Pre Event Offer - Breakfast Seminar (15th May) : Successful Innovation

There are still places available for our free Breakfast Seminar on 15th May and we are now able to offer you a chance to have your own on-line personal profile taken prior to the event. 

The Dolphin Index can help release the creative and innovative potential within specific key teams, departments and throughout your entire organisation.  

It matches your score in the 13 dimensions* of innovation against norms established by other respondents and many years of research.  

As soon as you have completed all the questions you will get an immediate snapshot of your results. If you want a permanent record you need to print your profile BEFORE leaving the screen and don’t forget to bring it along on the day.

Mark Brown will be available to discuss results on a 1-2-1 basis at the completion of the morning’s activities.

Please click here to start.

*The 13 dimensions:

COMMITMENT

This dimension refers to the extent to which employees are committed to organizational goals and operations. This covers the amount of emotional involvement that members of the organization or team feel to the goals of the organization (or team/division). This dimension also refers to the extent to which the work is perceived as stimulating and engaging.

FREEDOM

This dimension refers to the extent to which employees have opportunities to make their own decisions, seek information and show initiative. The extent that there is freedom from tight supervision within the organization. It focuses on the independence that individuals have in their jobs.

IDEA-SUPPORT

This dimension refers to the extent to which employees are encouraged to put forward ideas and suggest improvements. This also focuses on initiative and around the feeling of encouragement and support from the organization regarding the generation of ideas.

POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS

This dimension refers to the extent to which people trust and get on well with one another at work. This also refers to the extent that there is an absence of personal conflicts.

DYNAMISM

This dimension refers to the extent to which the atmosphere is dynamic, lively and exciting. Dynamic environments are characterised by high levels of positive change.

PLAYFULNESS

This dimension refers to the extent to which people laugh and joke with one another. Moreover, it refers to the extent and ease to which humour is used and displayed in the organization.

IDEA-PROLIFERATION

This dimension refers to the extent to which people are perceived as having creative ideas and varied perspectives towards their work. This also refers to the level of debates encouraged in the organization.

STRESS

The extent to which people feel overburdened and under pressure at work. This also refers to the extent that people do not feel they have the resources to cope with the demands at work.

RISK-TAKING

This dimension refers to the extent to which new ideas may be implemented and where people are prepared to take risks. Uncertainty is tolerated and decisions are taken quickly regarding actions.

IDEA TIME

This dimension refers to the extent to which employees have the time to generate and consider new ideas. This dimension focuses on the time allowed and encouraged in an organization regarding the generation of new ideas.

SHARED VIEW

This dimension refers to the extent to which there are open and adequate communications between more and less senior employees. This also refers to the extent to which individuals feel that there is openness between people at work.

PAY RECOGNITION

This dimension refers to the extent that people are satisfied with their remuneration and appropriately rewarded for the effort and work that they do.

WORK RECOGNITION

This dimension refers to the extent that people receive praise for their achievements. This includes the extent to which individuals’ efforts are recognised in terms of encouragement and support.

The Importance of Goals: Why everyone in your team should have them

Developing an understanding of the factors that can influence an individual's goal achievement, will enable you to drive bottom-line improvements to your business performance through effective goal setting.  

There are 4 decades of research supporting the idea that effective goal setting has a positive impact on motivation and task performance. And yet many leaders and teams I come across seem to have lost sight of their most important goals.

Try this... 

In your next team meeting give each team member a set of Post-it notes and ask them to write down the top 3 goals of the team, (one goal per Post-it) as they look around the room for inspiration, tell them not to confer. As they begin writing encourage them to be as specific as possible, goals like “make more profit” don't cut it. Stick all the post-its on a wall and count up how many Top 3 goals you have and whether they are clearly defined. 

