DEPARTMENT FOR WORK AND PENSIONS
DWP - LEADERSHIP FOR CHANGE
The following information was written by Nigel Bleach, Programme Manager, Training and Development:
"The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was created in April 2002 by the merger of a number of major government agencies, principally the Benefits Agency and the Employment Service. In 2002 the new department and its people were part of the largest business change project in Europe. It involved over 125,000 staff throughout the UK. Driven by ambitious targets, set by the government, the DWP deemed it essential to fully engage and gain the commitment of all 10,000 of its middle and senior managers in order to ensure that this change was successful.
Alongside a significant number of other changes including for example the IT infrastructure, physical locations and staffing levels the DWP put all of its middle and senior managers through a 2-3 day Leadership for Change event. Primarily designed to aid the Department’s major culture change, this event was part of a circa £10 million project. It was specifically geared to helping managers change to a values driven culture and embrace a management style that emphasised customer service and staff empowerment. The events also helped managers see the impact of their behaviours in driving the changes through.
The Taylor Clarke Partnership was one of a small number of consultancies selected, via CV review and a rigorous interview-based system, to supply experienced, well qualified facilitators to run these events. Working closely with managers in syndicates at the events Taylor Clarke consultants helped our managers to focus on their personal leadership challenge. This was used as the vehicle to create motivation, enthusiasm and belief in the new vision and values. The syndicate work had a crucial role in helping managers decide what actions they personally were going to take to ensure they, and their teams, lived the values and contributed to the goal of customer service excellence. Taylor Clarke’s consultants provided support, challenge, expert knowledge and focus for the work done in these syndicates.
We recognise that Taylor Clarke provided a number of excellent facilitators. They were highly skilled, excellent at building rapport quickly and also ensuring that delegates engaged with the programme at both an emotional and cognitive level. The quality of the facilitators provided helped ensure that changes were actually translated into practice back at work. Taylor Clarke also stayed with the programme, and the changes to the programme over the course of 2002 and its extension into 2003.
Throughout the project extensive evaluation was carried out, both via delegate satisfaction forms and audits by the QA co-ordinator of the project. Those Taylor Clarke consultants working as MC’s attended evaluation/continuous improvement meetings and contributed both ideas and enthusiasm. Taylor Clarke consultants consistently received very high delegate satisfaction ratings and helped the programme become the major success it was. We recognise that the Leadership for Change project has had a significant impact on our managers’ commitment to the changes they, and their staff were going through, and to the overall effectiveness of the DWP.
The size, complexity and profile of the Leadership for Change project meant that there were many changes to the programme in the early days and, later, to the dates for events and the requirement for facilitators. We found that the consultants from Taylor Clarke were supportive and understanding, had real enthusiasm for the aims for the project and a positive attitude, all of which made working with them both easy and enjoyable. Their office was highly responsive and flexible, able to meet the demands made of it and often supplying extra facilitators at very short notice when asked to do so.
Laurence Clarke, the company’s Managing Director and an MC on the programme, received very high delegate ratings and his inputs were characterised by real passion, energy and genuine engagement with the audience. We found that Taylor Clarke consultants often worked out-with the hours of the programme at events, helping delegates address issues of concern to them that were hindering their effectiveness
Taylor Clarke’s staff offered ideas for improvement and formed excellent working relationships both with facilitators from other consultancies and our own staff, sharing good practice and innovations freely. As a result we asked Taylor Clarke’s facilitators to stay on for the full duration of the project and their commitment to, and enthusiasm for, this key project remained consistently very high.
Given the size and complexity of the culture change required and the excellent working relationship formed with Taylor Clarke, the DWP learning and development department asked that the contract with them be extended for a further 1-3 years from March 2003. This was to ensure that Taylor Clarke consultants could be called in to provide on-going support to individual managers on an as required basis."
Yours sincerely
Nigel Bleach
