Scaffold Coaching /  Resources
4th October 2019

How PIC achieved Top 100 Companies Outstanding accreditation.

“Our relationship with Rachael and John at Scaffold has evolved as our culture, structure and performance has improved significantly with their help.”

– Paul Haywood, HR Manager PIC

Working with PIC

Having completed their first Cultural Capability Assessment with Scaffold Coaching, PIC launched a series of initiatives which resulted in them achieving The Times Top 100 Companies Outstanding accreditation.

The problem

Senior Management at PIC believe that staff satisfaction and a supportive culture are key to motivation and competitive advantage. Yet, they weren’t sure they were measuring employee engagement effectively. After being disappointed with the effectiveness of “Investors In People (IIP)”, PIC were looking for an alternative credible business performance assessment and benchmarking tool.

What we did

We worked closely with the HR team to restructure and rewrite some of the employee engagement questions. We also introduced them to our Culture Capability Assessment, tailored to meet what PIC needed, to maintain its competitive advantage. One of its unique features are individual random 1-2-1 interviews with Senior Management, Employees and PIC clients to understand their thoughts on the 12 pre-determined key capabilities.

Working together with PIC’s HR team we introduced an improved way of sharing the results internally to get feedback from Clients, Employees and Leaders that feed directly into the annual business planning and personal performance review process.

The results

Senior Management were provided with a robust view of their people culture and were able to identify three key capabilities, on which actions were agreed.

This led to a streamlined piece of work to improve their Customer Connectivity by focusing on communicating, service and gathering and honest client feedback. Learning by focusing on staff better understanding each other’s job roles. Efficiency, focusing on a process improvement team formed to reduce pressure and time wasted.

We followed up 12-months and 24 months later.
– 2017: 10 capabilities scored in the Sometimes Category and 2 in Consistent
– 2018: This improved from 4 capabilities scored in the Sometimes Category and 8 in Consistent.

This meant by 2019 their employee engagement results were better than ever
– 95% of employees believe PIC displays strong leadership throughout the organisation (up 20%)
– 91% believe we are good at communicating and sharing a strategic point of view (up 16%)
– 95% said they would recommend working at PIC.

4th October 2019

Creating a collective vision with Fonemedia

“I got my mojo back.”

– James Dalton, CEO Fonemedia

Working with Fonemedia

Scaffold Coaching delivered one-on-one coaching with senior leaders and vision & mission workshops to help this company define its plan for growth over the next 5 years. The result? A CEO with his mojo back and a crystallised plan for success.

What was the problem?

A Director who had lost their mojo and looking for the next thing.

A Successful tech business adapting to a doubling of its turnover and tripling of its headcount. Recent growth meant ad-hoc processes and communication were no longer fit for purpose. New job roles needed re-defining as more people joined the business with a focus on building a team and personal development.

What did we do?

1-2-1 Coaching for the Director with a Hogan Assessment to help him see where he wanted to be next, and how his behaviour was seen by his employees.

1-2-1 Coaching for the Senior Team and our Values & Anti-Values to help build their leadership skills and responsibilities.

Vision & Mission workshop helping the team define who they were, where they want to go over the next 5 years.

We undertook individual interviews with the growing team to understand their challenges and thinking. As a team we helped them recognise and appreciate their differences, strengths and development opportunities using our Team MBTI team workshop.

In addition, we have helped with coaching for appraisals and performance development planning, personal goal definition and setting.

What were the results?

– A Director who has his mojo back, with a clearer view of what he wants.
– A clear strategy for business and people development which is shared and understood by everyone.
– People have increased their situational leadership effectively with improved coping strategies.
– Robust processes help people solve problems; these solutions have been considered over-time with people understanding where and when their contribution is needed.
– People know who needs to make different level decisions and they manage conflict well to learn more about the problem, working together to find solutions and opportunities.

4th October 2019

How the Brynmor Jones Library improved staff satisfaction to record levels

“There are no words for how brilliant Scaffold Coaching are. Coaching has changed the way I lead – forever”.

– Michelle Anderson, Director of Library Services

Working with Brynmor Jones Library

After delivering an 18 month program, Scaffold Coaching helped to improve staff satisfaction by 43% after achieving an 80% engagement rate with the Building Better Leaders, Teams & Culture Programme.

What was the problem?

A new leader joined the BJL Library and the key issue she had to overcome was very poor staff satisfaction survey results. People felt demotivated and unappreciated, with subsets of individuals resistant to change. The new leader was seeking support and guidance for improving team behaviours, engagement and satisfaction.

What did we do?

Initially we worked closely with the Senior Leadership Team, facilitating several workshops to ensure they were aligned and engaged for a program of change. Next we quickly delivered  culture workshops with the entire team dedicated to understanding their views on the library ways of working. Over the course of the next 6 months we facilitated workshops and discussion with the wider team and the senior leadership team to work through a program of change, led by staff suggestions for improvement to transform the culture at the Brynmor Jones Library.

We introduced the teams to Our Building Better Leaders Programme which included a series of workshops designed and delivered to build better ways of working together, encompassing all the workable solutions, including Leadership Development, Building Trust, Improving Communication at all levels, Listening Skills, Developing Coaching Skills in Manager, Myers Briggs and creating a new shared vision.

What were the results?

The most satisfying results were simplistic, but truly welcomed; opening various communication channels for reporting staff illness/absence, a relaxed dress policy, and flexible working hours available for all teams.

– Over 80% staff engagement with the Building Better Leaders, Teams & Culture Programme

– In 12 month’s, staff satisfaction improved by 43%

– Language changed from: Disappointing, Divisive, Nepotistic, Unsettled – to Better, Collaborative, Improving, Teamwork

– Out of 230 nominations the BJL were outright winners in “University of Hull Excellence in Teamwork.”

– And to quote one leader “There is a lot less sh*t about”- Team Leader

27th September 2019

What is organisational culture?

“Organisational culture refers to the pattern of beliefs, values and learned ways of coping with experience that have developed during the course of an organisation’s history, and which tend to be manifested in its material arrangements and in the behaviours of its members.”

Schein (1985a) on the other hand suggests culture is best thought of as a set of psychological predispositions, ’basic assumptions’ that members of an organisation possess, and which leads them to think and act in certain ways. For him, it is:

“A pattern of shared basic assumptions that a group learns as it solves its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems.”

The key feature of this theme is that culture is used as the correct way for new employees to behave, thereby, culture can perpetuate organisational survival and growth.

Based on hundreds of hours of reading and facilitating culture workshops in global companies we have designed our culture workshop program to work for employees, leaders and organisations. With truth and shared learning as our core values at heart.

Scaffold Culture Workshops Design & Approach

In a series of employee workshops activities and group discussion with no leaders present, we invite employees to share and explore their current and historical beliefs about working at this organisation. This gives us insight into ‘the way things are done around here’. We then explore the feelings and behavioural intentions which give us an indication of their values and perceived values of leaders and the impact these have on organisational culture. By exploring current behaviours, we also derive an insight into performance.

It’s important to remember that everyone has their ‘own truth’ and culture is as much about perceptions of how things are, than how they actually are. This is why history plays such an important role in team culture and needs to be respected and acknowledged by any new leaders coming into a post.

To talk more about how our culture workshops might help your organisation please request a callback.