Focus on a Few Important Goals      

It’s at this point you realise the first job to be done is to define and agree your most important goals with the team. The purpose of a goal is to provide clarity, direction and purpose, having too many goals has the opposite effect.  When there are lots of goals we don’t know which to focus on or believe that the goals are unachievable. To cope with this we focus on the tasks that are most urgent whether they help achieve the goal or not.

Agree Challenging Goals

People are more likely to buy-in to a goal if it is their own or they have at least had some involvement in its development. Be wary of any tendency to set goals without including the people who have to help deliver them. Or agreeing goals that are below what people are capable of. The perceived level of difficulty of a goal impacts directly on the action taken by the individual towards achieving that goal.  Goals which are perceived as too easy can cause disengagement and low self-worth when an individual believes that little is expected of them. Conversely, Goals which are perceived as too difficult will result in dis-engagement. It is only by knowing your peoples’ capabilities well that you can agree challenging goals that have a galvanizing effect on performance.

Declare your Goals

When you have agreed the most important goals both at a team and individual level, you should be confident enough to share them with your significant stakeholders, i.e. those people who have an interest in the success of the team and/or the individual. Making a goal public will increase levels of commitment; a goal known only to an individual is much easier to abandon than one which has been made known to a significant other.  

Encourage Belief

There is plenty of evidence that supports the idea that the more capable people judge themselves to be, the higher the goals they set for themselves and the more firmly they remain committed to them. You must not underestimate the role that support and encouragement plays in the achievement of goals. Encouraging an individual’s beliefs in their own abilities and potential drives higher levels of self-motivation.

Report on progress

Now is the time for honesty, think about all the times you set goals or the team agreed goals that were never reviewed or were looked at just before the annual performance review, or were quietly dropped when they seemed a bit tough to achieve.  If you truly want to achieve the goals then you have to create a culture of high standards and accountability. Break the goals down into manageable milestones. I quite often work with teams on 6 week sprints encouraging a focus only on what is achievable in that timeframe and insist on a team report out. This keeps motivation levels high and increases the accountability individuals feel when reporting on their progress on a regular basis.   

Celebrate Success 

Deliver some quick wins and celebrate them, people like to be part of a winning team. This fuels the motivation and belief that drives further goal achievement.  When you have achieved what you set out to do share it publicly with those same stakeholders you were brave enough to declare your goals with.

One final thought, when you have achieved the goals don't be surprised if expectations of future success increase.  Embrace the challenge...

Steve Bussey* – Business Coach (& Guest Blogger)

*Steve is an experienced Business Coach and partners with clients such as Microsoft, BaxterHealthcare, Pfizer, and BT, and is primarily involved in supporting individuals, leaders and their teams to deliver higher performance. Steve has extensive experience working with other global professional services, training and development companies such as FranklinCovey and worked with a variety of clients in the private and public sector. He is an accredited coach and is currently completing a Masters Degree in Coaching and Mentoring Practice at Oxford Brookes University.

He is one of our Lead Training Consultants. For an informal conversation with him about what he can do for you and your business call us on 0121 687 4040.

The Rules of Engagement

Sometimes phrases like "Employee Engagement" sound so vague and "corporate speak" that many cynical operational managers just don't want to get in to an initial discussion with HR about how they might tackle these sort of issues.

With this in mind we asked a previous Engagement Manager at Morrisons Supermarkets (who incidentally we placed!) to come up with a simple introductory document regarding Employee Engagement that would outline the key elements of how to go about building "Engagement" in your organisation.

It is a simple guide, it is supposed to be, but if you want to have a more detailed conversation with our contact please do let us know (0121 687 4040)

The Rules of Engagement

Having an engaged workforce is proven to increase productivity and revenue and reduce sick leave and staff turnover. It is also intrinsically linked to good customer service – if you’re happy in your work, your interactions with customers will automatically be more positive than if you’re merely going through the motions.

More and more businesses are starting to understand the value of engagement, but according to recent studies, the UK is still behind the rest of Europe. Your business is only as good as the people who work for you - if you don’t engage your people, they will either leave in search of an organisation that truly values them, or they will ‘quit and stay’.

