Karlie Cremin, managing director at DLPA, discusses the biggest challenges facing HR leaders and the importance of "conceptual knowing"
Ksenia: Hello and welcome to HRD Australia. Joining us today we have Karlie Cremin, owner and director of DLPA, an expert in providing successful training programs to leaders across Australia, won the Silver Medal for Talent Management, Learning and Development at the HRD AU-NZ Service Provider Awards 2022. So tell us, what are some of the biggest challenges that leaders are facing today?
Karlie: We've seen a real shift on market probably since about July last year. The challenges have really shifted to be more around succession planning and resilience really. There are other pressures on market where organizations by and large are busier, are having, you know, quite aggressive growth targets and things like that, particularly post post a lot of the disruption from COVID. But the talent landscape has really forced organizations to look at succession planning and because that hasn't been given a lot of oxygen over previous years, there is a lot of reactive catch up that people are having to do in that space. And then on the resilience side, obviously there's been some significant stresses in play for people. So organizations really are focusing now on that resilience as a distinct skill set and also the need for leaders to transfer that skill set to their teams.
Ksenia: And perhaps you can tell us a bit about DLPA's training and just what makes it so immersive.
Karlie: Flagship program is incredibly immersive. It's a three day intensive offsite. We run that in beautiful locations around Australia, usually outside of the capital cities, which we find You really just get much more focused, you get a much more intense learning environment and that much more experiential type learning where we're focused on generating that behavioral change. So not just conceptual knowing, but what am I going to do differently by virtue of knowing that? And that's really where our immersive modes of delivery work really well. We do complement that with other modes such as virtual instructor led environments, lunch and learns breakfast seminars in the traditional half or full day.
Ksenia: And so what are some of the key topics that your training programs tend to focus on?
Karlie: I think we have just over 150. I think it's about 165 modules that we can use and we tailor those into customized programs in-house. But depending on what people need, that can sound, you know, quite overwhelming. But they're in, you know, distinct categories. So it's things around communication, influence and persuasion, negotiation. Conflict resolution has become very popular over the last few years, shall we say. We also do managerial skills. So things like finance for non-finance managers, strategic thought, critical thought and design thinking and through to, you know, marketing and sales for professional services firms as well. Um, and then the more traditional soft skills in leadership as well around things like leadership traits. We do a lot of profiling and particularly team profiling to, to look at those team dynamics and getting into the high performing team space.
Ksenia: Let's talk a bit about this focus on behavioral change. Why is behavioral change such an important area for you?
Karlie: That's important to us and hopefully quite important to our clients as well, because that's where the return on investment really is. That conceptual knowing is great and important and it has its place certainly, but really it's where our rubber hits the road. And what are people going to do differently in a life context where businesses will get that return on investment, on training and development, particularly in the leadership space? We really focus on that behavioral change, as I say, because that is where businesses will see difference in outcomes, where businesses will get return on investment and higher levels of performance.
Ksenia: Fantastic. Now, and finally, let's talk a bit about the future as well. Where are you looking to take DLPA over the coming 12 months?
Karlie: Open up? We've we've had a lot of growth over the last few years, even just the start of 2023, which these these first 2 to 3 months of the year are traditionally quite quiet for us. So our planning phase, we've been run off our feet, which is fantastic, particularly after COVID. We're really expanding. We're looking to get into different verticals then maybe we have before. And all of that is with the view of externally expanding rather our employment pathways program.
Ksenia: Fantastic. Well, thank you very much, Karlie. It sounds like you've got a very exciting year ahead of you. And thank you for coming on and sharing your insights. It's been fantastic to have you. And to all our viewers out there at HRD Australia, thank you as always, for watching. And we'll see you again soon in the next video.
