Action Learning Associates

Richard Hamilton

My career has taken me on a varied route, which I am only now fully appreciating as a natural progression and development of my skills and approach.

Throughout, my focus on people and the recognition that they are the lifeblood of any organisation has remained central to my approach. As a result, I have always looked to provide colleagues with the opportunity to question, challenge and develop and this approach has been enhanced through experience and observation.

My background includes spells working in local government, journalism and two major commercial organisations, giving me a sound understanding of a variety of organisations, the roles required at both a junior and senior level and the very different approaches both individuals and their organisations adopt.

Outside of the workplace, I have committed a significant amount of time to voluntary organisations and in particular the Samaritans. In addition to being a listening volunteer, I am committed to training within the organisation and I work as part of a small team developing and presenting training for volunteers in the South of England.

Based in Guernsey, the majority of my working life has been spent working in communications – both telecommunications and journalism, before moving into Human Resources and my current company, Specsavers Optical Group. One of our aims at Specsavers is to develop an internal consultancy approach, which will see me calling on skills I have developed, honed and put into practise throughout my career, namely:

• Training
• Facilitation
• Coaching (at all levels)
• Change Management
• Project Management
• Negotiation
• Business Improvement Processes

Put simply, I look to provide support and guidance to the people I work with, enabling them to grow at a rate that is comfortable in the context of developing their role or business on a personal and professional level.

Having trained as an Action Learning facilitator, and as a current set member, I have no doubts about the benefits of Action Learning as part of both personal and professional development.

My role as a facilitator is therefore one I relish and I’m looking forward to working with others to show how Action Learning works and enabling them to decide how they would like to put that learning into practise.