Ongoing training and development (learning and development – L&D) in the workplace is important for several reasons. It motivates staff, improves employee retention, increases productivity, and enhances customer satisfaction. All of which are critical in the public sector. It also provides a gap for SMEs who want to bid on training contracts for government organisations.
Public sector training contracts for SMEs are relatively straightforward. There’s no supply chain to worry about, no products that need constant upgrading, and no services that rely on materials from second and third-tier suppliers.
Information is the product and training is the service. Suppliers must ensure they are always on the cutting edge of research, technology advancements, and learning trends. This includes the types of training required and the most effective learning/teaching styles.
We’re going to explore training services for government contracts, from the types of training tenders available to accreditation requirements and bid writing.
How To Win Public Sector Training Contracts
Before we can figure out how to win public sector training tenders, we need to look at which types of training are in demand. Flower arranging is nice enough, but leadership training is more relevant.
1) Management & Leadership Training
Management training can actually be divided into three categories:
1) Emerging leaders
Emerging leaders show management potential. Their leadership skills need to be encouraged and nurtured with training opportunities for personal skills, like communication and active listening, as well as ‘rewiring’ their brains to spot and leverage business growth opportunities.
2) New managers
New managers need to develop team leadership and building skills to coax the best performances from their team members while enabling them to operate effectively independently and collaborate within a group.
3) Executive leaders
Let’s assume executive leaders have already perfected the skills learnt above. Now they need to develop skills for strategic planning and goal delivery. They focus less on personal skills and team leadership (although these are still important) and more on forward-thinking and strategising for a successful future. Essential skills include effective delegation, mentoring, constructive feedback, and maintaining motivation and morale.
2) Customer Service Training
Many civil servants have public-facing jobs, like Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency staff. They need communication and interpersonal skills, especially in the face of frustrated, angry public members. Training should also include building customer relationships so that trips to government departments aren’t dreaded.
3) Soft Skills Training
We’ve already touched on soft skills with emerging leaders. They are personal and interpersonal skills, including active listening, negotiation, communication, and public speaking.
4) Technical (hard) Skills Training
Hard skills refer to general abilities, like spreadsheets, operating systems, and internal computer systems.
5) Product-Specific Training
This refers to job-related skills training and includes updated product information and adjustments to services. Product-specific training is usually most common for new employees, but all employees need training when new products or services are launched.
6) Onboard Training
Onboard training is exactly how it sounds. New employees are taught about the business and business operations in general, but with a particular focus on their role, obviously. Senior or experienced employees in the department show newbies the ropes, for example, how to use the task management system or how to prepare for presentations.
7) Compliance Training
Compliance training operates on two levels. First, it includes the business’s regulations, policies, codes of conduct, and penalties for non-compliance, for example, complaints procedures and emergency procedures. Secondly, it includes relevant public sector regulations, such as data security.
8) Health and Safety Training
This is very important from a business point of view and a government point of view. Businesses must comply with health and safety regulations, so their staff must understand the regulations in general and for the business specifically. Should staff not comply, the business will be penalised – and so will the staff members responsible.
9) Digitisation and Transformation
There’s a big drive to digitise the UK’s public sector. This includes getting rid of legacy systems and replacing them with far more effective, efficient, and accurate digital systems.
It also includes AI. For example, the Cabinet Office and Government Skills have revealed nine new courses focussing on AI training for Civil Servants. The courses range from the fundamentals of AI to Large Language Models and Deep Learning.
How To Demonstrate The Value Provided By Your Training Services
Value in intangible services like training tends to be subjective and is tricky to demonstrate. It’s a good idea to determine goals and specific KPIs that you can measure. A good example is:
Time and money saved.
It’s easy to get a baseline for the current time taken to complete tasks and what tasks cost. Effective training will reduce both without sacrificing quality.
More examples include:
Increased accuracy.
Again, it’s fairly easy to get a baseline for current accuracy levels and to compare them to post-training levels.
Staff turnover.
The staff turnover rate in the public sector is 9%. That’s pretty high. However, professional training opportunities that develop skills and emotional intelligence can help turn that around. This is largely because people like a challenge and continuing professional development (CPD) can be challenging – and rewarding – enough to keep bums in seats, especially when it paves the way for promotions.
Customer satisfaction.
Current customer satisfaction can be determined through surveys and reviews. Surveys and reviews are then used to determine satisfaction levels post-training.
Certification And Accreditation For Compliance Training Tenders In The UK
Suppliers who want to do business with the government must find out which standards must be met, for example, CPD certification and GDPR compliance.
Compliance with training tenders in the UK includes the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). The ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) has made staff training for GDPR compliance mandatory. GDPR training even applies to temp staff and volunteers, and typically includes:
- Data protection
- Rules and principles
- Rights of individuals
- Security requirements
- Sharing, using, transferring, and deleting data
Refresher training should take place once a year.
Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
CPD is mandatory in some industries while some industries don’t even recognise CPD, although the public sector encourages it.
It’s mandatory in certain professional bodies which require members to earn X credits to maintain membership and enjoy the benefits this provides.
Construction is one of the industries where certification is not strictly mandatory, but accreditation bodies (Construction Industry Training Board – CITB; Construction Skills Certification Scheme – CSCS) require you to meet specific standards and criteria if you want to work on construction sites.
Teaching, on the other hand, doesn’t legally require teachers to keep up with CPD, although different schools might have different standards. Basically, teachers can attend workshops and do courses online or follow a series of webinars, but it’s purely for their self-edification. It would be a stingy headmaster who didn’t take it into account come promotion/bonus/increase time.
Finally, some businesses and organisations include CPD in their employment contracts. Employees must maintain certain standards and a certain level of industry knowledge to keep their jobs. They are typically supported and provided with CPD opportunities.
Top Tips For Winning Government Training Contracts
SME training providers in the public sector must offer excellent value to stand head and shoulders above their competitors.
This top tip is perhaps the only tip you need:
Tailor your proposals
Tailor your proposals to meet the specific requirements in the contract.
Bear in mind that due to circumstances, requirements can change. In that case, you must be able to adapt your proposal to accommodate the changes. For example, the Procurement Act 2023 brings about significant changes to public procurement. You must adapt and update your training material to remain relevant.
Everyone loves flexibility. No one likes stuck-in-the-muds.
Tailor training programmes for the target audience
This just means that you can’t use the same programme for entry-level employees and the C-Suite. Training must be adaptable to ensure it’s always relevant for employees, regardless of their level.
Interactive training
Ok, there’s a second top tip.
People learn best when they are engaged. That’s why it’s a good idea to tailor your programme to include a variety of methods with varying degrees of interaction. For example:
- Live workshops that include role-playing scenarios.
- Live video training (webinars) with surveys, polls, puzzles, and group work.
- Multimedia training that uses a combination of live events and online programmes (live and on-demand).
Evaluation and Feedback
Ok, there are three and that’s final.
Training is evolutionary, so your training programmes need to evolve as required. There are several feedback mechanisms and assessment tools that determine the effectiveness of your training.
Feedback from participants is the most obvious and direct. It includes quizzes, surveys, and assessment forms for personal experiences and the quality of the course.
Don’t just sit on the feedback. You must use the information to strengthen your training programmes and meet training needs more closely.
Basically, the only tip you need is to tailor your programme. Tailor it to suit:
- Circumstances
- Employee levels
- Level of engagement
- Media used
- Feedback and ongoing evolution.
Free Resources From Supply2Gov
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This includes:
- Webinars
- Blogs
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- Business Growth Programme
- Tender Ready Toolkit
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