Sparking a LEAP forward in Leadership Development within NG Bailey
NG Bailey is the largest independent engineering, construction, and services company in the UK. Formed in 1921, NG Bailey has 15 offices across the UK and holds company values of passion, integrity, and excellence.
The Business Need
The construction industry traditionally promotes managers through technical skill and experience, rather than experience of managing and leading teams. As such, there were big gaps starting to appear across the business in leadership skills. Employee feedback identified a need to help managers and supervisors develop the skills to engage and lead their teams more effectively.
An audit showed people liked their managers and respected their work-based knowledge but didn’t have faith in their people skills. Statistics also showed that managers were not completing one-to-ones (75% completion rate). Focus groups across the business highlighted numerous incidents of managers ignoring or not progressing issues because they were uncomfortable having challenging conversations.
The Lumina Learning Solution
The Leadership, Engagement And Performance (LEAP) Leadership Development Programme was developed for existing and new line managers using Lumina Spark.
Comprising a two-day workshop and a suite of e-learning modules, to help managers better understand their responsibilities, increase their self-awareness, and gain the confidence to have effective conversations about performance and behaviour.
- Professional actors, who were familiar with Lumina Spark, were brought in to help managers learn how to tackle a range of different scenarios.
- The online modules sat on the NG Bailey learning management system so, once completed, employees could access the information when needed.
The programme was centred on NG Bailey’s core behavioural competencies – set out in “Our DNA” –linked to the Lumina Spark model. By incorporating the company behavioural values, the workshops gave participants a common language to use when considering and talking about leadership styles and communication preferences. This also helped participants understand and appreciate other people’s preferences and better adapt their communication style accordingly.
Lumina Spark was new to the organisation; they had only used other psychometrics for assessment of specific groups. With the Spark Portraits managers were given heightened levels of self-awareness, along with a bespoke competency framework to set expectations around behaviour and leadership.
The Results
Of 3,000 employees, 600 line managers attended the leadership training programme in the first 12 months. Effectiveness was assessed using the Kirkpatrick Model, which saw improvement across the four levels of reaction, behaviour, learning, and results.
The average evaluation score was 3.7/4. Managers reported that they found having difficult conversations easier and they were building better relationships with their team members. There was a 15% increase in performance review completion following participation in the programme.
Participant feedback reported a 24% increase in:
- Confidence and ability in understanding their own communication style
- Confidence and ability in recognising the preferred styles of others
- Ability to adapt and engage with others, including giving challenging feedback
In one particular division, managers had not been effectively tackling conduct and performance issues. This had been costing the business both time and money. Following LEAP, absence and sickness reporting improved as a result of managers developing better relationships with teams.