Training and upskilling is a key cornerstone to creating a great company culture where everyone feels they have the ability to professionally grow and develop. At Total Media, we go one step further by giving that power of training to our employees to further their development.
We’re great believers in running and offering as much of our training internally as possible. Why? The answer is fourfold, and runs concurrently with the four values that we hold at TM:
1. Recognise your great in-house talent
We recognise that we have great in-house talent, which can be harnessed to grow even more talent.
The bottom line is, we have great talent at Total Media and it would be remiss of us to not use it to its fullest potential. We recognise that we not only have individuals who are specialists in their field, whether activation, client services or behavioural science, but also masters in how they work. That’s why we have a good mixture of work specific training like our ‘introduction to the teams’, but also skill specific training such as ‘how to make a good presentation’ or ‘how to manage your time’. That way our employees can leave with practical skills that they have learned from their colleagues.
2. Give people the opportunity to upskill
Through internal training, you are giving those with specialised skills the opportunity to perform training when they might not otherwise be presented with the opportunity (therefore, upskilling our workforce even more!)
We believe that giving people the opportunity to present and help others learn is invaluable! One employee may be a dab hand at Google Analytics, but not have the means to share their knowledge with others. By giving them the opportunity to do so, we are not only able to share their skills across the agency, but as a by-product, we’re also able to put them in the spotlight and upskill them in presenting and preparing a deck. They can then apply this new skill to training fresh members of their team which can help them progress to managerial level, as well as providing them with invaluable presentation skills which they can use in the likes of pitches.
3. Create a collaborative workforce
Cross-departmental understanding of each other’s skills and areas help to create a more collaborative workforce.
Collaboration is key! Having a good understanding of other departments, whether it is one you work with closely or not, is crucial. Most notably, our departmental deep dives allow the whole company to have an understanding of each other’s specialties, helping the whole agency work better as one big team. This not only benefits us, but our clients, as everyone is equipped with the knowledge to communicate confidently about all areas of the business.
4. Allocate your training budget more effectively
Internal training is cost effective, which means you can allocate training budget more efficiently to bring new skills in.
There’s no doubt that training can be an expensive, although vital investment. An indirect impact of running training internally is that it allows you to make cost effective business decisions. Instead of paying for external Excel training, why not use your Excel whizzes to take them through it? Or, if you’ve got a fantastic leader, why not harness their skills to train other future leaders on how to manage a team and communicate effectively? By utilising the fantastic skills you’ve got in-house, you can allocate your training budget more effectively to the skills that you might be missing. Then once people have completed this external training you’ve now got that skill locked down and they can train the next people internally. This cycle can go on, and on, so you are continuing to bring new skills in and then passing them on to new members of the team.
All of this aligns with our values – by running training internally we are able to create an adventurous workforce, who are committed to learning and growing as a team. By celebrating individual skills we are valuing independence and individuality, and by clueing everyone up on each other’s skills, we’re able to demonstrate that we are always acting with integrity towards each other.
If you want to work for a company that values your training and personal growth then view some of our exciting current roles here.
Author: Emmy Greener - People & Culture Coordinator
Emmy is our People & Culture Coordinator and helps with everything from organising training and development to leading the Wellbeing Team. Outside of her work she loves to read Greek mythology and look after her pet Gecko Pendragon-Phillip, a.k.a Lil Pen.
