The Challenge
Our client is an international player in the logistics space. Due to rapid growth, supervisors at the distribution centers in several countries would rapidly get promoted to middle management positions, and while possessing the technical skills there was a perceived gap in the general managerial skills at this level of seniority.
Our solution
For this project we designed an intervention in four phases:
Phase 1: Analysis
After our initial consultation, we prepared a survey for the top management across 4 countries to identify the most common managerial skills gaps and the keywords used to describe them. We used the findings from the survey to create clusters of keywords and identified 5 primary clusters (e.g. delegation, influence etc.).
We utilized the feedback to create an action-based definition for each cluster so there would be a commonly accepted ground: for example what "delegation" is within the company culture.
Phase 2: Preparation
After aligning with the top management on our 5 clusters an their definition, we identified the target population of middle-managers for the intervention and had their direct managers rate them on a Likert scale on each of the 5 designated dimensions.
Phase 3: Delivery
We proceeded to design a two-day experiential program around the 5 pillars. The program was a 50%-50% split of frontal lecture and experiential exercise, with 4 mid-review checkpoints and the use of ad-hoc case studies based on the client's operational challenges. We delivered the program at the client premises in two different types of sessions: directly to the target audience and as a train-the-trainer session for HR and senior managers.
The program facilitation materials, slides, contents, train-the-trainer kit were delivered and remained as the client's intellectual property. We fully equipped our client to continue delivering the program in-house.
Phase 4: Measurement
90 Days after the intervention to the target groups, we administered the same Likert scale to the same reviewers to get a new assessment of the target employees on the 5 pillars. Improvements between 20% and 38% were registered across all 5 dimensions with an average of 28% for all skills and 89% of participants showing at least some improvement in all dimensions
