Global programmes
International training delivery accounts for nearly half our work.
Over the last ten years and more we’ve delivered programmes in some 60 different countries and a dozen different languages, using our extensive network of trainers / facilitators / coaches from around the world.
Our ‘flagship’ management development programme has been delivered in half-a-dozen languages.
And we use our international network of facilitators for delivery of webinars in local languages, convenient for all time zones.
Every client, every project, is different. And with our wealth of experience in global delivery we can help you with proven, practical advice and support, every step of the way.
See how we do it:
How we work
Whoever takes the lead in designing the programme then takes each trainer through it before it is delivered in either English or the local language as required. Sometimes we’ll run an internal train-the-trainer session, sometimes the client will get involved in this too, and sometimes we’ll go through a formal pilot phase – it all depends on the individual client’s requirements. The client’s local stakeholders as well as our local facilitators might also have an input into the customisation of the programme for local differences. The whole process is project managed from here in the UK.
Most clients already have a learning management system so they tend to look after the enrolment side of things themselves, leaving us to focus on content and delivery, but every project, every client, is different so we’re always happy to be flexible over roles and responsibilities. We’re also very happy to supply material to support internal ‘marketing’ of a programme.
We have rigorous selection criteria for our trainers / facilitators / coaches and we encourage clients to become part of the process by getting someone in the relevant local office to talk with each new facilitator before they are engaged to deliver a programme for the first time. Evaluation results are shared between us, the client and the facilitator to enable continuous performance improvement on all sides.
Facilitators are selected for training experience and capability, sector and cultural background, language capability and, of course, subject matter qualifications, knowledge and experience. Most of our facilitators specialise in leadership, management and personal effectiveness. Some of them work at Board level, many of them have experience of front-line training, some of them also work as qualified coaches and some of them have particular specialisms from other disciplines.
The logistics vary from project to project. It’s in the nature of the subject matter that most clients prefer classroom-based delivery but we also do a lot of virtual sessions, webinars, which can be done in most languages and all time zones. We’re also very experienced in delivering follow-up coaching, sometimes from the UK (ie, in English) via Skype, Lync, Zoom, etc, and sometimes face-to-face (or virtual) with local coaches (ie, in local languages). Some clients specify use of English materials but with delivery in the local language. Others require the materials to be translated. Sometimes materials are printed locally (either by the client or by our trainers), sometimes we send them from the UK, depending on the circumstances. Either way, all materials are client-branded and are usually designed by our in-house graphics team.
As to countries and languages, we’ve got it covered. See where we’ve delivered programmes so far:
- Argentina
- Australia
- Austria
- Bangladesh
- Belgium
- Brazil
- Canada
- Chile
- China
- Colombia
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Dominican Republic
- Egypt
- France
- Germany
- Ghana
- Greece
- Hungary
- India
- Ireland
- Italy
- Ivory Coast
- Japan
- Kenya
- Korea
- Latvia
- Luxembourg
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Morocco
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Nigeria
- Norway
- Oman
- Pakistan
- Peru
- Philippines
- Poland
- Puerto Rico
- Qatar
- Romania
- Russia
- Saudi Arabia
- Singapore
- South Africa
- Spain
- Sri Lanka
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Taiwan
- Tanzania
- Thailand
- Tunisia
- Turkey
- UAE
- Uganda
- UK
- USA
- Vietnam
Seven top tips
- Local engagement – get your stakeholders onboard. Your global colleagues can help make your programme a great success. Or not. It will make life easier all round if you get them onboard at the earliest opportunity, so that they act as your local champions and help encourage enrolments.
- Programme development – allow enough time. The most successful roll-out programmes are usually those that have benefited from local stakeholder engagement, local trainer input and senior management buy-in. This all takes time – a global programme can take up to three times as long to organise as an equivalent local programme.
