Leadership Development Programme
Context
In 2019, we partnered with Aneurin Bevan University Health Board (ABUHB) on the scoping, development, design and delivery of a leadership development programme to aid the implementation of their ‘Clinical Futures’ programme. Clinical Futures included a large-scale change programme centred around the opening of a new £350 million Specialist Critical Care Centre – Grange University Hospital. The Health Board employs over 14,000 staff, two thirds of whom are involved in direct patient care. There are more than 1,000 hospital and general practice doctors, of whom more than 250 are consultants, as well as over 6,000 nurses, midwives, allied healthcare professionals and community workers.
Solution
Collaborating with the Learning & Development (L&D), Organisational Development (OD) and Occupational Psychology teams, as well as the Board of Directors, we created a bespoke programme for all managers providing the confidence, capability and commitment to successfully deliver the change programme against the operational demands of Covid-19 care. A key focus was enabling managers to support their teams through the process, whilst maintaining their own wellbeing, and that of others.
Using cultural surveys, ‘Moral Dilemma’ questionnaires and behavioural insights, the programme was built to support managers and leaders across both operational and clinical disciplines. With a strong focus on leadership, the team, wellbeing, and change drivers, the programme offered a flexible response to emergent needs. The engagement of delegates’ line managers and relevant senior leaders was determined, at an early stage, to be key to learning success. As such, it was facilitated by the inclusion of speakers from across the organisation and the creation of a bespoke ‘Line Managers Landing Site’ on Eliesha’s Learning Management System (LMS), which provided information on learning content and suggested opportunities where these individuals could encourage the adoption and application of learning in the ‘real world’.
The impact of ABUHB’s response to Covid-19 required re-designing the sessions to work in a virtual environment and allowed delivery to 1200 delegates to date. We provided expertise to run a series of drop-in clinics for all staff to consider the challenges and adopt an Action Learning approach to peer coaching and mentoring. This was conducted in collaboration with the Occupational Psychology Team. The programme has delivered significant impact on ABUHB’s culture, behaviours and ways of working. The focus on understanding the required organisational changes and the importance of working to a shared set of values and behaviours have been fundamental to overall programme success.
Impact
As the diagrams below demonstrate, evaluations show a significant transfer of knowledge, with 98% of participants on this programme rating the training as either ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’.
When we launched the programme, we attended several ABUHB events to help promote and explain the objectives. We met managers who were doing their best but needed support in order to, firstly, work out what more they needed to do for their teams and then, importantly, how to do it. There was willingness, but an absence of practical tools to meet immediate needs. They also needed belief that their efforts would produce real and lasting changes for them and their teams.
In terms of transference, we knew that there were strong appetites to implement change and learn new skills. We also know that self-efficacy is fundamental to the transfer of learning – participants need to have a realistic plan to apply the skills they’ve learned, and the confidence to enact it. Here are some of the participant quotes from the evaluation forms:
“I learnt a lot about myself and how I can improve my skills for the benefit of the team and service, and most importantly for myself.”
“The 2 days I have attended have been by far the best short term training courses I have attended.”
“This programme was greatly beneficial as we move towards imminent change from Llanfrechfa Grange Hospital. I will implement this learning with my team and also in home life!”
“Lots of ideas and theories to take back to the workplace. Felt as though the content was extremely applicable to the journey our department is currently on.”
“All aspects (of the training) were beneficial. Specific models such as PESTEL, CAMM, Wheel of Trust etc were really useful, and I intend to use them with my deputies so that they can then use them.”
We held level 3 evaluation and progress meetings with the Head of OD and Occupational Psychology to monitor the programme. Below are some of their comments on the programme and on working with us:
“Eliesha worked closely with the OD and Occupational Psychology teams to develop, co-design and deliver the programme which helped ensure that it met all our objectives and that they were delivered in a flexible and supportive way, including a rapid and agile response to enable the learning to continue virtually during Covid.
This has allowed us to expand our learning and development offer beyond the original programme to over 1200 staff, and we continue to run the interventions. The opportunity to focus on the demands of the transformation programme and the well-being of individuals and teams using clear, understandable theories and models and the techniques and skills to embed this in the workplace, has already led to positive changes in communications and practice.
Eliesha continues to support our transformation programme with interventions aimed at staff across the management and leadership levels in all aspects of the organisation including clinical, medical and administration and support staff. The benefits for the individuals, teams and the organisation has been recognised by the Board and we recently commissioned them to develop further interventions involving further staff teams.
Eliesha take a genuine interest in us as an organisation and so they understand us. We enjoy working with them and our staff really enjoy and take value from the sessions they have with the Eliesha trainers.”
