L&D Review

I design and deliver training sessions. These could be face to face sessions or online webinars or elearning type courses. Essentially I am responsible for upskilling our colleagues, mainly Managers and Leaders to improve their capability. I try and include inspirational and aspirational content into these courses and training sessions to make them as engaging as they can be.

My capability has continued to develop in facilitation, delivery and design on account of the opportunities Ive been provided with and just the general nature of my job. I watch a lot of relevant YouTube videos and get through a few books. I was recently accredited to deliver a personal development tool called Heartstyles, which is great and I have almost completed my first year of a Psychotherapist course.

Im still very early on in my programme but Im impressed at how professional it seems to be. The tutor is very good and schedules regular meetings with me. The course content is also excellent and I was very impressed with what we will be covering. The online learning and support is also very thorough.

It was a slow start. I dont think the pandemic situation helped in that respect but now it seems very well organised and professional. Ive received information about each of the modules I will be studying and when each of the webinars will be so I can get organised and plan them into my diary.

They encouraged me to start the course and whilst I havent required any support at this stage Im absolutely confident I will get whatever I need. My boss is an advocate of self improvement generally and has offered any help she can give. My team colleagues are also very supportive.

As mentioned its early days really in terms of progression through the course so I havent needed that much support but I have to say my tutor is excellent. Very knowledgeable and nothing is too much trouble. The online platforms are also very good and provide a lot of information that you might need...almost too much actually as it can be quite confusing knowing what to complete and what not to. The tutor points you in the right direction though.

I kind of already do the job that the qualification is about so for me its about fine tuning those existing skills, adding new ones and generally just improving my approach so that I can give the best coaching experience. The qualifications is spot on fr what I want to achieve and it will be great to have the official qualification at the end of it.

I work remotely and from home so it is difficult to get involved in team stuff like that. I did volunteer to be a Mental Health champion and have received some additional training for that. I took it upon myself to study to become a Psychotherapist in Transactional Analysis so Ive met a lot of like minded people on the course and its a great addition to my coaching qualifcation as well.

Yes

The place has completely transformed itself over the last few years, in a very positive way. Its very forward thinking and is increasingly more colleague focused than it ever used to be. What its attempting to do in terms of creating the right culture and leadership development I actually find quite inspiring.

Discount retailing is not for the feint hearted. All retailing is hard work but you have to run a bit faster in discount retailing I think. There are some great careers to be had at Poundland and a massive variety of roles. We are even international these days with a number of stores abroad.