eve-olution newsletter December 2005
Groundbreaking Case Study - Barclays Bank 2005
Leading Edge - Senior Women's Development Programme
As 2005 draws to a close eve-olution will have trained 25% of Barclays senior women and, in some business such as Barclaycard, up to 80% of the women will have been through the programme. This is testament to the commitment of Barclay's leaders as desire for change is always lead top down. Gary Hoffman, CEO Barclaycard will introduce the final programme for 2005 this week.
What have we learnt?
That programmes such as this must be inclusive. All of our work is designed and delivered by men and women. We do not advocate the 'women's ghetto' neither do we believe that women are the weaker sex. We do know, however, through our extensive research how valuable this development is - to put it simply, men have generational role models at home and at work; women do not and if we continue to learn by 'trial and error' it will take decades.
Post Event Feedback from Barclays Senior Women's development Event (3 months) led internally by Barclays learning and development team:
- I have met with other members of the group twice since the course, so the networking and learning from each other continues. The embryo of a mentoring scheme for other women is underway too.
- For myself, I am actively monitoring my usage of new techniques learnt and seeing how they make a difference to my performance.
- The course gave me the time to focus on my goals - as a result of which I have now changed jobs and have a much healthier work life balance as well as a new challenge.
- The contacts that were made on the course with the other delegates have proved invaluable and we have continued to keep in touch via quarterly meetings, monthly conference calls and ad hoc e-mails of anything of interest.
- A mentoring initiative has been set up where we provide details of suitable mentees to each other and look to find a suitable match from within our network mentioned above
- Ad hoc chats with my buddy from the course also prove useful as a reminder to keep the learning alive
- The 360° feedback was very useful and a confidence boost
- The coaching on presentation skills was excellent
- I wished I had this course 10 years ago. Strongly suggest you continue
- For my part I found the event very worthwhile. I particularly felt that the Presentations and Anni Townend sessions to be particularly beneficial. In addition, the 360 degree feedback analysis and 'person' profiling was extraordinary and has proved to be a useful tool vis development.
- The opportunity to network and get to know other colleagues is 'priceless'. We have quite a forum going now and have met up since, notably at John Varley's Women's event last week.
Focus of the Leading Edge Programme
After consultation with Barclays senior women through Focus Groups, the eve-olution team designed the modular based programme utilising the powerful assessment and feedback elements found in our other programmes together with researched base content that delves into issues and perceptions surrounding Barclays senior women's leadership. The programme was designed to clarify strengths and development areas, working with models of power and influence and is delivered by true experts in their fields - some of whom are published authors.
eve-olution goes all the way
Barclays have enjoyed full admin support from the eve-olution team. Our aim was to make the experience as seamless as possible for the gender champions, diversity teams and learning and development team. Here's how:
- We worked in partnership with the Learning and Development team to produce a programme for 'best fit' that didn't replicate any existing programmes
- We designed a specific 360 degree feedback tool for Barclay's senior women. This now gives Barclays a valuable internal benchmark
- Full back office support was provided including delegates bookings and venue bookings, accommodation and catering
- A full report will be issued with full details of the ROI for the board
"I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your support and efficiency over the last few months. You have made the programme a lot easier to manage as I would have really struggled without you at the end of the phone. I hope our paths cross once again".
Hiran Odedra, Equality and Diversity Manager, Barclaycard
Leading Edge gets proven, measurable results; however it cannot remove the organisational, attitudinal or systemic factors at play in the wider organisation - our Mars and Venus at Work Programme is designed to assist you in driving culture change. Please contact us for further details of this half day workshop, and our other cultural and diversity workshops.