The Client

British Telecom (BT), one of Europe's leading providers of telecommunications services.

The Challenge

BT Retail has partnered with FKA on four separate occasions over the last few years. The overriding goal of the interventions has been to develop the training delivery and coaching skills of BT’s Call Centre training group.

The Solution

The initial collaboration occurred when FKA trainers facilitated our entry level Instructional Techniques Workshop (ITW) for 60 BT Call-Centre trainers. FKA returned some months later to facilitate our Advanced Facilitation Skills for Trainers (AFST) to the same group. The AFST workshop developed the trainers' awareness and skills in both managing the learning environment and facilitating learner-centered activities. Questioning techniques and interactive presentation were polished. FKA also added an agenda item to the course that introduced the instructor's changing role and facilitation tools as they moved from a classroom to an on-line environment. BT and FKA continued their collaboration with the design, development and implementation of a Field Trainer Professional Development program for the call centre’s Training Delivery Managers (TDM). The TDM’s trainers had already attended the AFST Workshop as a prerequisite. The Field Trainer professional development intervention was conducted in two phases. Phase One was a 1.5-day workshop, the purpose of which was to lay a solid foundation of knowledge that the TDMs required to skillfully assess field trainer performance. Phase Two was a 3-day workshop designed to establish performance standards and then practice the assessment skills required to evaluate BT trainers in the field. In this first phase, eight competencies were identified as the standard for the field assessment of the BT trainers and the skills of assessment against these competencies were taught and then practiced using actual video of BT Field Trainers. In Phase Two FKA designed and developed a 1-day intervention, based on BT's Coaching for Results and FKA's Coaching for High Performance workshops. The objective was to prepare the TDMs to provide the constructive feedback and coaching that followed the field assessment of BT Trainers.