- Pilots and train-the-trainer sessions – are they necessary? This depends partly on the size and complexity of the programme but also on whether it’s a self-contained programme or whether it involves a lot of corporate messaging. If local stakeholders have been involved and it’s a self-contained programme then pilots may not be necessary. But if it’s in support of a new corporate initiative, perhaps something around your values or a new performance management system, then a pilot’s an excellent idea.
- Scheduling – allow enough time. It sounds very obvious, but don’t forget how long the communication chain becomes when agreeing dates. None of our clients has entirely cracked it and the delay usually starts with the local office – what can you do to avoid this problem? If it’s not within your control, then simply allow enough time from the outset.
- Cost control – help us to help you. Even with local trainers there’s bound to be some travel and accommodation. The further in advance we can agree dates, the easier it is to keep a lid on the costs. Doing things at the last minute always costs more. Advance notice also means that we can sometimes be smarter about the scheduling, reducing the number of trips required.
- Translations – if materials need translating, it’s best to get the trainers to do it. Trainers usually criticise agency translations and since they have to familiarise themselves with the materials anyway we find that everything goes much more smoothly if we just get the trainers to do the translations themselves.
- Delivery locations – it’s really helpful to have a ‘profile’ of every delivery location. When scheduling programmes it’s good to know what dates to avoid and a ‘profile location’ should list not just the public holidays but also the local school holidays and any other dates to avoid from the organisation’s perspective. The profile should also give full contact details for the trainer’s benefit – local stakeholder contact, who to ask for on the day, room specification, parking, hotel recommendation, etc, etc.
Meet the team
Mini case study 1 – FMCG
Our first major global client was a household name in FMCG, one of the world’s top five brands in this sector.
In 2006 they announced that they were outsourcing their global HR function (including some 1,500 management training courses a year). As a long-standing training provider for them in the UK (since 1998), we were invited to tender for delivery of specific training workshops across the globe. They received some 1,500 tenders for this work from training providers around the world. Following a rigorous selection procedure, in 2007 they awarded us one of about a dozen contracts to develop and deliver the following workshops:
- Career and development planning (1-day)
- Coaching (2-day)
- Facilitation skills (2-day)
- Giving and receiving feedback (1-day)
- Influencing skills (2-day)
- Time and priority management (1-day)
Our success in gaining this contract was based on our ability in four specific areas:
- Capability to deliver on a global scale
- High quality control
- Consistency of delivery
- High calibre design
Following a successful a pilot phase in 2007 we delivered these programmes in some 45 different countries, in English and local languages, always exceeding the agreed KPIs and consistently being in the top quartile of all their training providers.
Mini case study 2 – communications / IT
Over the last couple of years we’ve delivered half-a-dozen projects for them, including:
- Co-design and delivery across all time zones of a series of webinars for managers on objective-setting
- A ‘Talk like TED!’ session delivered as part of a Finance Team development day held simultaneously in the UK, Geneva and Prague
- Co-design and delivery across all time zones of a series of webinars for managers on performance and reward
- Design and delivery across all time zones of a series of webinars and group coaching sessions for ‘location leaders’ focused on specific competencies for the role, eg, change management, communication and presence, collaboration and relationships
- Co-design and delivery in English at eight different global locations of a recurring series of one-day face-to-face workshops on topics such as:
- Influencing and negotiating
- Change and resilience
- Managing working relationships
- Presence and communication
- Managing your time
- Co-design and delivery, at some 25 global locations by a team of more than a dozen Maximum Performance trainers, of a half-day face-to-face workshop on the new corporate values
- Co-design and delivery, again at 25 locations using a dozen or so local trainers, of a one-day face-to-face workshop for managers on performance management, with a half-day workshop for staff and webinar sessions for more remotely based staff. These sessions included scripting and production of video-based scenarios, using our team of actor facilitators and role-players.
- Co-design and delivery of a leadership programme, again using our team of actor facilitators and role-players – to great acclaim.
Our first project was ‘a huge success’, said their Director of Talent & Organisational Capability, who also thanked us for our ‘above and beyond’ approach. They’re a good client to work with and our relationship with them continues.
