Driving Employee Engagement
We worked with Dynamic Voice to design and deliver a programme that would support employee engagement. Our facilitator developed a great rapport with our line managers, creating a safe environment Professional and knowledgeable, he kept the sessions on track, enjoyable and interesting
Over the past couple of years, Vale Europe Ltd had been successfully focusing on delivering great results in challenging times, resulting in being awarded a Silver Medallion at the Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence.
Their Clydach Refinery wanted to embed a coaching culture to allow them to develop further, so they could continue to be leaders in “delivering operational excellence” and, in particular, through employee engagement. They recognised they had dealt with the “hard side” of driving performance - and now wanted to develop soft skills to tap into the full potential of the organisation.
Objectives
To embed a coaching culture at Clydach Refinery to further enhance operational effectiveness by increasing staff engagement (and supporting their broader engagement programme). In particular, making managers more accessible, especially through informal and “in the moment” interactions, and by reducing the “fear of speaking up” and sharing of ideas.
Method
Working with the senior leadership team and front line managers, the programme was designed to link very closely to their Continuous Improvement Programme, which sits at the heart of Vale Europe’s strategy. The programme was also developed to fit with a highly operational and practical work environment, and emphasised “coaching in the moment” on the shop floor.
Overall Programme
The programme consisted of two programmes running in parallel; they focused on both the "what" - skills, and the "how" - when to use coaching as part of their leadership repertoire, to help deliver great results across the business.
Programme 1 Leader as Coach – The Directors focussed on not only developing their coaching skills but, importantly, how they could create a coaching culture across the business. They combined group learning, action learning sets (ALS’s), peer coaching and practising “on the job”.
Programme 2 Advance Coaching Skills for Mangers – Focusing on the how and when coaching is used effectively by managers as part of their leadership repertoire. A very practical programme over 2 modules and action learning sets (ALS’s) combined with peer coaching allowing the delegates to practice the skills and tools in more depth so they become part of their leadership behaviours.
Outcomes
- High level of challenge and debate to maximise learning
- A much greater understanding of where coaching fits in the leadership repertoire along with directing and mentoring, and when coaching should and shouldn’t be used
- A real shift in the level of coaching skills from the beginning to the end of the programme
- Greater sense of cohesion between the Executive and Senior Manager populations as a result of the practise sessions and the ALS’s
- Greater openness and sharing of significant personal challenges and issues as a result of the practise sessions and ALS’s
- Greater leadership team cohesion
- Employees discussing issues more openly and pro-actively engaging in problem solving