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Clients Receive Accolades At Opportunity Now’s Awards - Apr 2010
Congratulations to two of our major clients, NATIONAL GRID and VODAFONE, who featured prominently at last night’s Opportunity Now Awards.
NATIONAL GRID WINS INCLUSIVE CULTURE AWARD
Our 2008-9 strategic review for National Grid of their progress on Inclusion & Diversity won the Inclusive Culture Award. This involved a comprehensive review in the US and the UK of “the current state”, involving focus groups and interviews with key leaders, as well as statistical data.
Findings showed patchy progress, driven by the degree of buy-in of individual leaders and whilst employees knew about diversity, they were unclear about inclusion. Similarly, there was a danger that the I&D goals were seen as ends in themselves and not as measures of progress towards specific business goals.
Accordingly, we developed a set of proposals for the Executive to re-position fundamentally the work on I&D. This included the development of:
~ An Inclusion Charter
~ A leadership programme for the top 200
~ A new statement of the business case and linked I&D global goals
~ Revised positioning of employee networks and I&D governance
~ A 12 month road map
These proposals were all accepted by the Executive and in 2009 we completed the rollout of the training to the senior leaders. It is the subsequent positive impact on the company’s ability to attract, promote and retain its female employees that was recognised by Opportunity Now last night.
Freddie Alves (who led the review in the US) and Robin Schneider (who led it in the UK) commented: “We had done some work with Steve Holliday (now National Grid CEO) in 2003-4 to kick off their work on I&D. What impressed us is that Steve, and the two line champions – Helen Mahy in the UK and Tom King in the US – were prepared to acknowledge that the company had reached a plateau and wanted to undertake this fundamental review. Too often, after a period of initial excitement, leaders leave it to others to “operationalise” the strategy. The Executive at National Grid have shown how engaged senior leaders can and should set clear direction and act as role models for change.”
If you would like to learn more about conducting this sort of strategic review, please contact Robin Schneider on +44 1264 882400 or email: robin.s@schneider-ross.com.
VODAFONE SHORT LISTED FOR THE GLOBAL AWARD
Congratulations are also due to Vodafone, whose global Inclusive Leadership Workshop programme was shortlisted for the global award. The programme, which we designed with Debbie Laybourn (Vodafone’s Global Head of Diversity) and our partners at Steps (drama training) is being rolled out across Vodafone’s operations across the world.
The fact that the judges chose to shortlist the programme, although it is only mid-way through, is testament to the significant impact that they believe this ambitious intervention will have.
Workshops have been successfully run across Europe (in the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Greece and Albania) in the Middle East (Qatar) and on the sub-continent (India.) In the coming months, the programme will reach other European locations (Malta, Portugal, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania) as well as Turkey and Africa (Egypt, South Africa and Ghana.)
Crucially, the workshop is adapted to the social context in each country and the business needs of that particular Vodafone company. Moreover, the workshop is not delivered in isolation, it is part of a long-term strategy to build an inclusive corporate culture.
Robin Schneider commented: “It has been a real privilege to be leading this project. In twenty years of work in this area, I don’t think I have ever found a client so quick to move from analysis to execution. Metrics can help spot issues (as well as subsequently track progress and hold people to account) but what makes the real difference are the day-to-day behaviours of the leaders. Once the company recognised that the key to sustained change in the diversity of its employees was to focus on culture and behaviour, then we piloted a workshop with Vittorio Colao and his top team and then moved into the roll-out.”
If you would like to learn more about these workshops, please contact Robin Schneider on +44 1264 882400 or email: robin.s@schneider-ross.com.
NATIONAL GRID WINS INCLUSIVE CULTURE AWARD
Our 2008-9 strategic review for National Grid of their progress on Inclusion & Diversity won the Inclusive Culture Award. This involved a comprehensive review in the US and the UK of “the current state”, involving focus groups and interviews with key leaders, as well as statistical data.
Findings showed patchy progress, driven by the degree of buy-in of individual leaders and whilst employees knew about diversity, they were unclear about inclusion. Similarly, there was a danger that the I&D goals were seen as ends in themselves and not as measures of progress towards specific business goals.
Accordingly, we developed a set of proposals for the Executive to re-position fundamentally the work on I&D. This included the development of:
~ An Inclusion Charter
~ A leadership programme for the top 200
~ A new statement of the business case and linked I&D global goals
~ Revised positioning of employee networks and I&D governance
~ A 12 month road map
These proposals were all accepted by the Executive and in 2009 we completed the rollout of the training to the senior leaders. It is the subsequent positive impact on the company’s ability to attract, promote and retain its female employees that was recognised by Opportunity Now last night.
Freddie Alves (who led the review in the US) and Robin Schneider (who led it in the UK) commented: “We had done some work with Steve Holliday (now National Grid CEO) in 2003-4 to kick off their work on I&D. What impressed us is that Steve, and the two line champions – Helen Mahy in the UK and Tom King in the US – were prepared to acknowledge that the company had reached a plateau and wanted to undertake this fundamental review. Too often, after a period of initial excitement, leaders leave it to others to “operationalise” the strategy. The Executive at National Grid have shown how engaged senior leaders can and should set clear direction and act as role models for change.”
If you would like to learn more about conducting this sort of strategic review, please contact Robin Schneider on +44 1264 882400 or email: robin.s@schneider-ross.com.
VODAFONE SHORT LISTED FOR THE GLOBAL AWARD
Congratulations are also due to Vodafone, whose global Inclusive Leadership Workshop programme was shortlisted for the global award. The programme, which we designed with Debbie Laybourn (Vodafone’s Global Head of Diversity) and our partners at Steps (drama training) is being rolled out across Vodafone’s operations across the world.
The fact that the judges chose to shortlist the programme, although it is only mid-way through, is testament to the significant impact that they believe this ambitious intervention will have.
Workshops have been successfully run across Europe (in the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Greece and Albania) in the Middle East (Qatar) and on the sub-continent (India.) In the coming months, the programme will reach other European locations (Malta, Portugal, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania) as well as Turkey and Africa (Egypt, South Africa and Ghana.)
Crucially, the workshop is adapted to the social context in each country and the business needs of that particular Vodafone company. Moreover, the workshop is not delivered in isolation, it is part of a long-term strategy to build an inclusive corporate culture.
Robin Schneider commented: “It has been a real privilege to be leading this project. In twenty years of work in this area, I don’t think I have ever found a client so quick to move from analysis to execution. Metrics can help spot issues (as well as subsequently track progress and hold people to account) but what makes the real difference are the day-to-day behaviours of the leaders. Once the company recognised that the key to sustained change in the diversity of its employees was to focus on culture and behaviour, then we piloted a workshop with Vittorio Colao and his top team and then moved into the roll-out.”
If you would like to learn more about these workshops, please contact Robin Schneider on +44 1264 882400 or email: robin.s@schneider-ross.com.