Training

Training magazine has announced the names of the three teams shortlisted for the TD2000 Award to find the UK’s top training department. Teams from Barclays Bank Small Business Banking, Provident Insurance and restaurant chain TGI Friday’s will find out next week which of them has won the coveted award. Judges evaluation specialist Paul Kearns and Nigel Crouch, of the DTI’s Innovation Unit, are visiting all three teams this month before making their decision. The trophy will be presented at a special ceremony at the TD2000 conference entitled “Training: An Agenda for Change” at the NEC in Birmingham. The TD2000 campaign, which is run jointly by Personnel Today’s sister magazine, Training, and The Industrial Society, aims to increase the status of training and development in the eyes of business leaders.

Store trains on-line

• Department store chain House of Fraser is running two on-line multimedia business and management skills training modules to improve its in-store and head office training. The first pilot covers six stores and covers motivation, feedback, delegation, time management and leadership. The second pilot covers the company’s three head office sites in London, Swindon and Glasgow, and will use 30 on-line modules detailing the management skills element of an in-house training programme. If successful, the modules could be open to a total of 700 managers across the company in the UK.

Steps on diversity path

• Professional role-players from drama-based training specialist Steps Role Play are helping government officials and the public sector explore issues on a diversity management programme. For three years, Steps has been assisting with a programme called Managing Diversity, run by the Civil Service College, following work on other college courses. The five-day programme introduces the principles of diversity and the legal framework in which they must be applied, explores its business value and looks at developing and implementing a policy.