Celebrating Platinum CPD status: The key to successful training

We are proud to announce that Total Media London and Total Media Connect have been awarded Platinum CPD status. This means that our ongoing commitment to delivering a high quality training programme has been recognised and celebrated by the IPA. It also ensures we are held accountable for our employees’ development and progression, which is something we are always striving to improve and build upon each year.

How we achieved platinum CPD status:

1. We know what a good training programme looks like – We have held Gold CPD status since its inception and Platinum status for 10 years, which means we know a thing or two about what it takes to make a good training programme. The key is to find the gaps that are currently missing, such as former employees leaving skill gaps, as well as listening to your current employees about what they want to see, then bringing these things together to make one comprehensive programme.

2. We introduced employee surveys to understand what people really want – As well as identifying what the business needs, we wanted to understand how our employees feel about our approach to training. That’s why we share our employee surveys to better understand what is and isn’t working. All our surveys are anonymous so we can gather rich insights that
inform our training programme and other agency initiatives.

3. We took a holistic approach to training – We understand that training is more than just skills based which is why we take a holistic approach. From DEI initiatives, to cultural anchor days and well-being workshops, we ensure that our values are firmly ingrained into our training so that employees, and especially new starters, can understand the company culture.

4. We organised ‘stay interviews’ to understand what makes our employees happy – In a time of ‘the great resignation’, we wanted to know why our long-term employees have stayed at the company. We introduced ‘stay interviews’ to gain a better understanding of what our employees value the most and what they want to see more of. This comprehensive qualitative data helped to inform our training programme, and was so successful that we will now be holding them on a regular basis.

5. We brought back ‘Pitchmasters’ – During the pandemic we had to adapt our training programme to suit a remote working model. However, post-covid, we can now bring back in-person training like Pitchmasters – our two day mock pitch event. This training not only upskills the individual in invaluable pitch and presentation skills, but helps foster team bonds and cross-team relationships.

These initiatives are spread across the business, with Total Media Connect also achieving Platinum CPD status:

Antony Forbes-Buckingham, Director of Media, said “ We are absolutely thrilled to have achieved five consecutive years of Gold status, meaning we have our first Platinum CPD award for Total Media Connect. It is great to be recognised by our industry body for all the work that goes on behind the scenes, particularly the great efforts of the team and a desire to keep their learning up to date.

Our team has helped us greatly in achieving Platinum status! They not only attend sessions hosted by the agency, whether at our office or as part of the Total Media Group, but seek out extra learning and development opportunities. They are also always on hand to upskill each other and the wider community, for example through our IPA Advertising Unlocked event where we introduced school children to the agency and broader advertising sector. This was not only a great day for the potential future generation of advertisers, but allowed the team to put their own learnings into practice, for example their invaluable presentation skills.

The biggest illustration of the value of training is our high staff and client retention rate – near 100% in 2022. Our team is skilled, confident, and rewarded in their roles, demonstrated by 95% of our staff engagement survey results being positive. Our clients feel secure in having a knowledgeable agency that understands their sector as well as the broader media world, resulting in successful campaigns over many years.

But we won’t stop there! We want to continue to provide new learning and development opportunities. This includes an ongoing focus to engage our team in company wide initiatives such as working with the well-being or DE&I teams. Our team will also be having a say at a group level in discussions around what we want to stand for as a company into the future”.

We’ve already begun to implement new initiatives to ensure we retain our Platinum CPD status next year, including:

• Reaching out to more external speakers to broaden our knowledge – It’s important to recognise wider life skills which is why we organise a range of external speakers to share their stories. From sleep experts, to the authors of ‘Gay to Ze’, we can broaden our knowledge by hearing from inspirational speakers who provide a unique perspective and share invaluable learnings.
• Overhauling our learning and development process – We want our employees to get the most out of their development discussions, which is why we are training managers on how to structure effective discussions, as well as equipping all employees with the skills to prepare for these important meetings. This not only helps individuals to communicate where they want to go in their careers, but helps to inform training programmes by highlighting skills gaps or areas of improvement.
• Keeping our fingers on the pulse so that our training is reflective of current needs – We always want to ensure our training programme is up to date and reflective of the current needs of the agency. From deciding what training works in person or online in a post-covid world, to organising upskilling sessions around new technologies like AI, we are constantly renewing our programmes to ensure our employees are getting the right training, at the right time.

Summary: Creating a training programme based on data is the key to success

As a behavioural consultancy, data is at the heart of everything we do, so why not apply that approach to improving our training and development process. All the data we collect from our employee surveys, stay interviews, development discussions, and more, goes straight into improving our approach to learning and development. After all, this training is in place to help improve both the workplace and life skills of our employees, so who could better inform what goes into it? This data led approach has already seen success, and is one we will continue to do to ensure we are always delivering a high standard of training.

For more information on how you could join Total Media, view our current vacancies or contact us today.