About Us

Progress Training Systems Pty Limited was incorporated in 1988 as a business development consultancy with the specific purpose of providing products and services to enhance the progress and performance of client organisations and their people.

Our Managing Director is Janelle Nisbet. Janelle has a background in managing and leading highly successful teams in three highly competitive industries. Throughout her corporate career working with teams in the banking and finance, stock broking and telecommunications areas, Janelle was known as someone who can bring out the best in her people. Her corporate experience includes nine years in the fast paced, ever changing call and contact centre industry where Janelle and her teams were recognised with 10 industry awards for excellence.

Picture 1 Janelle regularly consults and speaks to industry groups. She specialises in the areas of coaching, creating and leading high performing teams. Her award winning people development skills have created great demand for her in many organisations as a trainer of leaders and coaches, as well as a motivator and inspirer of service excellence.

Progress' founder is Catherine Palin-Brinkworth (M. AppSCI CSP), an extremely experienced business consultant and professional presenter. Her corporate background is extensive. She is known for building several successful organisations and their teams in the financial services industry as well as hospitality and consumer goods. Additionally Catherine has an outstanding national and international track record in association leadership. Catherine has a wide range of successful consulting experiences, and speaks on leadership, change and business development issues world-wide.

Additionally, Progress has a number of accredited associates and facilitators who are expert service providers covering the range of topics we offer. It is a requirement that our facilitators have outstanding track records in the fields in which they deliver, and we will always ensure they work with you to understand your own specific culture, objectives and values.

HOW WE DO BUSINESS

Progress provides a range of options for delivery of our skills development programs to our clients:

  • We undertake extensive briefings and orientation activities to ensure we are familiar with your corporate culture, terminology and procedures. We conduct diagnostic evaluations to enable us, in partnership with you, to tailor and customise the programs to fit in completely with your organisation’s style, services and other development activities.

  • We often recommend a selected Pilot Program with measurement criteria agreed in advance, after which we can undertake a more extensive rollout when the results are achieved as desired.

  • Once the value of the programs has been established and the cultural fit ensured, if you prefer we can arrange your own in-house use of our programs under a Licence Agreement, training and accrediting your own personnel as Licensed Accredited Facilitators for the programs.

The most preferred option is always that which combines the lowest cost with the greatest potential for results. We will always customise our programs for you to ensure the highest possible relevance, effectiveness and cultural congruence.

We deliver our services nationally and internationally, co-ordinated by our Sydney Head Office.

OUR POINT OF DIFFERENCE

Picture 2 In our own experience, time and money can be wasted on development programs that don’t work. We want to achieve results, for our clients primarily - but also for our own satisfaction, reputation and referral business!

We know that the only effective behavioural change occurs over time, with good on-the-job coaching and support. We work hard to create clarity of role and purpose, to define and impart skills through practical and memorable systems, and to ensure a lasting legacy that continues to achieve results long after we have left. Our programs are driven wherever possible through your own managers, supervisors and team leaders, using spaced repetition, coaching, and as much internal expertise as possible to ensure seamlessness and cultural integrity.

Within client parameters, we build our programs on our own four fundamental Progress training principles and philosophies:

  1. Spaced Learning:
    It is well established that spaced repetition is the key to absorbing information, translating it to conscious knowledge and implementing behavioural change – we create optimal behavioural change by blending massed learning with spaced learning in our program design.
  2. On the Job Learning:
    Research studies have demonstrated that people learn most willingly and effectively on the job, rather than in an artificial classroom environment. We prefer to encourage real play rather than role play, and build that in to our systems implementation.
  3. Peer Group Learning:
    There is also a noted preference for learning from peer group ‘champions’, to ensure the knowledge is proven and relevant. Our program structure maximizes the value of the expertise held by your more experienced team members.
  4. Management Involvement:
    The most important of all – where management demonstrates not only their support of the program, but their actual ownership of it, by their committed attendance, and their ability to facilitate, coach and debrief on the content. Only then does the new knowledge become effective behavioural change and eventually part of the organisational culture.