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Haringey Council: Transformational ILM Training

Written by Anne Young

Introduction

Haringey Council is a large borough council within the Greater London area. It employs a very diverse workforce and has a strong commitment to nurturing the talent within by offering a range of learning and development opportunities, along with an internal mentoring programme.

The Problem

Like all local councils and public sector organisations, in the current economic and political climate, resources are limited, and it is therefore essential for Haringey that any training and development offers good value. The client sought an accredited training programme for individuals recently appointed to supervisory or management roles, together with aspiring managers. Working in partnership with Premier Partnership, it was identified and agreed that the ILM Level 2 Award in Team Leadership programme met the Council’s requirements and needs.

The opportunity to join the ILM programme was advertised throughout the Council and applications invited from individuals, along with a supporting letter of recommendation from their respective line manager. The support of learners’ line managers is an important element of the ILM programme and therefore it’s essential they demonstrate this commitment from outset. Selection of delegates in then undertaken by representatives of the Learning & Development team, with candidates on merit, evident commitment and realistic expectations. The programme has to date been significantly over-subscribed. A further aim in the selection process is to ensure a mix of delegates is chosen from those that are already working in a leadership capacity and those aspiring to do so, thereby ensuring that delegates can benefit from the varying experience levels and that new talent is being grown in the organisation.

The Approach

The ILM programme offers a high degree of flexibility to organisations and their prospective learners. For example, modules can be selected by the client from a range of topics within the Team Leadership Award Level unit that they consider most pertinent to the organisation. Timing for completion of the programme also has a more flexible schedule than many accredited programmes. It was agreed between Haringey Council and Premier Partnership that the two modules would be covered, i.e. Leading Your Work Team and Developing Yourself as Team Leader with a timeframe of 12-16 weeks for completion. As a result, two classroom tutor led modules were undertaken in the topics mentioned.

Following each classroom session, delegates were required to complete an assignment designed to demonstrate their actual learning. These assignments in each instance require delegates to meet specific criteria pre-determined by the ILM and to submit their work in an agreed format and timescale. The role of the Tutor is critical throughout the ILM programme and is designed to offer support to delegates at all stages, but particularly in completing their assignments. To this end, delegates are invited to submit a draft assignment to the tutor who provides structured feedback centred on the assignment criteria to each delegate. This allows delegates to make any changes they consider relevant after receiving the feedback before making their final submission. The opportunity to submit a draft assignment has proven to be particularly effective in helping to ensure delegates have considered all elements of the potential learning. Once final submissions are received the tutor then undertakes the marking of each assignment before sending them to Premier Partnership for Internal Verification. This is a form of quality control and ensures the ILM standards are being upheld at all points. The final element of quality control sits with the ILM itself who will randomly select several assignments for the same purpose.

The ILM Programme and in turn the tutor, encourages learners to undertake their own research at all points of the programme to validate their understanding of the topics covered and allows them to demonstrate an understanding of various management theories and models. It is very evident from the assignments completed by learners that they do undertake a significant amount of research to assist in their learning.

Throughout the programme the tutor has the support of senior representatives in Premier Partnership which can prove valuable in the event of any problems or concerns arising. To date this support has proven to be beneficial whenever utilised.

The Outcome

To date, two ILM programmes in Team Leadership Award Level have been undertaken by Haringey.

The first programme was conducted in 2018 and had a 100% pass rate in delegates that completed the itinerary. It should be noted that 2 delegates withdrew from the programme after attending the first module claiming that they had not fully understood the level of time and commitment required by the programme and that this clashed with their current work demands. Following this experience, for future programmes Haringey Learning & Development team reviewed the selection process and issued a communication to line managers to ensure that both they and their potential delegate fully understood the commitment required.

The second ILM Programme was undertaken in April 2019 with 12 learners. No learners removed themselves from this programme. At the time of writing, 11 of the 12 delegates have successfully completed the programme. The remaining delegate will be submitting his final assignments within the next two weeks. A combination of factors have led to this extended timeline, which although this falls outside of the deadline agreed with Haringey, is still well within the ILM timeframes.

With a lot of work from the Trainer Anne Young, she got all 12 delegates through the course that was recently delivered. This was also thanks to the co-operation of the delegates, managers, and Gemma Villalobos, who arranged the course and for extra tuition for a couple of the delegates. Haringey had a celebration with the delegates to congratulate them for the hard work they had put in to completing the work.

Anne Young
ILM Tutor