Here are some of the key elements in building engagement in your organisation;

Individuals – All your employees have a life outside work! Understanding this and recognising that they have families, friends, needs and interests away from the workplace will help you understand their motivations, development needs and preferences.

Alignment – Do your employees fully understand the goals, values and strategic direction of the business? In reality, very few employees can even cite the company's objectives, much less articulate how their work helps achieve them. But it is crucial that everyone in your organisation understands this connection.

Trust – If you treat people like grown ups they will probably act like grown ups! Creating policies and procedures that must be rigidly adhered to may seem easier than coaching and managing performance, but inviting discussions about these rules lets people know that there is a degree of flexibility to allow for common sense and this increases engagement.

Communication – it is important to communicate in a transparent, open and honest way to keep employees informed and up to date with the needs of the business, but communication has to be a two way thing. Giving your employees a voice and really hearing what they have to say is also a key factor in engagement – and you may just learn something.

Leadership – an employee’s relationship with their manager is one of the biggest single factors in employee engagement. Equipping your managers to coach and support their teams, set clear goals and praise good work will result in employees who willingly give discretionary effort and know how to apply it.

It’s not usually large complex things that affect engagement. It’s mostly about the management style – energising the human side of your organisation and creating a passion, not just handing out tasks. Encouraging people to enjoy coming to work will build team working and morale and finding out about each individual person to see what makes them tick and what motivates and drives them – because we are all different!

Breakfast Seminar (Tues 15th May) : Successful Innovation

Successful Innovation:  Exploring the ways you can create a more Innovative and Dynamic working environment.

This FREE event is aimed at people in a leadership role. 

It will be held on Tuesday 15th May at Innovation Centre Longbridge  - 8.00am until 10am. 

Innovation is the key to driving growth, value for shareholders and competitive advantage.

If you are not Innovating effectively you face a number of critical challenges;

• How do we improve the financial returns from current activities?
• How can we build and sustain an innovative culture?
• What does it mean to be an effective innovation leader?
• How should we be measuring innovation?

At this event you will get

• A fascinating insight into why Innovation is now everybody’s business
• An understanding of the role of total innovation management
• The opportunity to learn from industry expert Mark Brown

The event’s goal is to increase the return on your investment in Innovation.

Date : Tuesday 15th May  2012

Time : 7.30am (8.00 start) – 10.00am

There will be Networking time and Breakfast refreshments will be provided

Location : Longbridge Innovation Centre (B31 2TS)

Plenty of parking available. Worst-case scenario is that it will cost you £1!

Cost : This is a Free event

All we ask is that if you book you attend. We don’t want to over order on the coffee

To book please register your details at the LinkedIn event website or email your name and contact details to event@wrightsolutionsltd.com 

Please do feel free to bring along a colleague,  if you feel that they will benefit from it.

We hope to see you there

Tel: 0121 687 4040

Breakfast Seminar (Tues 19th June) : Recruiting with Confidence

Recruiting with Confidence: Acquire Talent not Trouble

Getting Recruitment wrong can be a costly business (and we’re not just talking about agency fees or bad candidate experience.) Legal costs and fines for poor Recruitment Practice continue to rise and as more recruitment is being done directly by businesses the risks are now as great as ever.

In partnership with specialist Solicitors Coley & Tilley we are hosting an invaluable Breakfast Seminar to ensure that you are able to acquire talent and not trouble

• We will be sharing the Do’s, Don’ts and Dangers of 3 key aspects of the Recruitment Process
• Advertising
• Interviewing
• Rejecting
• In addition you will get some strong advice about spotting the serial litigators and dealing with them safely.

In all cases we will be sharing real-life case studies and suggesting some Golden Rules to keep you out of trouble.

This is an event aimed at anyone involved in the recruitment process and will be as relevant for the confident recruiter as it is the novice.

