Latest News...

A Very Happy New Year 2020 to all of our friends, family and clients from Workplace Evolution!

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2019 was a year of trying new things - new countries, new solutions and new technologies. It was the first time the company had delivered in China with its executive coaching solutions as well as the amazing city of New Orleans. We worked with our well established clients such as NSK and Rain Carbon who are always willing to try new things (e.g. our new NSK Change Management Residential and Rain Carbon Development Centre!). 

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We worked with a variety of partners and new clients this year such as Relative Insight (the AI Sector), Lancaster Univeristy's Science & Technology Department, Knowledge Pool, Korn Ferry, the MYE Group, GradConsult and the Go-Ahead Group. A huge thank-you to all of our associates that helped make the events such a success - especially Simon Thomas, Liz Mearns, Tony Camp and Rhys Evans!

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I personally have been delighted to be meeting so many inspiraitonal people via the Workplace Evolution podcast which started this year. It has been a real honour to meet these amazing and inspirational people...which has been great for my learning and hopefully yours! Very much looking forward to starting Series #2 with the amazing Devon Harris - 3 time olympian from the original Jamaican bobsleigh team (Calgary Olympics 1988). 

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Onwards and upwards to 2020 - I wonder what will be written in 2021?! More of the same I hope.

Wishing you all a fantastic year. 

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Michael 

Since our last update we have worked with...

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Lancaster University Management School - delivering focus groups and interviews to help support the implementation of their "Athena Swan" strategy - ensuring equal opportunities across the University for all

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Liverpool FC - for five years we have worked with LFC on their recruitment and selection process now and developing their employees. We have had some fantastic feedback from the training - largely thanks to our trainer Liz Mearns as well as the continuous support from LFC.

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O C Tanner - another roll-out of our continuous improvement and engagement workshops across the depots and with senior management!

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Onica - our first time delivering in the US running Onica's 1st leadership summit! We have also been asked to deliver executive coaching and 360 feedback  across the senior management team

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Rain Carbon - we have delivered the Strategic Management module as part of the global leadership programme and now on to the "Leading Leaders" module in November. This will explore "Global Leadership" - the competence to performance manage and adapt to different cultures (e.g. how to give feedback in China, dealing with conflict in France, tailoring your presentation in the US, etiquette in the UK, styles of leading in Japan, building relationships in Mexico etc.). If you are interested in what we can provide please get in touch. We can't wait to deliver this!

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NSK - we continue to work with NSK on their European Leadership programme and their Management programme. We have now been challenged to run a Change Management residential in November (this will be a busy month for us!), 

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If you would like to discuss any of the topics mentioned above please get in touch - admin@workplaceevolution.co.uk

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Best wishes,

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Michael Costello

Workplace Evolution MD

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Simon Thomas Workplace Evolution Continuous Improvement Expert Explains Our Journey With O C Tanner So Far

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Workplace Evolution first proposed the idea of a project with O C Tanner in early 2015 that would draw upon my supply chain / continuous improvement experience. Soon enough I found myself sat in the O C Tanner Home Office a few short weeks later discussing training needs and strategic alignment with the O C Tanner HR Director. O.C. Tanner Co. is an American company that designs and helps implement global employee rewards and recognition solutions for clients in the U.S., Canada, India, Australia, Singapore and Europe. Counting numerous Fortune 100 companies on its client list, the company provides presentation training, administration, and awards for programs honouring employee service or performance. Our focus was the challenges that the European branch was having around developing a continuous improvement culture. Previous initiatives around lean management systems had been delivered and failed to gain momentum. The collaborative approach with each key stakeholder at O C Tanner as part of the design process was refreshing and resulted in a learning programme that has 'transformed the culture of OC Tanner' according to the O C Tanner HR Director (Nov 2016). 

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What Did The Partnership Look Like? 

Michael Costello and I applied key change management principles with the exec team in our analysis, design and implementation and kept things simple. Our vision was beautifully simple: 'everyone able and willing to improve the business every day'. We set about this cultural change initially by consulting with all key stakeholders, establishing a clear business case and identifying the key wins that would needs to be achieved early on. We also recognised that forms of visual management would be key to the change - "Seeing is believing" as they say! Using a series of interactive workshops, interspersed with project work and coaching to embed the learning and nurture behaviour change the programme proved to be a great success. Our methodology included key elements such as:

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- Cross-functional teams working together through team-build activities for the 1st time to drive collaboration 

- Bite-size learning on Continuous Improvement theory to apply live in the workshop 

- Acquisition of evidence (via video cameras) to capture CI issues and support bench-marking/measurements

- Support and guidance on developing a business case for CI projects and running a project independently 

- Project support and sign-off for resource that supports operational inefficiencies / minimising waste 

- Drawing from other organisations and learning from what they do to improve

These early measurable successes (and stories) have now been told across the organisation, creating a 'cultural tsunami' that has affected teams who weren't even part of the original programme! We will be collating the precise results from each project team in 2017. On our last meeting, and as we listened to all of the efficiency improvements that the teams had discovered and fixed, both Michael and I were struck by the buzz of pride and morale in the room. A cultural shift had happened by enabling and empowering the front-line workforce to make a difference. There was no going back now - and that's what Continuous Improvement is all about ! 

