The Hindu Business Line : At O&M, training takes cricketing turn

CRICKET bats and stumps as certificates for participation, cricket caps and pads as souvenirs, and much more: cricket was the theme of Ogilvy & Mather's training activities in 2005.

The company decided to step up its investment on people training this year and spent one per cent of its revenue on training. In the coming year, according to Ms Kalpana Rao, Training Director, the agency would be stepping it up to around 1.4 per cent.

The training programme was branded `The Front Foot Challenge', the programmes of shorter duration `Limited Overs', and the longer ones `Test Matches'.

The various training programmes were also branded based on popular cricketing terms; the conditioning camp for the foundation course for the new entrants was called `Debutants'; the coaching skills workshop `Net Practice', while the 360-degree workshop was branded as `The Huddle'.

"We decided on a theme-based training programme so that the employees would not find the idea of a training programme boring. And cricket is something which people generally relate to."

Ms Rao also said that the agency's focus on training all these years was quite sporadic. "But in 2005, training at Ogilvy got a fresh impetus. We concentrated on it much more and planned it well."

She added: "If we want to get better talent, we not only have to pay well, we also have to manage their careers better."

According to her, the agency is in the process of deciding a theme for the coming year's training sessions.