Training the trainers boosts skills across the board at Barclaycard

When Susan Coulson,the head of learning for Barclaycard addresses delegates at the World of Learning conference about developing senior staff she will explain that her 50-strong, geographically spread L&D team have been given the skills to design and deliver world-class learning to a consistently high standard.

Like every other financial services organisation operating in a fast moving, globalised trading environment, Barclaycard – one of Europe’s largest multi-brand credit card and consumer lending businesses with more than 16 million cardholders worldwide – is under increasing pressure to deliver products faster, cheaper and better than the competition.

“Any learning department needs to be very commercially focused these days,” says Susan.  “The quality of your people is the key differentiating factor. It’s vital that we accelerate that difference in the training team because investing in their development boosts their capability to enhance the skills of the entire workforce.”

Determined to embed a consistently high quality approach to the way the L&D function designed and delivered learning, Susan initiated a departmental restructuring in July 2006.

“Before the restructuring we weren’t really leveraging the sharing of best practice across the L&D teams because they all tended to operate in isolation from one another,” explains Susan.  “This meant there was a lot of duplication, no consistency of approach and no benchmark in terms of delivery skills standards.”

It was at this point that Susan brought The Training Foundation into the restructuring process to run a one-day development centre so she could benchmark the skills and capabilities of every member of her team.  The day proved to be a revelation. “It was the first time I had quantitative information on the calibre of my people,” says Susan.  “Individual development needs were clearly identified and we were left in no doubt of our priorities.”

One of these priorities was the way the team structured the delivery of their courses.“Many of us realised that we’d been adopting a tutor rather than learner-centred approach,” explains Susan.  “We needed to focus more on testing to ensure that our course delegates had really grasped the knowledge, skills and behaviour change needed to make the learning effective in the workplace.”

Each team member was given a personal development plan in preparation for a three-day delivery skills refresher course at The Training Foundation a few months later, with very clear expectations that specific delivery standards were met after the programme.

Barclaycard training team

The results of this exercise were outstanding. “There was a 32% uplift in the team’s assessment scores across the style, structure and activity profiles used by The Training Foundation – an amazing bottom line achievement,” says Susan.  “This has translated into a far stronger and more consistent quality of training delivery, which is reflected in learning outcomes.”

There have been plenty of other spin-off benefits too. The whole experience – from the development centre day to the delivery skills refresher course – has been a huge confidence booster for the whole team.  TAP skills have also been transferred to trainers involved in a major offshore programme in Mumbai.

But one of the biggest benefits has been the impact on sharing best practice and resources right across the geographically spread L&D function. “It kick-started the process of bringing together people from different business areas to communicate and share experiences,” says Susan.  “We’re now much closer as a team and we regularly communicate our achievements across the organisation, rather than adopting a piecemeal approach.”