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Case Studies
Organisational Development and Change |
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Hughes Christensen Senior and Middle Manager Development Programmes
Background
Hughes Christensen in Belfast are part of the Baker Hughes group and manufacture Tri Cone drill bits for the oil exploration industry. The plant has a long standing reputation for quality and reliability in an industry that demands for quality and safety standards. Hughes Christensen as part of their TQM approach have regularly reviewed the performance and capability of their managers and as part of this worked with consultants from Whitewater Consulting to continuously develop the competence, confidence and performance of the senior and middle managers in the plant.
Input
Over a number of years consultants from Whitewater have designed and delivered a range of development services to Hughes Christensen including the following -
- Strategic Planning Sessions
- Quality Management Team Development Workshops
- Role profiling and competence mapping for senior and middle managers
- Competence assessment and development feedback including 360 degree assessment and feedback
- Executive Coaching
- Management Development and Leadership Workshops
- Structural Reviews
- Individual Coaching of MD
Results
Hughes Christensen Plant has regularly rated as one of the best performing plants in the group. In addition their performance against their Quality, Delivery, Cycle Time, Productivity and Safety KPI`s has continued to improve as a result of the development of managerial competences. This culminated in the achievement of the NI Quality Award.
Quotes
" Whitewater brought skills to this management team we did not have and made a direct impact on our performance on all our KPI's. They have a good insight into the manufacturing context and I would have no hesitation in recommending them to anyone else as a provider of leadership development and coaching."
Ian Warke, Managing Director
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Probation Board for Northern Ireland – REACH (Reaching for Excellence and Achieving High Performance) Programme
Background
The Probation Board for NI wished to develop a Performance Improvement Programme targeted at all managers and staff across Northern Ireland. PBNI is a high achieving organisation in terms of customer and service user satisfaction, compliance with standards for service delivery and public perceptions of staff. They recognised that a change of culture and style needed to be the focus of any performance improvement programme. They wished to:
- Optimise the effectiveness of the Senior Management Team (SMT) to deliver on the objectives detailed in the Corporate and Business Plans
- Build on existing strengths and efforts to optimise the effectiveness of the whole management group
- Address the pace of change, resistance to change and increase accountability and communication across the organisation.
Therefore the PBNI engaged Whitewater Consulting to design and deliver a Management Development Programme called REACH (Reaching For Excellence and Achieving High Performance). Whitewater Consulting were selected to carry out this work because PBNI wanted to work with a consultancy who was prepared to work flexibly with them to meet their individual needs. Therefore the design of the programme has evolved throughout the work.
Input
Over the last year the project team at Whitewater Consulting have worked with the PBNI to deliver the REACH programme. This has involved working with the organisation to develop a clear strategy and project plan. As part of this process an alignment exercise was carried out to ensure that the roles, systems and processes within PBNI were aligned to the future state of the organisation. A series of interventions and workshops have been conducted with the Senior Management Team in PBNI. This has involved a 360 degree feedback process, one to one coaching, Insights Discovery Personal Profiling and a series of developmental workshops on topics such as Leadership, Power Influence and Negotiation and Coaching.
Results
The PBNI in conjunction with Whitewater Consulting are planning to roll out the Management Development programme across the Middle Managers. This will involve these individuals undergoing similar development to the Senior Managers. This programme aims to result in behavioural change of participants as well as the implementation of improved processes and procedures. Some key outcomes of the recent work with the PBNI have resulted in them identifying and agreeing a clear vision for the future, identifying key KPI’s and a balanced score card process, identifying Personal Development Plans for all Senior staff. In particular the SMT have reflected that the work to date has enabled them to begin to work more efficiently as a team and be more focused on achieving the strategic goals of the organisation. The PBNI project is ongoing and it will run for another two years. Whitewater Consulting will continue to work with the PBNI on this change project and the development of the management and leadership capability of the organisation.
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Belfast International Airport – “Senior Management Development Programme”
Background
This programme within Belfast International Airport involved Whitewater Consulting working with the senior management team on both their leadership and management skills.
Belfast International Airport are operating in a very competitive and volatile market at a local, U.K. and International level. With the growth in low cost airlines, the increased security demands post 9/11 and the increased pressures for revenue and profitability at a group level the Managing Director recognised that the Airports long term survival and competitive position was dependent on the capability and performance of the people in the organisation starting with the Directors and Senior Managers.
Therefore a Management Development Programme was put in place to help the Airport achieve both its strategic and operational objectives.
The first stage of the programme involved working with the Senior Management Team and then continuing to cascade the development right down to the front line. An important goal for the organisation was to achieve significant organisational improvement.
Input
Over a number of last year years consultants from Whitewater have designed and delivered a range of development services to Belfast International Airport including the following -
- Strategic Planning Sessions
- Role profiling and competence mapping for Directors and Senior Managers
- 360 degree competence assessment and feedback
- Executive Coaching
- Management Development and Leadership Workshops
- Individual Coaching of MD
In addition we have worked closely with the Head of HR to redesign the performance management and appraisal system and are about to embark on a development programme for all middle managers across the different functions in the airport.
Results
Since embarking on this work the airport management team have developed a clear mission for the next decade, KPI's for the business and individual mangers, a Performance Measurement system and a more focused and capable management team to deliver the strategic priorities for the business.
