The Client

The client is a leading expert in UAE real estate, international hotel investments, property asset management, global investor services, and recognised hospitality and leisure brands.

The Objectives

The existing University had been in place for several years and was previously overseen by an internal trainer, who had since left the business. The use of the University was limited and had grown dormant whilst the business had reorganized itself and responded to the pandemic. Optimise were recruited to provide a review of the University and a roadmap to reboot it across the Group.

To provide a clear and aspirational learning framework with an aim to improve the performance of the organisation. The desire was to improve the engagement of the workforce and develop inspirational, skilled and strong leaders throughout the business. An additional requirement was for more informed succession planning.

The Scope

The initial requirement was to reboot the University for the client-facing teams however it quickly became apparent that the need was better served with a solution that answered the requirements across the entire group.  In addition, there was a clear need to address the learning requirements of the managers and leaders across the business in order to ensure that they can enforce the knowledge and skills development of the teams.

The Challenges

Learning Ethos

There was no defined ethos on learning and development across the organisation which meant that there was no structured framework in place.  Given the lack of focus on learning, there were no clear ties to career progression.

Role and department knowledge was largely undocumented and regularly passed verbally from an experienced team member to new recruits.

Management and Leadership

The managers and leaders in the company were regularly recruited from within teams, with years of tenure and often with no previous managerial experience.  This resulted in a skills gap, especially at the first-line management level.

The gap in skills at the manager level also resulted in a lack of training and coaching ability meaning there was limited focus on training in certain pockets of the business. 

Performance Management

There was no formal performance management structure, where performance management was happening it was inconsistent, often done at team level and done without a clear understanding of individual training needs.  Without a performance management process, the drive on personal development would be limited.

There were no defined expectations of individuals (other than overt sales targets) which can result in individuals not understanding or being held accountable for those expectations. In addition, there was limited focus on the behavioural aspect of individuals as there were no defined behavioural expectations.

Legacy

Many employees have long tenures and whilst this is advantageous in some ways, it can lead to being insular in their views on development.

Because the company has been successful on the back of a prescriptive sales model, the focus had been on the way to sell the company model and not around generic sales skills.

The solution

Learning and Development

• Inspirational, skilled and strong leaders throughout the business

• Informed succession planning

• Project to reboot learning and development

• Provide a scalable learning framework for the growing business

• Build a management and leadership program

• Provide independent expertise, focus and objectivity to the team

• Raise profile of learning and development across the organisation

• Roll out the program

Performance Management

• Build performance management structure

• Educate the organisation on performance management structure and process

• Roll out the program

The steps

• Learning and Development

  • Agree L&D ethos and roles and responsibilities

  • Build competency frameworks

  • Research

  • Look and feel / build of LMS platform

  • Identify training talent

  • Full design build

  • Full content build

  • Build assessment protocols

  • Build a motivational school

  • Agree branding

  • Communication plan

• Performance Management

  • Introduce leadership to benefits

  • Build performance framework

  • Develop documentation

  • Communication plan

  • Roll out

  • Provide coaching and advice

The outcome

Learning and Development

• Fully articulated learning and development framework

• Launch of new University learning portal

• Roll out, training and communication

Performance Management

• Fully articulated performance management process

• All required documentation and forms

• Plan for integration into Oracle HRMS

• Education and guidance on inculcation

• Roll out, training, coaching and communication

Recommendations

Learning and development

• Continually refine and evolve the learning framework

• Continue to add to, and improve, the current content

• Consider the addition of professional development

• Keep talking about learning and development

• Consider monetisation of the framework

Performance Management

• Ensure all departments are split into teams

• Provide ongoing coaching for people leaders across the organisation

• Provide some quality control on process input

• Ensure learning and development remains an ongoing focus of the organisation

• Ensure adequate HR resource to oversee the process adoption

• Ensure adequate experienced source of advice and coaching

• Consolidate all performance management into the HRMS as one

• Tie performance management to compensation – discretionary bonus

• Develop and refine the structure and process