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Workplace Evolution is now continuing to work with O C Tanner on an Advanced Continuous Improvement programme for 2017 - 2018

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Michael Costello Describes Assessment Work With Kendal Calling Festival 

One of the most enjoyable moments for Workplace Evolution of 2016 has to be in one of the most beautiful places to work and at times the coldest - Shap, Lake Distinct !

Kendal Calling are classed as the best family festival in the UK - Workplace Evolution were invited by their partners Blue Peg to conduct a variety of solutions from their assessment services including mystery shopping, focus groups, surveys and bench-marking.

We met so many interesting characters during our stay who contributed to our research and would like to thank all of the staff who gave their time to our research as well as the customers!

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We will have the pleasure of presenting to the board this year on our findings which include a variety of cost savings, innovative customer experience opportunities as well. Here we explored and assessed a variety of areas such as the customer experience, perceptions and expectations as well as general festival standards. Future solutions are likely to be themed around continuous improvement, service delivery and the customer experience. 

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If you would like to know more please get in touch!

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It has been non-stop for Workplace Evolution this year. We continue our good work with the likes of Coventry University, Capita and NSK but welcome new clients such as the Co-Op, O C Tanner, DSM, Korn Ferry and Lancaster University.

We have been delivering a variety of solutions such as team-building, leadership and management development, executive assessment, cultural change and continuous Improvement programmes which we will be sharing in our end of year newsletter. If you would like to know more about the activity we have been involved in please contact us (email, facebook or twitter!). 

We recently obtained feedback on our trainers performance on the Civil Service Learning contract and are delighted to share that.....

100% of our 1,143 delegates over 2015 - 2016 feedback that our facilitators demonstrated good or very good knowledge of the subject matter and made the learning experience engaging and participative. We are delighted to have received such great feedback on our performance and will continue to uphold our high standards of deliver!

                                             Client Source: Capita Civil Service Learning (June, 2016)

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Liverpool FC are set to hire 1,000 new employees to work in the expanded Main Stand at Anfield. An extra 8,500 seats are being added to Anfield’s Main Stand as part of a £260m expansion project which will require an enourmous recruitment campaign for the club going forward.

Workplace Evolution has been working closely with the club to re-design its existing selection process as well as develop the club's internal talent pool of interviewers and assessors. Michael Costello and Liz Mearns have been involved in the design and delivery to ensure that any talent selected to work at Anfield is aligned to the clubs values and key behaviours. It was a pleasure working with such a fantastic team of managers / supervisors!

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Workplace Evolution is proud to support UNICEF's Safe School Declaration. We want to support a safe learning environment for children worldwide and believe it should be part of our company's mission. We have already had success locally working with Cat Smith (Lancaster and Morecambe MP) who is happy to raise our concerns in parliament. 

Please join our campaign and find out more by clicking here:

http://www.unicef.org.uk/UNICEFs-Work/Our-campaigns/End-violence-against-children/

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Want To Know How To Deal With The Most Difficult People At Work? Workplace Evolution recently spoke with People Management on how to deal with the 6 most difficult people in the workplace. 

Workplace Evolution is delighted to announce that after two years of working with Capita on the Civil Service Learning circuit, and working with 2119 learners, 99.7% of the learners either agreed or strongly agreed that they had a positive learning experience.

If you would like to know more about our training and how we create a positive and rewarding environment please get in touch!

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Workplace Evolution was delighted to run a team development and change event for the northern sales team in the Lake District this month. The event included the exploration of continuous improvement in team, conflict management, team development and change as well as Belbin Team Role Theory. The day was finished off with rock and roll guitar from our associate Easton Wilson as the team celebrated with fizz

This is Workplace Evolution's second year of running NSK's Europeam Leadership programme and Management programme. Both events take place every year in the Netherlands for three days with either senior management, team leaders of future leaders at NSK. The programmes are seen as vital in NSK taking their global leadership and management challenges, succession planning across the company as well as engaging its core talent pool. Contact us to know more abouth what we do to support your future leaders and managers.