News Items

Career HORIZONS supports strategic and business thinking with a heart for fairness and compassion. The following articles illustrate our thinking.

Launch of a new product to support employee development

Surrey Business Awards for Innovation 2007

Standard Life reap benefits of Web Solution

Stuart Mitchell & Co Ltd are pleased to announce that Standard Life have recently licenced a customised version of the Career HORIZONS web-based software for use by their staff in career discussions. Whilst Standard Life have been a long established user of the PC products they have made the transition to the Internet delivered solution to provide maximum accessibility of this market-leading solution to their staff and to gain access to new product features more efficiently.

Peter Tate, Technical Director for Stuart Mitchell & Co Ltd, stated that "We are delighted to be continuing our relationship with Standard Life who have made a very wise decision in moving to the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of our web-based solutions." To find out more about how the Career HORIZONS solutions can benefit your organsiation please contact us now for an informal discussion.

Case Study - Allianz Cornhill

Between August 2005 and March 2006, the Stuart Mitchell Group was invited as a business partner to work with 450 managers and team leaders in the leading financial services group, Allianz Cornhill plc. Over this 8 month period, a programme of training in handling career discussions effectively was delivered around the UK and in Trivandrum, India

At the same time Stuart Mitchell & Co Ltd developed the customised Allianz Cornhill Career HORIZONS software programme for use by all Allianz Cornhill employees accessible over the Internet.

The training workshop is now a quarterly run, one-day event. An independent evaluation of both the software product and career coaching programme reported a very high level of appreciation of the engagement and development programme. For comment about the programme please contact Judith Bufton, Learning and Development Manager on +44 (0)1483 552600. For a report please download the attached document from Coaching at Work.

Comments from delegates include:

• "The course was excellent and very effectively delivered. Presenters were knowledgeable and very encouraging."
• "Course manual was well set out and very useful."
• "Thought it was very good, identified areas I can concentrate on to achieve my objectives"
• "First time I have been convinced PDP is worth something"
• "Good course. Should be run annually as a refresher"

For more details click to the Contact us page.

Coaching at Work

"Coaching advocates change by encouraging people to take responsibility for themselves", says John Leary-Joyce. "It is only once people have accepted the status quo that they can begin to make change happen. Coaching helps people to realise their limitations but also to build on their strengths. It's about making people think differently and giving them the courage to take action and embrace change."

CIPD are providing much information for professionals looking to implement and improve coaching in the workplace. Information ranges from using coaching to create cultural change to what the return on investment is and how to evaluate coaching acvtivities.

For details of the Coaching at Work initiative, go to: http://www.cipd.co.uk/coachingatwork/

Human Resource issues for the next 5 years

For the first time in the history of management, the quality of people and their engagement will be critical factors in organisational value creation and competitive advantage. People management is now on the boardroom table and CEOs expect HR executives to deliver measurable returns on investment.

The hottest HR issues for the next 5 years are:

• succession planning from high potential talent internally developed
• leadership more highly valued than management at all organisational levels
• "employer of choice" status enhanced with employment branding
• Upward communication as important as downward communication
• Diversity value as a way of life
• Coaching transforming traditional management style
• Organisational capacity exceeding the rate of change

Career HORIZONS supports these issues with high quality and measurable products and services.

Extreme poverty or extreme capitalism - who cares?

The Transformational Business Network is a network of business men and women who use their skills and experience to make an impact in the most needy areas of the world. Our members support micro, small and medium enterprises in developing countries by contributing time and skills, mentoring developing entrepreneurs, and investing in emerging businesses. They use business to bring social transformation and provide cross-cultural wealth creation in the places that need it most.

TBN was launced in March of 2003 and currently has 25 projects running that will create or support over 7500 jobs. our goal is to create one million jobs -- and you can help us make a difference.

For more information about combatting extreme poverty projects with which you can get involved please read about some of the live projects.

If you feel you would like to be involved, contact us at Career Horizons or go direct to the TBN contact page.