Build and Operationalise New Digital Capabilities
Designing and developing new approaches to building new digital capabilities across the organisation
Our client is a global leader in technology and business solutions that transform organisations and the wider world. They have a long heritage of bringing innovation and expertise, continuously working to contribute to the growth of society and their customers.
Recognising that building new digital capabilities will unlock new avenues of product and service design and development, this client engaged us to develop embedded learning programmes that target different levels of the organisation, from early careers and graduate entrants, to managers, emerging leaders and senior leaders in global roles.
Working with key Learning, Talent and Development professionals from across all global regions, we have curated, designed and delivered in-person and virtual learning experiences that deliver tangible, practical results. We focus on enabling emerging and senior leaders to begin the task of re-architecting the structure, culture, ways of working, as well as the very nature of leadership itself, in service of a reimagined, transformed organisation.
Inspiring Early Career Employees
Focused on bringing a wide variety of cutting edge, innovative topics to the organisations newest joiners to ensure that they are starting their career on the right foot, PostShift were involved in curating sessions for three Early Careers Fairs throughout the enforced working from home period of the Pandemic. Sessions included:
- How to advocate for and develop new digital ideas for your team
- How to be an agent for change, even when you lack positional authority
- How to build a strong internal social network to increase your career opportunities
Building Management Capabilities
Seeking to support and grow people managers who have been in place for more than three years by extending their standard management development training, with a focus on creating high performing digital teams, keeping recruitment at the cutting edge of practices and focusing on improving the end-to-end employee experience, our client asked us to design and deliver a new type of globally applicable learning journeys.
Supported by a co-creation team drawn from every region across the world, we interviewed existing managers who fit the persona to ensure we were delivering useful, appropriate material. We then entered a fast-paced, agile co-creation period, with all regions working transparently together, asynchronously, to ensure that material is viable for all people managers, suitably challenging and aligned to the nascent Digital Transformation initiative kicking off within the global teams.
Activities
- Discovery activities to understand key people manager persona elements, including surveys and interviews
- Running a co-creation team made up of professionals from around the world
- Contribute key techniques from our extensive knowledge base of ways of working tools
- Webinars and exercises for participants
- Marketing campaign to facilitate launch of new learning journeys
- Agile project management for project to ensure key goals met
Results
- Pilot cohort engagement levels at 80% in three key regions: Central & Eastern Europe, North America and Oceania.
- Webinars attended and viewed by 72% of people managers in target populations
- Two new delivery approaches trialed to allow managers to join a cohort of other managers, or to facilitate the journey with their team
Curating “Leading in the New” – A Newsletter for Hybrid Leaders
During the initial re-opening of offices and production plants across the work, our client became a hybrid organisation at scale, for the first time. To support leaders, recognising that a new toolset was required, the Learning and Development team in Europe asked us to curate a bite-sized learning newsletter, paired with a webinar series and playbook for leaders, full of new techniques to try by themselves, with their team and with their peers.
Facilitated by a newly launched Yammer community, the “Leading in the New” newsletter was a focal point for driving discussion and engagement throughout the initial months of new hybrid ways of working. The community has become a self-managed community, which is sustained by success stories, failure sessions, sharing new, merging techniques and curating a new, grassroots playbook for developing influence and authenticity as a remote or hybrid leader.
Helping Emerging Leaders Step Up to the Next Challenge
Our client recognises the importance of growing talent from within and has invested in a program to encourage new leaders to think big, be bold and step outside of their comfort zone. Nominated from across Europe, each successful nominee is given access to a support network and sponsor, given permission to set big, moon shot goals and drive a learning journey that helps them learn and grow at the intersection of their passion and purpose and the future of their organisation.
Each cohort works through an 18 month program, incorporating workshops, coaching and self-directed learning. The overwhelming success of the program in hitting their ambitious KPI of 100% of participants increasing the strategic reach of their role has lead to 6 cohorts over 3 years, with nominations outstripping places across every cohort.
Activities
- Learning experience design for 18-month programme
- Designed, iterated & supported nomination process for all 6 cohorts
- Ongoing learning content development, ensuring freshness & responsiveness to organisational needs
- Blended delivery model, with 100% virtual delivery in reaction to Pandemic
- Personal journal to support cohorts
- Participant coaching
- Monthly lunch and learn sessions across all cohorts
- Alumni network support
Results
- 90% of participant achieve the key KPI of expanding their role in a strategic way during their time on the program
- Participants have founded new service lines, rescued business units and transformed digital products as part of their moon shot goals.
- Like-minded, driven and ambitious emerging leaders are brought together to gain strategically relevant experience allowing them to architect the future, with intention, as a cohort
- The resulting alumni network continues to drive towards their moon shot goals, seeking to transform the organisation to be future-ready
Exploring Cross-Cutting Business Architecture Capabilities as a Delivery Spearhead
Our client identified 12 talented employees, who shared a reputation for client delivery excellence and a common skill set around enterprise and business architecture. To understand more about how to capitalise on this small group, our client engaged Post*Shift to conduct a research project to explore what makes them unique and how to begin spread the mindsets, competencies and skills that make them special.
We conducted 4 research cycles, each designed to build a complete picture of personal and professional motivators, behaviours and how they go about building high value client relationships.
Activities
- Designed an agile research methodology to cope with the number of unknowns about the appropriate research outcome
- Conducted hi and lo touch discovery activities including interviews, surveys and focus groups
- Creation of and collaboration with a community of practice to serve as a long-term focus for these unique talents
- Creation of and collaboration with a diverse guiding coalition to share initial research findings, recommendations and next steps
Results
- A thriving community of practice of previously isolated practitioners from different regions and service lines
- Emerging standardised practices, protocols, service design and delivery models emerging
- New initiatives emerging such as the design of a Personal Operating Model for Business Architects, designing and consulting for simplexity and other learning opportunities