Annie Litchfield

The work bit

After studying for a degree in Communication Studies, I began my training career over 20 years ago with TNT UK Ltd.  My passion for helping others learn soon saw me progress to a role as Regional Training Officer, where I completed my Post Graduate Diploma in Learning and Development (MCIPD). My experience within both a multi-national and a family run logistics business have given me experience of the full training cycle from training needs analysis to delivery and evaluation. During my maternity leave from my role as Commercial Training Manager, I continued my love of learning by qualifying as an Antenatal Teacher. It enabled me to keep my training skills fresh and my mind active whilst dealing with 2 small children! Since taking up my current role, I have continued my development as a trainer by becoming an accredited Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) instructor.

More than just my CV, I hope I bring a vibrancy and exuberance for what I do. This is often reflected in the feedback I get:

‘Annie was fantastic at delivering the presentation with great content which I will personally find very useful.’

‘Annie’s delivery style and enthusiasm were brilliant – she’s very engaging.’ 

I am super chatty and can engage with everyone. My straight-talking, down to earth nature offer a refreshing approach in a training world that can be filled with jargon!

Please give me a call if you want to discuss any training needs you might have. I am always happy to chat! With my knowledge and enthusiasm, I am ideally positioned to advise you on your training and development needs.

The personal bit

I live in Nottinghamshire with my two children and our cute rescue dog, Anna. I bring a love for vintage clothes and often a flash of bright pink hair to the office. Who knows what the next outfit or hair colour will be! 1980’s batwings seem to be making quite an appearance at the moment! When I can, I will often help my friend out in his hair salon to feed my love of chatting and of course get the next bright colour or cut in exchange!

I love to hit the gym and lift some heavy weights – dodgy back allowing! This is to offset my love of all things sweet.  I also love Star Wars and Marvel. Yes, I am a bit of a film geek!  At weekends I am often seen chilling wearing my Star Wars jumper, jeans and trainers in sharp contrast to ‘Office Annie’. I love to read a variety of non-fiction books as I have a real passion for not only helping others learn but also for my own. You will often see articles on our website where I discuss my thoughts on the books I have read or those that have particularly influenced my thinking. Take a look!

My thoughts on training bit

My love of helping others learn first came when I was training new members of my customer service team. It was mostly on-the-job training that had to be delivered, so I created helpful reminder and knowledge sheets that I would laminate (got to love a laminator!). I really enjoyed seeing the development in people and how they would progress. Even better was seeing those same people getting promoted or moving sideways into roles they loved. Training then became my focus and over 20 years later I am still enjoying it.

Working in training has so many facets to it – working with the client to uncover exactly what their needs are, scoping the project to get the detail of what improvements are needed, researching and designing the session, the actual delivery, evaluating its success, and working with the client to follow-up.

I love the creativity of the design work but even after all this time, I always seem to underestimate how long this takes! I love the feeling of creating something new that will ultimately enable others to develop or improve. The delivery part enables me to meet some great new people. My style is very facilitative so I actively encourage my delegates to share their thoughts and best practice. Surely many heads are better than one!

Whilst I am more than happy to waffle on about the theory behind a lot of topics as I am a bit of a book worm, my focus always has to be on the practical application of the sessions I design and run. What will the delegates be able to do differently as a result? What will they be able to take back to their workplace to implement? When time and resources are short, clients want the best bang for their buck and this means being very clear from the outset what the result of the training will be and using the time wisely when I design and deliver.

Online learning has opened up a whole new amazing world of opportunities for both me as a trainer and for my clients. We are not constrained by location or by training room provision. One session I delivered recently had a delegate who was in his living room in Amsterdam. Awesome! Whilst I am sure online learning has established itself firmly in the lives of many organisations I very much look forward to the time when I can get back out there face-to-face with some of you fabulous people.

Training rocks!

