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Housing group tasks community project for manager development

West Midlands-based Festival Housing Group was an early adopter of Echelon Learning’s Community Project Challenge (CPC) management training initiative.

As part of its leadership development Festival Housing (a merged business with scattered offices across several counties) utilized the CPC method to enhance its brand and support the leadership development of staff. This development programme helped Festival become an attractive local employer and supported the development of staff in 21st century management and communication skills in for example, how to build useful cross organisation relationships.

The key objectives of the programme were to:

1, Support the Group’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) goals- in this case to build closer relationships with schools in two different counties and present Festival as an employer of choice

2. Build closer working relationships across the business

3. Support the eight participants to broaden their management skills and achieve Cert.M qualification

The programme participants used action learning methods to manage a 'real time' project. Support was provided via a programme coach and a bespoke project web site which housed an online project management tool, e-coaching access and a resource library of materials. A personal learning log provided evidence for qualifications and continuous professional development (CPD).

Each participant spent around eight days on the project over several months, and was supported with an Echelon coach and the bespoke website

What were the outcomes?

The project (that was developed by the participants) created a new experiential programme of work for students from local schools which could ultimately result in a Modern Apprenticeship.

It delivered significant organisational outcomes, for example schools that were hard to engage are now approaching Festival about similar projects; it has proved a useful way to attract youngsters to gain useful qualifications and keep them in the local economy.

In addition it has attracted useful PR in the local and national press.

An unforeseen benefit of the project has been the impact on other Festival staff involved for example, staff working on site with the youngsters have themselves acquired the coaching, teaching and mentoring skills that resulted in the youngsters becoming so motivated and enthusiastic that they requested to work during school holidays when they weren’t scheduled to do so.

Kay Dovey Festival’s HR Director said the programme ‘…supported an understanding and methodology for coaching at work and embedding learning into the organisation in a practical and sustainable way. This programme is helping improve individual and team effectiveness as well as aligning our outputs more closely to customer needs which in turn is improving customer satisfaction. Longer-term the programme will support succession planning by identifying appropriate people."

The participants said the programme provided them with

A memorable development experience, ‘…we were a team that started out with little confidence and limited capability and evolved into a team that delivered significantly beyond our customers’ and organisations’ expectations whilst developing belief and confidence in ourselves’.

How did the programme work?

A decision about the broad objectives sought from the programme was agreed with senior management

Programme Planning commenced with decisions on detailed objectives and the content and design of the web site.

Participants were selected and with their Echelon coach agreed specific programme objectives to support their learning- approaches were made to five local schools

Echelon coached the participants in how to create a win win strategy in particular in how to approach schools and gain insight into their needs.

A facilitated planning and strategy workshop for the participants enabled participants to develop the vision and strategy for ensuring a true win-win was created

The team worked with the schools to put the new Partnership Programme in place.

A one day review and application workshop with the team and meetings with each participant was held at which they identified how to embed and sustain learning from the experience into their work. They also agreed how they would hand over the project to the next team and support its ongoing success.

Further information on Echelon CPC from Jenny@EchelonL.com