Calibre Group are a large engineering consultancy company in New Zealand and Australia. Leisha Holliday, Calibre’s Recruitment and Development Leader, shares why leadership development has been pivotal to their organisation and has assisted in lifting their company culture and morale.
WHAT WAS CALIBRE GROUP LOOKING TO ACHIEVE?
Calibre approached IMNZ to develop a bespoke, multi-module leadership learning programme as a direct result of a staff engagement survey they conducted.
“The engagement survey revealed there to be a lack of tools for our leaders. They felt a bit exposed in certain areas and that was having flow-on effects to the business and the overall culture of the company.”
“We obviously wanted to take the engagement results seriously, and we decided leadership was a key area for us to focus on,”
says Leisha.
In trying to fill the gap for Calibre leaders, IMNZ created a customized version of their ELEVATE – Leadership Essentials Programme for delivery to 40 Calibre staff over three regional locations. Customizations allowed the Calibre mission, values, and even sample business cases and templates to be used throughout the programme and allowed for greater contextualization and relatability for the learners
WHY DID CALIBRE CHOOSE TO PARTNER WITH IMNZ?
IMNZ was the partner of choice for Calibre because they had a good reputation in the market and were able to tailor a learning programme that directly matched Calibre’s needs. “For us, IMNZ was the best solution. They have a strong reputation in the industry – our people were already engaged with who they were, so they were trusting of them. They were credible, and they were willing to customize a solution for our business that was actually going to fit and solve our needs.”
HOW HAS TRAINING WITH IMNZ IMPACTED YOUR ORGANISATION?
The first impact Leisha and her team noticed was the change in conversation among their staff. “The nicest thing to see is that the leaders are actually talking about [the training] and remembering specific techniques to put in to practice.”
The fact that those conversations are happening when they previously weren’t proved to Leisha that the programme is a “fantastic success.” “We feel a lot more confident that our leaders have the right skills and tools,” she asserts. Leisha has also come to realize and see first-hand the cascading effect leadership training has on the larger business due to the level of influence. “The obvious impact is that you train someone and they become more productive and better at their role, which is clear. But then, because of the role they’re in, it actually impacts on the whole culture and morale of the organisation. We’ve seen happier staff, better morale, more engaged team members, and hopefully that will have the flow-on effect of lower turn-over. It is really all connected!”
READY TO BUILD YOUR NEXT TRAINING PROGRAMME?
For Calibre, the training they have developed with IMNZ is something they hope to continue year after year. They credit IMNZ with making the training journey easy and seamless, and there is no hesitation in continuing to work with IMNZ and recommending them. “For businesses that want a customized solution, flexibility, and want the highest standard of delivery, I definitely would recommend working with IMNZ. They have the best facilitators and a fantastic back-end team supporting those facilitators. They’ve held my hand every step of the way,” Leisha concludes.
