In Module 2, Leading in Change, participants work through a case study in order to understand how they can best lead their teams through organizational change.
The third module, Team Leadership, focuses on providing entire teams with feedback from their peers across BDC to allow each team to understand how its specific operations and efforts are perceived across the organization. The goal here is for both teams and their leaders to understand how they can improve how the team communicates and works together, and with the organization as a whole.
A fourth module, currently in development, will focus on helping leaders understand that what they do affects BDC’s customers—and how they, as leaders, can direct their teams to best meet customer needs.
Measuring success
With the Transitional Leadership Program only a few years old and still evolving, Karamanos says BDC has just begun to analyze its long-term effectiveness. “It’s always hard, from an HR perspective, to get at that ROI and know what we’re really getting out of this as an organization. We try to look at it from both a quantitative and a qualitative perspective.”
On the qualitative side, Karamanos says participants who’ve gone through either of the program streams have provided HR with comments suggesting that the initiative is having an impact. She recalls one recent participant who said, “Most [participants] revealed things we would ordinarily keep to ourselves. It brought us closer together as colleagues, opened doors to new relationships and increased the level of trust among us.”
Quantitatively, the HR team looks at data from both participants and the broader BDC employee base to gauge the program’s effectiveness. About 85% of participants have responded positively to survey questions asking whether or not they have an increased understanding of how they are perceived by others in the organization and how their leadership decisions impact others. Engagement surveys indicate that employees are noticing a difference in their leaders, too: Karamanos says 77% of employees responded in 2011 that they believe their leaders are effective, up from 52% when the organization began to study its leadership needs in 2002. Asked whether they believe their leaders care about them, 59% of employees responded in the affirmative in 2011 versus 38% in 2002. Seventy-one percent in 2011 said they believe their leaders are courageous when it comes to making tough decisions, up from 40% in 2002.
Finally, Karamanos points to the voluntary turnover rate at BDC—5.5%, compared with an average 8.9% turnover rate in the financial sector as measured by the Conference Board of Canada—as evidence that the leadership focus is having a positive impact on the organization as a whole. Among those in senior leadership roles at BDC, the voluntary turnover rate is just 1.1%.
“We’re doing well in engaging our leaders and giving them the time, tools and opportunity to really learn what it is to be a better leader,” says Karamanos. “There’s a lot of time, effort and resources being spent to offer these kinds of initiatives. But we feel that in the long run, the participant, employees and organization are all benefiting. Therefore, obviously, so are our clients.”
Neil Faba is associate editor of Benefits Canada. neil.faba@rci.rogers.com
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