Team Leaders & Supervisors Development Programme

Context

Tekmar Energy is a developer and manufacturer of undersea cable protection systems, providing market-leading products and engineering to ensure that offshore wind power is safely transferred back to the mainland grid. At the time of this learning and development project, their revenues had increased six-fold over a three-year span and their workforce was expanding rapidly as a result. Part of this workforce expansion involved employees from the shop floor being promoted into team leader or supervisor roles, with line management responsibility that was new to them. At the time, there was no formal training in place to equip these individuals with the relevant skills, particularly in people and performance management.

Objectives

In response to this urgent requirement, stakeholders from Tekmar’s Learning & Development and Senior Leadership teams outlined the overarching learning objectives for a development programme, specifically requiring a cohort of team leaders and supervisors with the ability and motivation to:

• Accept the authority of their position
• Confidently lead
• Take ownership of their team
• Set targets for teams
• Resolve issues
• Identify root causes
• Communicate solutions / outcomes of actions taken
• Recognise that they are no longer “one of the lads”
• Handle disciplinary issues effectively
• Work effectively as a management team
• Improve team working across the shop floor

Solution

Following a competitive procurement exercise where Eliesha scored highly for relevant experience, expertise and cost effectiveness, we were contracted to support Tekmar and adopted a partnership approach with them and their stakeholders from the outset. This involved discussion to illuminate any learning and development goals, objectives or priorities which they had not captured within their procurement specification, and resulted in an Eliesha consultant spending time at their primary site. Our workforce development expert was able to observe the everyday challenges and priorities of Tekmar’s first-line managers, adding valuable context to the behaviour and skill changes that this project was launched to bring about.

Across a number of visits, they were able to meet with senior managers and the learners, and develop an understanding of:

• the business, its strategy, objectives and challenges
• the expectations of senior managers (quantitative and behavioural)
• the existing competency and confidence of the learners

This insight helped them to plan and outline a suitable training programme that would meet the expectations of senior managers and develop the learners to enable the business to meet its challenges and achieve its objectives. They also planned a suitable team building event.

Delivery

We designed, delivered and evaluated a successful leadership development programme for Tekmar’s first line leaders, via face-to-face delivery of engaging and interactive learning workshops. Our partnership approach ensured that learning content was fully tuned to their organisational context and delivery was woven around their operational priorities – the latter being particularly important in an operationally complex manufacturing environment. The feedback we received through regular ‘check-in’ meetings with Tekmar’s stakeholders reflected their appreciation that we committed to developing a genuine understanding of their needs, expectations and motivations from the outset.

Outcome

Tekmar Energy has reported wide-ranging positive impact from the programme, confirming that new skills and changed behaviours from their supervisors and line managers were immediately evidenced in the workplace, and that the learners themselves have consistently reported an increase in confidence and self-assurance within their roles. Our own post-learning evaluations showed high levels of learning acquisition and strong levels of learner intent to make required changes within their day-to-day roles. There is also evidence that the programme has positively impacted upon Tekmar’s key operational reports areas of Accidents, Discipline and Quality.