Enabling Behaviour Change; Clarifying Expectations and Upskilling to Drive Performance and Engagement

Culture Consultancy was asked to:

• Build employee engagement best practices
• Provide clarity of expected behaviours based on the Keolis Group values
• Create a high performance culture where employees worked well together

Insight

We worked with representatives from across the business to identify key competencies, taking care to ensure they fit with Keolis’ culture, and the behaviours which make up those competencies. We used our 4Es Methodology to engage employees and get them on board with what the company was doing.

During this process we enabled Keolis Nottingham to create a working group bringing together employees from all main parts of the company. Doing this, and promoting an open conversation, enabled people to be heard and have input into the process. Members of the working group also talked to colleagues about what they were doing, acting as ambassadors for the culture work, which helped start engagement of the wider staff population even before the process had finished.

Design

Anchoring from the Keolis Group mission and values we developed, through a facilitated exercise, a behavioural competency framework which clearly outlines how people are expected to behave in performing their role – whether they are staff, supervisors or managers. The resultant design ensured that the framework was both intuitive to use, and could easily be integrated into the performance appraisal process, thereby enabling it to be embedded into performance discussions easily and effectively.

Embed

To further ensure robust and effective implementation we also designed and delivered manager / supervisor training on how to use the behavioural competency framework; in particular, focusing upon the importance of gathering feedback, assessing behaviours, delivering feedback objectively, and effectively shaping improvement plans. This was designed and delivered in a way to provide the capability and confidence within the manager and supervisor population to use the framework for everyone’s benefit, with immediate effect.

We also developed an implementation plan to enable Keolis Nottingham to fully and swiftly embed the new behaviours into their culture and ways of working, thus ensuring a ‘hard-wiring’ of the required behaviours to the desired culture.

Results

Embedding Keolis Nottinghams’ culture through the framework of competencies and behaviours has had several positive effects:

• Managers and supervisors are more confident about using the appraisal process to positively lead their teams more effectively;
• Objective conversations around behaviour can now be had with employees because there is a clear and easy to follow framework to refer to;
• The appraisals process feels more robust;
• Employees feel valued and listened to;
• People from different parts of the business working together has built a greater awareness of all aspects of the business and a greater sense of collaboration.
• The working group have chosen to remain actively involved in helping to embed the culture.