Mini case study 3 – A leading financial information and analysis agency
- Communication skills (1-day)
- Effective presentation skills (1-day)
- Effective time management (½-day)
Ad hoc events have included:
- A facilitated session for a global graphic design team (1-day)
- A facilitation skills workshop for HR business partners (1-day)
- A ‘Personal branding’ workshop (½-day)
- A train-the-trainer programme for the HR team (1-day)
And for their London office we also deliver regular bite-sized training sessions on aspects of health and well-being, eg:
- Alcohol Consumption
- Eat-Sleep-Work-Repeat
- Exercise & fitness
- Quick hacks for re-energising yourself
- Quit Smoking
- Resilience
- Success Mindset
- Try to Triumph
We’ve even delivered some of these health and well-being sessions in French and Spanish – even we are surprised at the versatility of some of our trainers!
Mini case study 4 – Food
This leading food company went through a major transformation programme, integrating some very big acquisitions and embedding a common set of values across the rapidly growing organisation.
As one would expect in such circumstances, they saw the need to invest heavily in their people and commissioned us to deliver our ‘Inspiring Leader’ and ‘Management Development’ programmes to their leaders and managers across the UK and Europe.
This requires at least ten ‘outings’ of the 8-day leadership programme (held in the UK for mixed UK/European audiences), at least five ‘outings’ of the 8-day management programme in the UK and a further 20+ ‘outings’ of the management programme across Europe over a three-year timescale. The European programmes are delivered mainly in local languages (Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish) and involve coaching as well as workshops. Some countries have different preferences and requirements and so the programmes are being delivered flexibly to meet local needs.
Audience reaction has been so enthusiastic, around the coaching as well as the classroom delivery, that we are now delivering additional ad hoc workshop modules for them and also a series of webinars and bite-sized workshops on coaching skills. A very appreciative client.
Mini case study 5 – FMCG
The programme is based on the first module of our ‘flagship’ certified coach training programme (details here). A very popular two-day workshop, we run it for this client as days two and three of an introduction to management programme. We’re delivering it in English and local languages, and in a train-the-trainer version, using our sister brand Maximum Coaching’s team of ICF-accredited coach/trainers (details here).
Mini case study 6 – FMCG
For our final mini case study we’ve chosen an FMCG client.
One of the biggest players in the industry, they’re truly global.
They’re also truly committed to reducing their carbon footprint, so they’re moving away from classroom sessions towards a more agile approach featuring a wide range of short, focused interventions delivered via webinar.
They were particularly interested in some of our ‘off-the-shelf’ sessions (you can see some of them here), so we’re now rolling them out across all time zones, mainly in English although in other languages (such as German, French, Spanish and Turkish) when requested by the local offices.
The sessions are proving very popular and we’re slowly building up the range of titles, Watch this space!
Cultural intelligence webinars
The series currently comprises:
Introductory sessions
- Understanding cultural difference
- Managing global teams
‘Deep dives’
- Giving effective feedback across cultures
- Communication styles
- Building relationships and trust
- Time, rules and risk
- Hierarchy, collaboration and control
- Rationality and emotional intelligence
Country focus sessions
- Understanding the French work culture
- Understanding the Italian work culture
- (Other countries can also be covered, on request, by members of our global delivery team.)
Full details of all these sessions here.
Why do clients choose us for their global projects?
- Outstanding results are a given – and we have the track record to prove it.
- Our model is remarkably cost-effective – our very broad geographical coverage means that we can reduce travel and accommodation costs very significantly indeed.
- Management from the UK ensures consistency and quality whilst our flexibility accommodates cultural alignment where necessary.
- We work to the client’s processes and systems (we don’t impose our own learning management system, for example) and they have the ease and comfort of dealing with a single point of contact here in the UK.
- Clients tell us that they like the fact that we’re ‘so easy to work with’.
If you’ve got a global delivery project coming up, then give us a call on +44 (0)1582 463460 – we’re here to help!