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Arts Council for Northern Ireland
Background
The Arts Council for Northern Ireland is the lead development agency for the arts in Northern Ireland. They are the main support for artist and arts organisations, offering a broad range of funding opportunities through their Exchequer and National Lottery Funds.
Inputs
This program involved Whitewater Consulting working on Management Development structures and process. We have worked with the Arts Council on a significant management development programme. This involved a strategic review with the senior management team; role profiling and a 360 for all directors and senior managers. They also received follow up coaching and tailored workshops.
Outputs
There were a number of key outputs from the work carried out with the Arts Council. In particular this work resulted in the development of role definitions for both Senior and Middle Managers in the Arts Council. Further all managers had clearly established personal development plans and clear objectives. As a result of this work the Arts Council identified a need to review the existing management structure and the need to realign roles in the current structure in order to improve efficiencies. The organisation was also working towards their Investors in People and this programme was identified as an important factor on their achievement of the standard.
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BBC Northern Ireland
Background
We have worked with the BBC NI on a number of change projects as this organisation has restructured, down sized and faced several strategic changes.
Inputs
We have worked in partnership to ensure the effective cascade of the “One BBC” strategy. As part of this contract we facilitated Leadership Workshops where we worked with the Controller and Senior Management Board reviewing the organisational vision and values. During the change process key roles were modified. We worked with BBC staff to profile and recruit against these new roles.
We also delivered Covey 4 Roles of Leadership Workshops to all levels of management commencing with the leadership team. This looked at implementing strategy/values, aligning the processes, systems and people, empowering people and modelling. The programme was underpinned by the 360 tool and subsequent coaching as a means of helping them consolidate the behavioural change required and to implement change. This work also involved facilitation of a range of teams on key teambuilding issues related to the change.
Another piece of work involved us working with the managers to cascade the values out to staff using the team briefing process. This involved us designing the workshops, collaborating on the development of a video and facilitating workshops.
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Seagate Tecnology Ltd- “Developing a Performance Based Culture”
Background
We worked with Seagate on a significant Change Management programme aimed at achieving significant culture change in the organization by embedding a performance management culture in the organisation. A project team with representatives from all levels of the organisation and two Whitewater consultants were responsible for the design, implementation and evaluation of the programme. A return on investment evaluation model was developed by the team to measure the effectiveness of the programme.
Input
The programme:
Phase One: An Internal Training Consultant programme: This focused on developing the key competencies of internal change agents, providing a range of support tools and focused participant on applying their learning back in the workplace on relevant projects
Phase Two: Diagnosis and development of evaluation criteria: a series of workshops were jointly facilitated by project team members. These were attended by a cross section of stakeholders within the company to identify the key outputs of each management role in Seagate and the accompanying competencies and activities that would help to deliver these. An organisational assessment was conducted against key areas such as strategy, vision, values, structures, systems and processes and leadership to assess alignment with the new strategy. The return on Investment model was also developed by the project team using relevant organizational measures such as cost per part and number of defects per part.
Phase Three Assessment: A series of assessment tools were developed and used to assess all managers including board members against the criteria. These included 360 degree questionnaires and assessment and development centres.
Phase Four Implementation of solutions: These were implemented primarily by the project team members from Seagate and included a range of strategy clarification and communication sessions, set up of cross departmental improvement teams, development of aligned objectives, and individual personal development plans. The first phase of the evaluation model has also been implemented.
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GRAHAM Employee Engagement Survey
Background
GRAHAM is a family owned company established over two hundred years ago. It consists of three operational business units: Construction, Asset Management and Project Investment and offers services to public and private sector clients in the UK and Ireland. The organisation has experienced a significant growth period in the recent times; doubling in size in the last three years.
There have been a number of significant changes associated with this rapid growth including a change in culture. In April 2008, GRAHAM engaged Whitewater to work with them on an Employee Engagement Survey to:
- Identify the key drivers of engagement
- Establish the future culture required to meet their strategic challenges
- Plan specific initiatives to help improve engagement.
Methodology
The initial phase of the project was the establishment of a core project team within GRAHAM, whose task was to ensure the overall project was delivering on its objectives.
We worked with this core project team to design and implement the Employee Engagement Survey, which measured engagement, organisational culture, practices and procedures. Specific questions were benchmarked against similar high performing organisations using the IPSOS/MORI database.
The survey was delivered to nearly 1000 employees through an online system and paper based sessions for employee’s who did not have access to email.
Outcomes
A response rate of 70% was achieved and 11 key drivers of engagement were identified.
Whitewater facilitated a session with the senior team to communicate the results and develop an action plan to drive organisational performance through increasing employee engagement. Further communication of the results and action planning will take place at divisional level. Whitewater produced group level and divisional reports were produced to support this process.
Whitewater will be working with GRAHAM to deliver on the action plan over the coming year. GRAHAM plan to run the engagement survey annually to monitor progress against this year’s action plan and results in moving towards their new culture.
Comment from Michele Hanley, GRAHAM HR Director
"Whitewater worked in partnership with us to design and implement our first company wide Employee Engagement Survey. The solution was tailored to our specification requirements, given the demands of our multi-site organisation. Whitewater were flexible and responsive and provided professional advice and support. We are very pleased with the outcome as the survey identified key drivers of engagement which have been developed into specific action plans to help the business achieve its strategic objectives".
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