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Training strategy

It's all too easy to view training as a 'nice to have' part of the business which costs money. However, a well planned and executed training strategy will help the business achieve its objectives. Here we show what a magazine training strategy might look like.

A model magazine training strategy

To keep this straightforward, we have focused most of the magazine strategy upon the editorial area.

Five key elements that drive a magazine strategy:

1. Alignment with the organisation's vision and values. What is your organisation's vision? And how do you like to do things in your business? The first element is to ensure that all training fits with these principles.
2. Belief in developing people. If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always had. Training is essentially about changing behaviours, helping your people work in new and better ways. It really helps if you genuinely believe in the benefits of people development. Remember, organisations can act faster when responsibility and authority are delegated lower down, and teams perform better than individuals: work accordingly.
3. We want to keep doing well what we're already good at doing. It sounds obvious, doesn't it? Maintaining your core competencies, however, is the very minimum for survival in the competitive world. So what are these core competencies. They could include:
   • Creating, executing and re-inventing magazine visions.
   • The ability to understand, empathise with and anticipate current and future reader and customer needs.
   • Specialist market knowledge.
   • Technical magazine craft.
4. We're proactive. A proactive magazine training strategy aligns itself with business goals and strategies. It looks at these strategies and is then created to help the organisation achieve or surpass the objectives. It also helps when the strategy is flexible to respond to change initiatives.
5. We're reactive. As well as being proactive, the strategy needs to be able to react to needs within the organisation, whether these come from individuals or teams.

Making strategy meaningful

Having established the five principles behind the magazine strategy, it can then be broken down into the key areas within the business:

1. Entry level
2. Core skills
3. Managerial
4. Others

Entry level

How many beginner journalists are you likely to take on? Will they be graduates with no journalism experience? Or will they be specialists who have a passion for the subject, but aren't journalists? What training will they need to bring them up to speed? How much can be done in-house, in the form of coaching, and how much needs to be done externally?

The Periodicals Training Council accredits the Certificate in Professional Journalism which is the magazine industry's 'standard' entry level qualification, which is well worth considering if you are employing newcomers to journalism.

Core skills

Training companies that specialise in editorial skills, such as PMA and CSE, provide a range of training 'core skills' editorial courses, often at different levels. Some will be for complete beginners, some for those with limited experience and some for those who are highly experienced. These cover all the key editorial subjects, such as production, subbing, news and features. Remember also the design of your magazines: designer training fits into two main categories - creative and technical. Creative is focused on the optimum presentation of words and pictures on a page, while technical training links in with the computer programmes the designer's going to be using.

Managerial

Many editors and other middle managers are appointed because of their technical skills, yet once they become managers their role increasingly involves leading and motivating the editorial team. Inter-personal and leadership skills come to the fore, along with essential management tasks, such as recruitment and holding appraisals. Remember, these managers will be key in developing your future managers.

Other

As organisations evolve, other training might be required to facilitate change - perhaps in the development of web sites. Something that should always be on the agenda is legal training. Libel actions can be costly, not just in financial terms, but also in terms of time. Are your editorial teams, particularly the editors, up to speed legally? An annual legal refresher course is worth making available to staff.

It may also be useful to consider team development programmes, which can include your organisation's senior management team.

Culture

Finally, training will be more effective if you can run your strategy within a cultural environment that supports training and the development of people:

• Encourage people to take responsibility for their own development.
• Look for leadership programmes that encourage managers to help develop their people.
• Provide editors with the skills to coach their people and complement external training.
• Improve skills of editors and staff in line with the overall objective of creating magazines that readers care about.
• Creating succession plans, where people are promoted internally, can be very motivational, increase loyalty and reduce recruitment costs!

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