Nelson Croom's Blog

IRRV Awards 2008

by Jacqui Nelson

Last week I had the honour of announcing the winner of one of the IRRV’s Performance Awards, held at Manchester Central (formally the G-Mex centre). Nelson Croom sponsored the award for ‘Excellence in Anti-Fraud’.

The IRRV conference, exhibition and awards dinner is a big affair. Over 1,000 professionals involved in benefits, revenues and valuation attend the event, which consists of 3 days of speaker sessions, a large exhibition and the awards dinner.

As part the exhibition there is an awards village where each of the finalists in nine different categories have a stand to showcase their work. The IRRV is keen to state that there are no losers here … all those here have done very well to get this far. I would normally take this with a pinch of salt but I was struck by the obvious excitement of all the finalists at having made the shortlist.

The atmosphere in the Awards village is always fun. People from lots of different councils get the chance to showcase their work and to chat with colleagues about different approaches and initiatives. The four finalists in our particular category ‘Excellence in Anti-Fraud’ were particularly interesting, not least because they had very different approaches and, I imagine, different attributes that lead to them becoming finalists.

Birmingham City Council had made some major changes to how they managed fraud within the Council which had resulted in a doubling in sanctions against those committing fraud in the last year.

Manchester City Council’s stand displayed a plethora of literature, posters, DVDs, CDs and other materials that they had developed and used in the community to encourage people to report fraud.

Harrow London Borough Council demonstrated innovate approaches to fighting fraud through working with other agencies and sharing information and ideas.

But the winner was Trafford Borough Council. As well as being where my mother’s family is from and home to the best football team in the world, Trafford Borough Council’s anti-fraud work is held up as an example and they now offer advice to surrounding councils in the North West. They have a ground breaking investigations team who use the information gained during the course of a benefit fraud investigation to look at other possible criminal activities. Where these result in a prosecution, the Council can expect to receive a proportion of the recovered proceeds of crime – which can then be used by the Council to help those that need it most. 

I didn’t know, until I was on the stage with the envelope, who had won and when I announced it the stage was flooded by a very enthusiastic and happy team. It was good to see people really appreciating the award and enjoying the recognition it gave them.

A lot of work goes into these awards. Firstly there is the preparing of the submission, which all the finalists said was a big undertaking. Then there is the panel of IRRV professionals who travel the country interviewing and interrogating the entrants before drawing up the shortlist. Then there is the preparation for the exhibition, manning the stand – whilst still running the office. But I have no doubt if you asked any of the finalists, even those that didn’t win, that it was all worthwhile.

The IRRV have been a great client for many years now and during that time we’ve got to know many of their members and staff very well. So it is a privilege to support the awards and conference. But we can’t pretend its hard work as we get to spend the evening with people who have become our friends, eat nice food, drink wine and dance to a rather fantastic 80s tribute band. 

Learners in charge

by Alan Nelson

All the work we do at Nelson Croom is focused on meeting the personal and professional development needs of adult learners. Over the years, we have noticed that one way to annoy these people is to try to teach them stuff they already know. This creates a challenge for us because the users of any particular course all arrive with differing prior experience and knowledge.

This entirely obvious fact seems to have passed most e-learning companies by and lies at the heart of my dislike of much e-learning they produce. The reliance on a linear approach underlines the developers’ obsession with teaching remotely.

When I learn things at my PC it is almost always through a process of discovery: I have found something out. I don’t want to be taught: I want someone to help me learn. I’ll decide where to start and if I make the wrong decision I’ll change it. That’s why right from early days of Nelson Croom, we have focused on how we can use the internet to help people learn. With its vast library of resources, and facilities for enabling people to collaborate and build communities of practice, it offers the possibility of liberating learners from the tyranny of the teacher.

We have learnt of course that people need help in using the freedom we give them, so we make sure they always know where they are and have created a range of simple tools to help people plan their engagement.

So as soon as I see the message “Screen 1 of 23” my heart sinks and I look elsewhere for enlightenment. And so should you.

Managing High Performing Teams

by Victoria Clarke

I took our Managing High Performing Teams course recently. Working on the marketing for Nelson Croom I have a look through most courses as we add them our portfolio, but this was a slightly different experience for me. I took the course because I’m learning about Tuckman’s theory and I thought it would be a good refresher. Managing High Performing Teams is not as in-depth as the heavy textbook that I’m reading but it put the theory into practice and showed me how it applies to the workplace. This was invaluable.

So for the first time, I came to this course as a real learner, with a learner’s mindset, looking to find out all about forming, storming, norming and performing. I set aside a couple of hours at home to go through it, and sat down, cup of tea in hand to get a first-hand look at how our courses work from an outsider’s perspective. I already knew that I like “Find out more” activities (that’ll be the observer in me then) but what I found interesting is that although I found the “In at the deep end” activities useful I didn’t find them half as enjoyable or helpful as the “Step-by-step” activities. In fact, I had a tendency to have a quick read of the “In at the deep end” activities and then skip on by them to, what I found was, the more interesting “Step-by-steps”.

I suspect this says more about me and my learning style than it does about the quality of the learning! And that’s exactly my point – every learner is different, and our courses are designed to accommodate all different learning styles. You can dip in and out of what you want to learn and you can do it in any order that you want to. Many people, like me, choose to take a linear route. But where there are subjects or activities that aren’t useful or relevant you can just skip over them. Of course, you get out what you put in but we’re professionals and being given an opportunity to learn at your own pace in your own way, in my opinion, often makes for a better learning experience.