Working Links

Working Links recognised the need to strengthen their leadership capabilities to support their ambitious plans to support the UK Government’s Work Programme.

The challenging targets set within the programme has required leaders to introduce a new operating model with more cost effective ways of delivering high quality services to Job Seekers in a very difficult economic environment.

At the same time they needed to maintain the motivation and engagement of staff in order to deliver their new model.

The programme was actively sponsored by individual Board members who selected key leaders to take part in the programme and were involved in pre-workshop and post workshop discussions.

Working with WL L&D department we developed a 360 degree Leadership Survey based on their Competency Framework which was completed ahead of the workshops and used to both inform the final design of the workshops and continually referred to during workshop sessions to ensure that each participant was able to construct effective development plans.

3 x 2 day workshops were delivered focussed on:

• Leading Self
• Leading Others
• Leading the Business

Action Learning Groups (ALG’s) were established on the first workshop and they continued to meet between modules and afterwards to continue their learning and co-coaching.

Peer feedback and co-coaching took place within ALG’s with the facilitation and support of Greenbank Tutors.

Feedback from both participants and their managers was extremely positive and the Work Programme operating was successfully launched in time for the contract start date.

The ALG’s also presented their learning and recommendations for organisational change/improvements to the Working Links Board which resulted in a series of focussed working groups to design and implement changes.

The use of a tailored 360 degree survey and feedback process was central to the programme – and its success was due to Greenbank’s expertise in the following ways:

• Greenbank ensured that the reports were credible by aligning the survey with our Performance and Development review process. The time that Judith invested at the outset in working closely with us to ensure that the survey reflected the leadership Success Drivers in our competency framework, paid dividends in terms of the very high quality responses that individuals received in their reports. In particular, Judith made some invaluable suggestions as to how we could make some of our benchmarks more commercially relevant, which we adopted
• Greenbank advised us as to how we might drive senior level engagement with the survey by ensuring that the Executive team were visible and vocal in terms of sponsoring the process. This resulted both in high uptake and rapid response to requests for feedback, which was critical, given that we were working to tight timescales
• The reports themselves were relevant, detailed, clearly presented and easy to read. Most importantly, participants were able to work together with the programme facilitators to translate the feedback into practical action plans
• Most significantly, Judith’s coaching of both individuals and the group in terms of preparing participants for the challenges that 360 degree feedback can bring, and her sensitive management of the process, was second to none. As co-facilitator, Judith mentored me throughout the process and I further developed my own skills in terms of managing the process and coaching individuals around their feedback. Collaborative working and the enabling of in-house capability are key features of the Greenbank methodology
• Overwhelmingly, participant feedback from the leadership programme cited the 360 degree feedback as the most useful and powerful element of the programme, which triggered positive change both at an individual and organisational level.