Monitoring what your competitors are doing is essential for any new start-up and for businesses as they grow. If you really want to stay on top of things you need to monitor competitor activities on an ongoing basis. Here are some tried and tested ways to keep up to date with what your competitors are up to.

You can gather a great deal of information online, many publications now have their own websites and there are archive services available via some of the national newspapers too.

In recent years there has been a shortage of highly qualified engineers available to fill positions in expanding companies, and an even bigger lack in qualified consultants in the industry. This has prompted a rise in courses on offer from Universities to applicants who have successfully worked their way through college and want to enter the world of engineering consultancy.

A good fire warden will have excellent organisational skills, a level of confidence and a calm head. The role requires you to keep others calm and guide them to a safe location in the event of a fire. If you are prone to panicking in stressful situations, then the role probably isn't for you. To make sure that the correct procedures are being carried out, in companies of all sizes, it's important to make sure those in charge have had some fire warden training.

I can say with confidence that the art of active listening is an unappreciated and underused activity in many organizations. And I know most CEOs know this.

So how about taking a proactive approach to active listening and teach every single person in your organization to do the same.

Become the champion of helping your entire company LISTEN well and you will see results on your bottom line.

The Health and Safety at Work Act emphasises the duty of employers for providing a workplace free from hazards. Ensuring every new employee receives health and safety training is an essential part of every induction, from understanding where the emergency exits are to the procedures to follow in the event of an accident.

All employers have a responsibility for the health and safety of their employees within the workplace.

Ever since the fire safety regulatory reform (fire safety) order 2005, fire safety training has become a legal requirement for staff members around the country. As a result, basic fire safety awareness has become dominant in both the workplace and the home. Whether you are an employer, employee or simply a general member of the public, understanding what to do in a fire could well be one of the most important set of skills you ever learn.

With so much competition in the workforce today, it seems ambition is inflating and the ratio of jobs to jobseekers is dramatically unbalanced. This is advantageous to employers as they are offered a wider selection of talented employees to recruit and harder for jobseekers to get their foot in the door. Saying this, how easy is it to keep those employees feet in the door once they have been hired?

Employee training is an excellent way to not only boost morale in the workforce but also ensure staffs are highly trained to achieve the best possible results for your company.

eLearning offers a range of educational outcome and cost reduction benefits for contact centre training delivery. These include reductions in training delivery time, increased agent skill sets, continuity in training delivery and greater content engagement. Through the use of eLearning technologies, agent skill sets can be greatly enhanced by allowing the trainee to learn at their own pace, and in their own style.

In the wider commercial and government world eLearning, or online training, is often represented by an abundance of glorified Power Point presentations. Back and next buttons rule supreme, and while this type of training can provide some visually interesting content it doesn't necessarily engage learners for long. However, if you're prepared to spend more on eLearning a whole new teaching and learning opportunity is uncovered.

A LMS can no longer rely on it's effectiveness as a learning medium to deliver, track and monitor training. It now needs to fend for itself and clearly demonstrate how it adds value to a business's bottom line.

Previously, a traditional LMS has been able to provide sufficient value and worth to an organisation, by delivering and tracking training in a more cost effective and flexible method.