What people say about Annie

MHFA

Overall very impressed. The course was well taught by Annie who was knowledgeable, funny, open and kind. I would recommend to anyone for the simple benefit to further their understanding of the invisible struggles of yourself and others around you. I feel more confident to be able to spot people who are struggling and more able to approach them to be of assistance where possible. The atmosphere made it feel like a safe space and meeting people and hearing others’ views and stories was also beneficial to the learning experience.

Thank you!

Liam Walters
Senior Technician, Chemistry
Denby, Derbyshire

Boosted my spirit and made me laugh lots!

I have attended numerous training sessions with Annie and always find her to be an engaging and relevant trainer. My last session on ‘How to rebuild employee trust and morale’ was a worthwhile couple of hours that boosted my spirit and made me laugh lots! Now I am looking to see what other sessions you offer!

Karen Stevens
Director
GOBBYCOW Ltd
Ilkeston

Annie is a really bubbly character

The webinar was led by Annie from Loates. Annie is a really bubbly character and engaged with the participants in a relaxed and friendly manner.

I found the content of the webinar really helpful in making suggestions to tweak our performance review process. As a business we are in the early implementation stages of carrying out performance reviews so it was a very timely session. Employee engagement is one of the key issues to the business succeeding. The webinar gave us an opportunity to do some little breakout exercises which gave us an opportunity to reflect on how we could help to develop our colleagues. With this being more of a workshop session we also have the opportunity to interact with others on the session. It was interesting to learn of the challenges others had and how they were trying to resolve them.
Annie is clearly a bookworm and made a number of suggestions regards to reading material to consider. My Audible account is now down to zero credit and Amazon have delivered some bedtime reading.

Thanks Annie & Loates for running this session; I found it really helpful.

Carl Singleton
Operations Director
Chesterfield

Excellent training

I attended the 2 day Mental Health First Aider training ran by Annie. There was excellent communication and information leading up to the course. The course itself was very interesting and informative with lots of interactive opportunities over the 2 days. Training room was very comfortable and lunch and refreshments provided on each day was fantastic. For anyone thinking about completing this course I would definitely recommend the course and Annie the trainer who was fantastic. We will definitely be booking on another delegate.

Emma Blackmore
Registered Manager
West Bridgford, Nottingham

Excellent training

I found the mental health first aid training excellent, it was delivered sensitively and professionally, everyone’s points of view were considered and respected. I would thoroughly recommend this training to other voluntary sector organisations.

Ann Rowlands
CEO
Derby

Great training

Considering the topic of mental health first aid Annie made the training informative, yet it was also an enjoyable experience. Annie made it inter-active and wasn’t just following a power-point presentation. I have come away with a huge amount of knowledge to take back to my workplace.

Viv Sheppard
HR & Wellbeing Manager
Derby

5 star course

The course was 5 star, Annie put us at ease from the first minute and delivered the course superbly. she gave us time to take on board the information and didn’t try to bombard us with information.
every session of the course was explained and Annie got all the delegates involved and active in the day.
I enjoyed the course and now have some knowledge to use when helping people with their issues. Nothing was too much trouble for Annie so brilliant.
Must also add that the shortbread that Annie supplied was not only delicious it was M&S too.
I would recommend this course to anyone thank you for all your work in training people up to help those with mental health issues
Thank You

Alwyn Sears
Technical Maintenance Specialist
Denby, Derbyshire

Really useful tips

I really enjoyed the session and found some really useful tips that will help me in the future. The trainer was engaging and shared some personal experiences which was brave and helped to illustrate the points.

Lisa Bryant
HR Director
Nottingham

A great training session

I just wanted to say thank you to Sarah and Annie for a great training session yesterday for Timms Solicitors partners, associates and the management team. We thoroughly enjoyed the session and the energy in the room was brilliant. I have learnt a great deal about my team and they have learnt about themselves and how to manage their behaviour in the office and gain respect from the staff. I must say I was very proud of the way they all engaged and the contributions they made. Thank you so much for bringing out the best in us.

Fiona Moffat
Managing Partner
Derby

Annie in action!

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