Nadine's Story - Customized Training

Nadine's Story - Customized Training

Hi my name is Nadine. I’m a Human Resources consultant at the city of Regina.            

We developed the Leadership Development Program in a partnership with the University of Regina. We worked together to come up with the right programing that would appropriately meet the needs of the leaders at the city.

The University of Regina has been wonderful at really being attentive to what we were looking for and we ended up with an eight module program that takes about one year to complete. At the end of the learning event people actually earn their University of Regina certificate that we actually have dual logos to represent the partnership that shows the city working hand in hand with the University to train our leaders.

It’s been a wonderful experience for the organization as a whole. Prior to the partnership we had some training that was taking place for leaders however, it wasn’t a concerted effort like we have experienced with the leadership development program.  So we actually are measuring where people are at at the beginning of the program and then re-measuring at the end of the program and we’ve actually come back with some really positive indicators to show that’s it been a really value added return-on-investment for the City of Regina as a whole.

So we actually moved into this partnership from the more senior levels. It was an agreement that came out of some more senior level meetings between the city manager and the president of the University of Regina. From there the connections started to be made and really working with the continuing education staff has been incredible. The level of attention, flexibility and accommodation that the unit really brings to customized learning is phenomenal. Its high quality education, along with the real desire to make something that is effective.

When I was working with the University on this program, we had pre-meetings were we would work with the instructor directly. We would talk about what is going on at the city, some of the linkages to the strategic plan, other initiatives that are going on within the organization to ensure that the content was really applicable to what our leaders would want to learn. Also the incorporation of some very city specific materials, such as our leadership strategy, our competency matters. All those pieces were taken and then actually incorporated into the learning material.

I would highly recommend working with the University of Regina to pull something together like this. For the simple fact that not only are they going to get really high quality learning out of it, but also it’s that brand recognition of being the University of Regina. That I think has served us well in marketing it to our internal employee base. It’s something that at the end they know they’ve achieved perhaps that diploma or that certificate that they hadn’t done on their own.  So there is that win-win scenario were they’ve not got their University certificate, but also they’ve got some really concrete skill development that really helps them grow professionally and personally as an individual.

Our wins and gains through the achievements over the course of the leadership development program has really felt like it has been the wins and gains of the University. From those little touches of ensuring everything is in place, support with parking for participants, but even getting a cake for graduation of our students, that feeling of being in it together is something significant, important and highly valued.


Nadine - July 2017

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