HDA

Leadership development – Public Sector

Background

An independent and long-established, non-departmental body had recently launched a revised Performance Management Programme, one which placed greater emphasis on managers and staff discussing performance regularly and also introduced the concept of staff taking ownership of their performance review reports by engaging in self reporting.  The organisation felt that Helpline Staff needed some additional support to achieve the objectives of the revised Performance Management Programme.  It was decided that equipping Helpline Managers with the behavioural skills required to confidently feed back on call performance to Advisors would positively impact on the usefulness of these performance discussions, and enable continuous improvement.

HDA was commissioned to provide an inspirational training programme for Helpline Managers to equip them with the necessary skills.

HDA Approach

In order to refine the learning objectives, HDA met with the Strategic Learning & Development Manager and a selection of Helpline Managers from across the UK.  HDA also felt it was important to meet with Helpline advisors to get a feel for team personality and energy, additional issues or themes for incorporation into the training programme and also to ensure the programme had relevance and reflected the culture of the teams. 

Following the initial exploration and analysis, HDA designed a programme, aimed at enhancing understanding and application of effective coaching behaviours for the Helpline Managers.  This programme, tailored specifically to the Helpline function, was highly practical and interactive, with minimal academic input.  It centred on a workshop and incorporated development of agreed personal objectives and actions for managing the feedback process.

The workshop presented a number of key learning concepts, while encouraging the use of individual and group exploration into current working practices and also providing an opportunity for skills practice.  The key elements of the workshop included:

• Providing clear guidance on the roles of the coach and mentor, how these are different and how these complement one another

• Providing a clear view of what coaching is and what it is not

• Exploring specific coaching skills and behaviours for delivering feedback and achieving successful performance improvement in others

• Developing a simple and practical personal coaching and mentorship skills ‘toolbox’ for managing Helpline Advisor feedback

The Results

Following the workshop, HDA was able to provide the organisation with recommendations on how to further embed the learning from the training event and how to tackle some of the wider departmental issues that were raised in discussion during the training event.

Feedback from the programme included:

“Useful, relevant and easily understood”

“Felt comfortable contributing to the discussions”

“The HDA trainer was clearly knowledgeable about the subject and gave relevant examples… talking from personal experience”

“All really good and very well delivered…approachable trainer and have given us lots to think about.”

For more information on any of the above or to understand how HDA can add value to your organisation through coaching,

Please contact Melissa Nealon, Client Partner & Project Manager – man@hda.co.uk / 0207 484 5065