The Human Touch: Why Face-to-Face Still Matters in an AI World
In a world where artificial intelligence is writing reports, booking meetings and even making our hiring decisions, it’s tempting to think there may be little left for humans to do. However, anyone who has felt the joy of having a good laugh over coffee with a colleague, been reassured by someone’s tone of voice, or felt the energy in a room during a workshop knows that some things simply can’t be replicated by AI.
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Why coaching matters for mental health and leadership growth
In this month’s first blog, Tracey talked about ‘The boss’ going outside of the organisation for help, especially as being the leader at the top where it can be a lonely job at times. Aa there has been two significant days this month – International Bosses Day and World Mental Health Day. What is the connection?
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National Boss’s Day – Not Just Another Made-Up Occasion
16th October is National Boss’s Day – a date that sparks mixed reactions. Some see it as unnecessary in today’s workplace, where the old “command and control” leadership style is giving way to more collaborative, people-centred approaches.
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The Cost of Doing Nothing – Why Talent Management & Succession Planning Matters
For many small business owners, the idea of talent management and succession planning can feel daunting. It’s easy to imagine complex HR frameworks, unrealistic expectations, and time-consuming processes that don’t seem to fit the fast-paced, hands-on nature of a small enterprise. However, when done thoughtfully and tailored to your business culture, these practices can be transformative. They’re not about bureaucracy. They are about building resilience, retaining great people, and ensuring your business thrives no matter what the future holds.
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Let’s Talk Dirty…… Performance Management, is this a dirty phrase to you?
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Often people hear the words Performance Management and express to us that they think it is a tool used by companies to “manage people out of the business.” A dirty phrase!
Managers have been known to groan to us at the amount of time they think it takes or the endless paperwork and boring, pointless appraisal meetings.
“It’s a tick box exercise” is sadly another common response.
In short, many businesses DON’T do anything towards performance management, and honestly, they are missing out!
Developing your people checklist
The Performance Management Cycle
The cycle provides a framework that can be adapted to businesses of any size. Its strength lies in its simplicity and repetition:
Creative
In our last blog, Lee spoke about how we had changed one of our values, which in a way, illustrates our fourth value – creative!
When we think of the word ‘CREATIVE’ we often think of artistic skills such as painting and writing poetry however here at Pro-D, we believe creativity is at the core of business success and that the work we do with clients whether it be leadership tranining or business strategy, should spark curiosity and open up new ways of thinking. That’s why our value of ‘Creative’ is woven through everything we design and deliver. Creative learning doesn’t mean irrelevant or silly games for the sake of making things fun so to answer a common question I’ve had this year, No – we won’t be building bridges with spaghetti – apparently this is a thing! However there is a story about a scarecrow which you don’t want to miss…read on!
Vibrant
Last month Nicola and Sue talked about two of our values. This month Will and I are continuing with the topic, covering our other two – Vibrant and Creative and why we changed one of them and how we went about agreeing the new one.
For those of you that know Michelle, you will know how close to her heart the value of ‘Fun’ was because when she set up Pro – D all those many moons ago, she knew she wanted to create a workplace for herself and others where they enjoyed what they did, looked forward to being there and that we delivered learning in a way that made people want to come back and importantly, learn well and remember what they learn! We all know that learning in a fun way brings just that…
Making a Difference: It’s What Gets Us Out of Bed (and a decent cuppa)
At Pro-Development, Making a Difference isn’t just a nice phrase we stick on our website and forget about. It’s one of our core values and honestly, it’s what gets us out of bed in the morning (well… that and a decent cuppa☕️). We’re here to help people, teams and businesses grow, thrive and actually enjoy what they do. Because let’s face it life’s too short for boring training and tick-box development, right?
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