Simran has over 22 years’ combined experience in Aviation, Hospitality, IT, BPO (Business Process Outsourcing), Telecom and Retail. She has been directly involved in learning and development roles for over 11 years, with the goals of increasing people performance, productivity, and ultimately, an organization’s bottom line.
Simran began her professional career with a leading Indian Airline, Jet Airways, in 1999, in a front-line customer service role. In her four years with the airline, she learnt the importance of delivering quality customer service, understanding the difference between providing just ‘customer satisfaction’ and creating ‘WOW’ moments. She saw first-hand, the contribution training can make in achieving ‘customer delight’ when providing a consistently high level of customer service.
In 2003, she completed her Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce, from the University of Delhi, while still working for Jet Airways. After graduating, she moved to a leading hospitality company run by the Ansal Group, specialising in construction and real estate development. Her role was Assistant Manager for Members’ Services of a Town & Country Club, in New Delhi, with responsibility for growing the membership base, and enhancing services for the members. This position enabled her to further develop her customer service skills, and also allowed her to develop key capabilities in sales and marketing. This multifunctional role drove home the need for developing soft skills in all personnel, to enhance overall job performance.
In 2004, Simran had an opportunity to step into the Learning and Development field with IBM – Daksh, a BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) set-up, with a formidable services portfolio. Her role was part of the Talent Transformation Business Unit, which had the aim of taking new hires through language and soft skills training, over a span of three to four weeks. In this role she was selected to be a part of a cross-functional initiative aimed at improving training effectiveness across the organization. One of her key responsibilities was to look specifically at attrition control – staff retention. In this position, she won several accolades for ‘Best Trainer’.
This exposure to training created a desire to explore all aspects of soft skills training that a corporate Trainer would require. Therefore, after a rewarding two years at IBM, she moved to a corporate training role with Sapient – a leading U.S. business and technology service and solutions provider. Sapient’s work culture has been profiled within Harvard and Yale Business Schools as a corporate example of good leadership and strong corporate values. In this role, she developed, and delivered, the company’s five-day orientation programme for new employees, and ran a variety of team development and soft skills workshops.
In 2007, Simran moved to the UAE, and took up a post with du (Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company) as a Training Specialist. In this role, she was responsible for developing and delivering soft skills training, as well as delivery of some product training. She was also involved in Training Needs Analysis, and assisted in creating the yearly training plan, as well as managing the external training resources. The company had a diverse workforce of over 60 nationalities, and Simran thoroughly enjoyed the challenges of training in such a rich, multicultural environment.
In December 2008, she took a five-year career break for family reasons, returning to the work environment with the Landmark Group in March 2014, as Training Manager for one of their retail divisions. In this role, she conducted a wide range of corporate training activities which included setting the training budget, creating a comprehensive TNA (Training Needs Analysis), designing training programmes, etc. She was also involved with several HR initiatives – including performance improvement plans, restructuring the onboarding policies, orientation training, coaching and mentoring, etc.
Through her training experiences, in a range of sectors, Simran has developed a passion for people development. She believes that, through effective training, people can be equipped with the necessary skills to enhance performance, which can significantly improve productivity and working relationships. She is passionate about inspiring lives and transforming people so they can achieve their full potential. Simran has very high energy in the training room, and the ability to fully connect with each individual delegate, ensuring they extract the maximum possible benefit from her training.
Simran joined Spearhead as a Senior Management Associate in 2015.
Her key areas of expertise include:
Management & Leadership
- Supervisory Management Skills (City & Guilds – ILM Recognised)
- Leading High Performance Teams
- Coaching For Optimum Performance (City & Guilds – ILM Recognised)
- Delegating Effectively & Empowering Your Team
Business Skills
- Creativity & Innovation Workshop
- Creative Problem Solving & Decision-Making (City & Guilds – ILM Recognised)
- Planning & Organizing Skills – Achieving Highest Priorities
- Change Management
- Conflict Resolution
HR / Human Capital Management & Training
- Train The Trainer – Group Training Techniques (City & Guilds – ILM Recognised)
- Writing Effective Policies & Procedures
Customer Service
- Excellence In Customer Service
- Customer Care & Telephone Skills
- Etiquette For Excellent Telephone Skills
- Customer Relationship Management
- Developing A ‘World-Class Customer Service’ – As A Competitive Strategy
Administrative Skills
- Office Management & Administration
- Professional Secretarial & Administrative Skills
- The Perfect PA – For PAs & Executive Secretaries
Personal Development
- Presentation Skills – Making A Powerful Impact On Any Audience (City & Guilds – ILM Recognised)
- Advanced Presentation Skills
- Self & Time Management
- Stress & Anger Management In The Workplace
- Developing Effective Interpersonal & Communication Skills (City & Guilds – ILM Recognised)
- Assertiveness Skills (& Dealing With Difficult Situations)
- Understanding Emotional Intelligence (City & Guilds – ILM Recognised)
- Cultural Intelligence
Business Writing Courses
- Professional Business Writing Skills (City & Guilds – ILM Recognised)
- Advanced Business Writing Skills (City & Guilds – ILM Recognised)
- Report Writing For Business
Microsoft® Office Courses
- Microsoft® – Teams
- Microsoft® 365 – Excel Intermediate Level
- Microsoft® 365 – Excel Advanced Level
- Microsoft® 365 – PowerPoint
- Microsoft® 365 – Word
- Microsoft® 365 – Outlook
Additional Courses (In-Company Only)
- Persuasion & Influence
- Work-Life Balance
- Managing Teams (Including Remotely)