Date : 19th June 2012

Time : 8.00am (8.30 start) – 10.30am.
There will be Networking time and Breakfast refreshments will be provided.

Location : Longbridge Innovation Centre (B31 2TS)
Plenty of parking available. Worst-case scenario is that it will cost you £1!

Cost : This is a Free event
All we ask is that if you book you attend. We don’t want to over order on the coffee

To book please register your details at the LinkedIn event website or email your name and contact details to event@wrightsolutionsltd.com.


Please do feel free to bring along colleagues in HR and Operations if you feel that they will benefit from it.

We hope to see you there

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact Jon on 0121 687 4040

Writing the Perfect CV

Everyone out there has an opinion about CVs and what they should look like and what they should say. Some consultants even seem so confident about those opinions that they want you to part with cash so they can tailor the perfect CV for you.

We have a pretty simple theory that actually only 3 people will read your CV and as long as you can appeal to all 3 of them in the right order you should be doing OK.

Player 1: The Adminstrator

Picture the scene. A job is advertised on a variety of job boards, retweeted and shared on linkedin. With the economy still being tough there is a good chance that a number of people are interested and suddenly there are 50+ responses to that advert.

In all likelihood the Recruiting Manager is not going to sit and shortlist all 50+ CVs in a methodical manner. What is more realistic is that they are going to pass those CVs to someone and ask them to “whittle them down to 10-12 for me to look at tonight”.

We think that person will initially read through those CVs looking to de-select rather than select.

• This is the person who needs you to say “I have been working for a dynamic and entrepreneurial business of c180 staff. The business has doubled in size in the last 5 years and has a turnover of £13m.” (or similar)
• This the person who may not know that Aardvark.com is actually a FTSE 100 business 
• This is the person who needs to know that although your job title was HR Specialist you were actually reporting direct to the Chief Executive.

So make sure that you give them the context that they need to make sure they can “recommend” your CV and with confidence.

Player 2: The Line Manager

This is the simple one.

This is the person who will be reading your CV as they prepare for your interview.

They want to know what you did on a day to day basis and they want to understand what major projects you dealt with.

They will possibly want to use your CV as a prompt during your interview and scribble down some questions to ask.

So make sure you give them the details that they need.

Player 3: The Money

You got through the shortlisting and got an interview and the Line Manager likes you. The job is almost yours!

But before you get to draft your resignation letter someone might look at your CV and sit and work out that they are going to need to pay you your salary, add you to the pay roll, pay your NI contribution and pay the Recruitment Consultant who arranged it all.

• This is the person who wants to know that in your last role you reduced recruitment costs by £300k in a 6 month period.
• This is the person who is going to be impressed that you delivered a major corporate project £25k under budget and as a result Sales rose by 0.3%.

So think about that and make sure that you tell them what you did and quantify your successes. Don’t tell them that your key achievement is reducing absence “significantly” tell them how much by and what the benefit to the business was.

They are more likely to put pen to paper and sign off your salary of £35,000 if they feel that if you can have half the success you had at your current/previous employer where you made savings of £100,000.

Things to Consider

If you did this for every job you had then your CV could be 5 or more pages in length and could bore the pants off of everyone who comes near it.

• This is where you edit and tailor that CV for each job that you apply for.
• This is where you decide that what is an important achievement for one job that you apply for is less important for another.
• Cut, paste, edit and amend to your heart’s content just keep a track of who has got what CV and make sure you prepare for your interview with the right CV!

Your CV is your CV.

• So make sure that you don’t take my (or anyone else’s) advice verbatim.
• Write a CV that you feel comfortable with it and are happy to justify in interview.

Find a Trusted Advisor

• Find someone who knows you and whose advice you trust.
• Get them to read your CV and ask them if they think it explains who you are and what you do.

And remember…

If you are reading this and are a HR professional looking for a new job then let us have a copy of that CV! http://www.wrightsolutionsltd.com.