Talking heads: Time to coach the trainers

Name: Helen Jennings

Position: Training and

development manager, Productivity Increase Group

Age: 33

Born: Takapuna


What does your job involve?

I coach trainers - both in New Zealand and overseas. The main focus of my work is on customer service and coaching, and suggestive selling.

What we do is go and work on site with people, because we've got a really strong belief that the learning only really happens if people can do it in their own environment.

We train the management at the same time, and they learn the same skills, but more importantly they learn how to transfer or help their staff transfer those skills.

What makes your day at work?

It is being able to make a difference to people, to listen to them, improving their skills and adding value to what they actually do.

How did you get to where you are today?

I worked for the New Zealand Lotteries Commission about 10 years ago as a retail trainer, and was later offered a job with the company I'm now working for. We started off as a very small company, and I was basically the founding employee. I've been with the company for about five-and-a-half years.

Initially, I did training and coaching for clients, but in the past year I've been focusing more on developing trainers.

What is the most important thing that you've learned so far?

I think it's believing in people, and if they want to succeed themselves, if they want to be the best that they can be, then that's one of the key ingredients for me.

What makes my job easy, enjoyable and rewarding is if I'm working with people who have that kind of attitude themselves.

Do you have a personal work philosophy?

If I'm sitting down with a client for the first time I find out from them what makes their business tick, and what they hope to achieve from our training and coaching.

It is really important for me to determine that the need they've got is something that we can meet. It is really just listening to them, and spending time.

What advice would you give to someone starting out in your field today?

I think it's really important to look at the company you're starting out with, to see that the training they're offering their customers is actually delivering what they say it will be.

Make phone calls, do the research, and talk to people.

Who was your most important mentor?

He was a manager and continues to be a really good friend. He's a great ideas person, but is also really open to other people's ideas. He is a person who is always quick to give feedback and praise.

What was your biggest break (so far)?

I think it was joining this company, being able to really make a difference to the clients we worked for.

What's the biggest challenge for your organisation in the present economy?

Getting our name out there. We're a small country, and there are a lot of training companies out there.

I think it's convincing people to spend the time to put into place what we've got.

When people return from a course they've got to make a conscious effort to apply what they've learned, otherwise it's really easy to just go back to the list of things that have built up while they're away.

What is the biggest work place challenge you've faced?

When I first started in this company, I was training the managers and front line staff of a large national organisation, but their morale was really low.

They really didn't want to be there, and they weren't happy in their jobs.

I worked with them for about a year, and it was day after day, week after week - the toughest job I've had in five years I've been working here.

I had to treat each day as a new one and not let pre-conceived ideas affect the course.

How do you relax?

I live about 100m from the beach, and I relax by spending time at home with my husband, and we sail when the weather is nice. I do a lot of travel, and I enjoy reading a good book.