With the economy still struggling to recover, it’s hard to find good news stories for many businesses; each time you listen to the news there
seems to be more doom and gloom. Many businesses are tightening their belts still further, but the businesses in my experience, who are surviving well and are fit to fight the storm are those who have invested in their people, paying particular attention to their leaders and managers. The development of key skills and attributes that enable these leaders to adapt sufficiently quickly to the challenges the
current market is throwing at them.
Where is the proof you ask?
In 2010, facing a downturn in business the senior management team at a client of Peirce Parry Associates became increasingly concerned that the business was not adapting sufficiently quickly to the changed market and that, consequently, they recognised that their recovery may be slow and fragile. In order to accelerate the change and enable the business to capitalise on any improvements in the market as they occurred, the HR Director recognised that they needed to enhance the skills and clarify the roles and expectations of front line operational managers to enable them to be effective in a very different business climate to that they had previously experienced.
The board recognised that above all the only way to bring about the desired cultural change was to engage their managers and provide them with the support to ensure that they were competent in all key aspects of their business strategy. To do this they decided to go down the route of investing in development centres for their managers.
Considerable commitment was made from the entire leadership team to define the desired future culture, the management competencies & definitions for future high performance in the business. They brought us in to assist them in this analysis and design a development centre geared around future high performance levels.
The senior management team were involved in both defining the future vision for management as well as the design of the assessment exercises and were trained as assessors. They recognised that a development centre alone would not be enough to deliver the change, the success lay with the follow up and support that the managers received. Each manager was allocated a trained mentor, wither a director or other senior manager, who met with them a week after attending the development centre to provide detailed feedback. Post centre each manager was supported by their mentor & line manager in creating, actioning and reviewing their development plan which was 100% based on their day-to-day
responsibilities. This was backed up by a comprehensive portfolio of development activities which included not only formal training workshops but work placed assignments and coaching activities.
The Results
Less than 12 months post investment the results speak for themselves:
- Sales are on track to increase by c5% in 2011 vs 2010 in a flat/declining market
- Profitability for the group for 2011 is forecast to be double that in 2010
- Their Customer service and mystery shopper customer service scores have improved in all categories throughout 2011.
- Recent Employee Survey results show a 4% improvement in the “My Manager” category which measures staff perceptions of the effectiveness of their immediate line manager. In addition, scores in the My Team category improved by 3%.
- In the 2012 business planning round managers have clearly demonstrated a much better understanding of their local business and the
opportunities available to them as well as submitting well supported business cases for investment in their branches. This has resulted in the group again planning to grow in a flat/declining market.
The question to businesses who say they cannot afford to invest in their people right now is “Can you afford not to?”
