winning this much sought-after award.

Managing Director, Geraint Lewis said “We are absolutely delighted to win all these awards. This is further recognition that our innovative and creative approach  is recognised as being the best in our sector. It has been an extremely proud year for the Company which coincides with our 10^th birthday. This has been a real team effort and illustrates that we have  fantastic staff who are both professional, passionate and committed to their work.”

Call of the Wild was set up in 1998 by three old school friends from Neath, who gave up their professional careers and returned to their hometown to pursue their dream of owning and running a training company with a difference.

The Company has grown to be not only one of the biggest in Wales but also the UK regularly delivering programmes for clients across the UK and Europe. It has a client base which includes companies such as Orange Mobile Phones, Panasonic, Admiral , BMW and Vodafone. View our case studies here.

Call of the Wild Ltd, management development, team building, corporate event and incentive travel Company based in Wales are thrilled to announce they have won yet another accolade to complement the long list of awards won during 2008.

We have been named finalists for the Outstanding Training Organisation Award at the Barclays Bank Finance Academy Supplier Awards 2008.

“We are absolutely delighted to named as a finalist in this prestigious award category with one of the largest financial institutions in the UK. It acknowledges the effectiveness of our work with Barclays but also our innovation and creativity in offering not only results but something different for our clients,” explained Director Kevin Gould.

The award relates to our innovative graduate development programme designed and delivered by Call of the Wild. Our blended learning approach was applauded as one of the best programmes delivered by external suppliers in 2008.

We have completed our work towards obtaining the prestigious Investors In People Standard. The Investors in People Standard is a business improvement tool designed to advance an organisation’s performance through its people. Developed in 1990 by a partnership of leading businesses and national organisations, the Standard helps organisations to improve performance and realise objectives through the management and development of their people

Call of the Wild, being one the foremost training companies in the UK already provide innovative solutions for Companies to develop their people. Our mission statement contains at its heart our objective of delivering business improvement through the continuing professional development of our own staff.

Kevin Gould, Director of Learning and Development, said “We want to formalise our existing training culture and demonstrate a continued commitment towards developing ourselves and others. When we can achieve this Standard it will reinforce to our clients that we are a progressive Company fully committed to delivering business improvement through people development.”

Call of the Wild see this as the next step in its development as one of the UK’s leading providers of team building, leadership and management development training. Over the last 6 months we have achieved the prestigious title of National Team Building Company from the  and become an Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) Accredited Centre.

The Company aim to have the Standard awarded by the end of January 2009 subject to Board approval.

Call of the Wild are pleased to announce that they have become an Accredited Training Centre with the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM). Following a rigorous inspection, the ILM Business Manager told us that she was satisfied that we not only met all the necessary criteria for quality, procedures and resourcing but surpassed many.

Kevin Gould, Director of Learning and Development said “This is fantastic news for Call of the Wild. Our clients have always been delighted with the quality and relevance to the workplace of our programmes. However this accreditation further reinforces the quality and resources that Call of the Wild can offer our clients. This adds to our existing portfolio of programmes and allows us offer bespoke accredited ILM courses for our clients.”

ILM is the largest qualification awarding and professional membership body in Europe for management and leadership vocational qualifications. In 2006 around 80,000 managers registered for ILM Management qualifications and awards.

The content of ILM programmes is linked to the latest management & leadership standards, ensuring relevant, current content and thinking. All qualifications feature work-based assessments designed to bring tangible business benefits to you and your company.

The Inspector was particularly impressed by our innovative blended learning approach to the delivery of our programmes. This involves using not only traditional classroom based learning but also our flexible e-learning platform that enable learners to utilise our interactive website and use preferred learning styles.

Well there are a number of very important reasons. As we all know, knowledge is locked up with the employees of a Company and it is this factor that determines how successful a business is. If as a manager you don’t understand this point, then the performance of the Company will be jeopardised.

So why is it important to understand the exact definition of these terms? Well it’s because they are used in an inexact way which is often interchangeable. People do not use them in an exact way or in accordance with their literal definitions. This will cause problems when you come to develop your employees as the inability to match your training, learning or development objectives with the right programme will not only result in you wasting valuable time but also wasting money and undermining your credibility in the eyes of your employees.

How often have we come across the serial moaner who comes out with, “oh no! not another training course to waste my time?” You need buy in on the part of staff, not barriers in order to maximise the return from your investment.

Call of the Wild Ltd place great emphasis on this issue when we initially meet with clients. It is important to understand what the objectives are and what will be the best programme to meet these objectives using our blended learning approach. We seek to clarify for the clients what the actual terminology means and what form of delivery is required so that they can get best value out of the programme.

In simple terms, education provides a knowledge base that underpins any other activities the individual may engage in at a later stage. Training is not as general and tends to concentrate on skills development. “Development” allows both activities to be integrated. It has been described as “the general enhancement and growth of an individual’s skills and abilities through conscious and unconscious learning”.

Development, therefore, includes education and training as well as a range of other activities such as coaching, looking, listening and mentoring. Learning is the outcome of both training-led and education-led approaches to development, yet learning itself is complex. It is far more than the shifting of knowledge or information from educator/trainer to the learner.

This is where Call of the Wild’s approach is different to others in that we recognise that people have different learning styles and we seek to focus on self-learning through our bespoke development programmes. We understand that learning is not simply something that takes place as a formal process in a classroom. We understand that there is a need to incorporate a wider range of activities in the typical learning mix – our blended learning approach.

Call of the Wild Ltd are thrilled to announce they have been awarded the prestigious Welsh Small Business of the Year Award 2008. Having been one of three short-listed companies (there were over 50 applicants) at this year’s Welsh Business Awards, they were named the Welsh Small Business of the Year 2008 at a grand ceremony that took place on May 23rd at the Cardiff International Arena.

“We are absolutely delighted to win this special award. This is a real team effort and illustrates that we have fantastic staff who are both professional and committed to their work. It demonstrates that our work in the fields of management training, team building and leadership development is recognised as some of the best in the country”, explained Geraint Lewis, Managing Director. (more…)