In this blog we talk about the importance of Training and Staff Development in managing people risk. Operational Risk Software can be key to supporting this discipline.
Taken from: Mastering Risk Management
Training and Development
Just as business objectives (and risks) lie at the heart of the appraisal process, so business objectives help to frame a firm’s learning and development needs and those of individuals. Objectives also form the basis of assessing the success of training and development. There is little point embarking on a training or development programme without assessing whether it succeeded in what it set out to do.
The firm will need to implement and maintain a series of risk indicators to help spot possible new training needs within the firm and their impact. These might include productivity levels, error analysis or staff turnover.
Firms need to invest in training for both new and existing members of staff so that they can take a more integrated view of their risks. Job rotation should be encouraged within the firm so that job cover levels are improved and can operate, if, for example, a particular member of staff is absent.
Training and development may involve courses, but can also mean changes to responsibility or environment. You never know when somebody will be missing. At a higher level, leadership should be developed within the firm. How often does the board, or indeed the senior executives, take a day out to do training?
Leadership involves people skills, such as:
- coaching
- communication
- conflict management
- counselling
- motivation
- performance evaluation
- time management.
They need to be trained, apart from knowing legislation such as diversity and employment law.
Firms which don’t nurture their talent will see it leave and go to the competition. If personal and professional development is switched off, firms will find themselves with an even more desperate shortage of talent when it is needed – whether for a downturn or an upturn.
But appraisals are not the only guide to personal development. The firm’s objectives over the medium term will point to the skills required, so that a skills audit should be regularly conducted to make sure the firm has a reservoir of the right kind of both technical and leadership talent to fulfil its strategy and develop its human capital accordingly.
In our next blog we will be talking about the impact of Pay and Reward on managing people risk.
Mastering Risk Management by Tony Blunden and John Thirlwell is published by FT International. Order your copy here: https://www.pearson.com/en-gb/subject-catalog/p/mastering-risk-management/P200000003761/9781292331317
For more information about how Operational Risk software can help your organisation, contact us today on sales@risklogix-solutions.com
