Developing an HR team to support a changing business
by Sarah
The challenge
London Underground’s (LU) vision is to deliver a world-class Tube for a world-class city. It’s in the midst of a period of massive investment to deliver a 30% increase in capacity while causing minimal inconvenience to its millions of customers. The Commissioner of Transport for London, Peter Hendy CBE, pointed out that during this time of unprecedented change and investment there would be a great opportunity to increase the skill-level of the existing workforce.
This meant that Tricia Riley, then LU’s Human Resources Director and who now ‘heads up’ the entire TfL HR team, certainly had a lot on her plate! Her teams needed to develop their skills to become world-class HR practitioners who could support the business through the immense change.
Tricia’s HR strategy had four dimensions: fix the basics; flexibility; leadership and capability; and engagement. Our job was to build the capability and leadership element, which is just the sort of challenge we relish!
The solution
After spending time with the senior HR team we developed a suite of bespoke training courses aimed at equipping the whole of the HR team with the skills to become world-class. Naturally, Tricia and us gave them some natty titles:
• bang! Wow! (a.k.a. impact and influence)
• being a top model (a.k.a. inspiring and engaging leadership)
• eh? What? (a.k.a. active listening)
• communicating without the L-plates (a.k.a.effective communication)
• getting below the surface (a.k.a. stakeholder relationships)
• how can I help you? (a.k.a. customer service)
• what makes me tick? (a.k.a. emotional intelligence)
• help! (a.k.a. internal consultancy)
The result
Having these new skills is not only helping the HR team to become world-class, but is also helping the whole of Transport for London to deliver its Skills and Employment strategy. Here are a few comments about the impact our training’s had in the workplace:
Want to know more?
We ran a ‘freshers’ fayre’ style day and invited the whole of the HR team. They had the opportunity to sample each of the courses and ask the trainers any burning questions they had. This allowed them to make informed choices about which courses they would bid for.Then it was on to the delivery of the courses themselves and follow-up activity to make sure that what had been covered in the courses, and the skills learned from them, were being applied when people returned to their natural workplace habitats.
Then it was on to the delivery of the courses themselves and follow-up activity to make sure that what had been covered in the courses, and the skills learned from them, were being applied when people returned to their natural workplace habitats
What Tricia said…
“I have had the pleasure of working with Rambutan on a number of projects over the past 7 years. I really appreciate their flexible approach where everything is absolutely tailored to their customer’s needs. Their work is highly innovative and creative and I have seen people (including myself ) develop and grow as individuals and teams through the work that they have done.”
Tricia Riley, HR Director
If you’d like to know more about how we could help you develop and deliver a training curriculum that really supports your business goals then give us a call or pop in for a cuppa, and let’s talk about it.
