News
Five minutes with: Kelly Kajewski
March 31, 2011
Inside DeakinPrime
Kelly Kajewski, Principal Consultant
Kelly Kajewski, a Principal Consultant at DeakinPrime, is a learning and development professional with extensive experience and qualifications in education and business.
What are you working on at the moment?
Right now I’m working on a number of interesting projects with organisations in Australia, China and India in relations to leadership capability development. I’m also working in the retail sector to introduce Deakin University’s new Graduate Certificate in Retail Management to complement DeakinPrime’s experience in retail education. Finally, I’m working on a white paper exploring the 70:20:10 approach to Learning and Development.
Tell us a bit about the 70:20:10 research?
So far my colleague, Val Madsen, and I have identified 50 organisations globally who subscribe to the 70:20:10 approach and we have interviewed 26 of these organisations. The white paper will provide an overview of how 70:20:10 is interpreted and applied by these organisations and will provide some tips for good practice in implementing 70:20:10. The research has been an exciting and enlightening activity highlighting the flexibility of 70:20:10 as it is used across industries and company sizes. It has also reinforced DeakinPrime’s approach of embedding learning into the workplace and providing support and resources for a dynamic learning experience.
What are the pressing needs of the organisations you talk to?
In talking to organisations about their workforce development needs – despite the fact they often operate in different industries – their needs are similar. That is, how to retain talent in a competitive market place, how to reduce regrettable turnover and encouraging a workplace culture of support and learning from each other. This often lead us to explore an exciting mix of formal learning and development supported by informal solutions such as coaching and mentoring, workplace projects, job shadowing, and social networking. For example, some organisations have embraced social networking and encourage employees to share skills and knowledge through YouTube style videos.
What is the most important characteristic of a great consultant?
I believe my role as a Principal Consultant for DeakinPrime is to work with our client organisations to build workface capability and help solve business problems. I think the best approach to this is to take time to understand the whole organisation, including the environment and industry in which they operate and their internal needs and pressures. By taking this partnership approach we can build solutions that support the organisation’s goals and strategic objectives to deliver real improvements to workplace performance.
What is something you love to do, even though you aren’t good enough to make money doing it?
It would have to be playing sport or dancing.
What are you looking forward to this month?
Spending time at the beach with family and friends over the Easter break.
Download Kelly's DeakinPrime profile (PDF) ยป
