our results 

On this page we will share some of our results with you. 

The following case studies share the journey of two graduates from our Influencing Stakeholders Program.

 Thank you for your interest and don't hesitate to make contact. 

CASE STUDY

Context

IR professionals have a key part to play in achieving greater efficiency and consistency of organisational expenditure.  They set the landscape for more open and robust workforce productivity discussions.  This role can mean they need to operate in a complex, sometimes ambiguous and potentially volatile stakeholder environment.

Rebecca* is a senior IR Advisor, qualified Lawyer, and has extensive experience along with high levels of technical skills and knowledge. Even with this strong background, she acknowledged that she needed further development to be able to effectively influence a wide cross section of key stakeholders. Rebecca is challenged by needing to achieve efficiencies and consistency in instances where the relevant industrial instruments were not being applied consistently and often enough, in the absence of guiding IR policies or procedures. 

Rebecca saw an opportunity to form an Industrial Relations Working Group, to meet quarterly and bring colleagues together across the different portfolios within government.  The purpose of the working group would be to provide a structured learning opportunity where IR professionals could network, share, question and plan for the new IR and organisational landscape.  Rebecca then needed to influence her reporting Manager and the Head of P&C support for this critical initiative. 

Action

Rebecca* enrolled in the Influencing Skills Program for People and Culture Professionals in order to develop her influencing mindset and skillset.  The principal task for Rebecca whilst attending the program, was to build her capability in order to develop a plan and successfully influence a critical stakeholder.  Rebecca worked with the SWHRC Facilitator Janet Tucker, during the three workshop days and two 1:1 coaching sessions.  Rebecca valued the program’s content, which helped to build her capability to; build a stakeholder engagement plan, facilitate meaningful dialogue and improve her listening and communication skills in order to build genuine rapport and credibility. 

Rebecca made the most of the program learning opportunities and she began to think about the psychology of decision-making.  Rebecca prioritised building trust along with how she could build a strong, relevant and compelling value proposition, tailored to her stakeholder’s needs.  She kicked off the meeting in an engaging way, and asked five influential questions about the stakeholder’s interests and priorities, gaining more confidence in her understanding of their needs.  From this, Rebecca found helpful insights to frame her value proposition at a later point in the conversation.   

Results
After self-reflection, Rebecca indicated she had improved relationships by managing her tendency to talk for too long - reducing the likelihood that her listener’s attention would wane. She was also better able to manage meeting timeframes, therefore demonstrating respect for her Stakeholder’s time. 

Rebecca’s direct manager and her Head of P&C endorsed and agreed to support Rebecca’s suggestion for an organisational IR Working Group.  Furthermore, the Head of P&C was prepared to contribute expertise and resources to ensure the Working Group’s success.  The key anticipated value was; greater sharing of knowledge, building of IR capability, closer working ties with P&C Head Office, improved collaboration and engagement across IR professionals, greater plan and solution consistency, and ultimately an increased ability for the IR professionals to improve their efficiency and workforce productivity across the organisation.

Subsequent to Rebecca’s meeting she received a note of recognition from the Head of P&C for her professionalism, passion and contribution to collaboration and capability development in the organisation.

CASE STUDY

Context
In her position as a HRBP, Sarah was getting feedback that leaders felt challenged when having difficult conversations with direct reports, in fact they avoided the conversations, which left staff issues unresolved and becoming worse.  By the time conversations actually happened, they were complex and difficult.  These unresolved issues were then being escalated to senior managers, absorbing an estimated 5% of their time, inhibiting their performance.

Meanwhile, a broader challenge was confronting Sarah’s managers in HR: the ageing workforce would retire soon, leaving a widening leadership capability gap.  There was already a focus on developing the emerging and middle level leaders, however many young people weren’t attracted to leadership positions.  These employees simply did not have the confidence nor the self-belief to want to be a leader in this organisation.  Sarah suspected that the lack of confidence in having difficult conversations was also part of this problem. 

Action
Sarah saw a valuable opportunity to develop the conversation skills and mindsets of these leaders, however a major challenge would be to influence five senior managers to agree to provide time on their already full leadership meeting agendas, to deliver 20 two-hour workshops and reach 250 leaders.

Sarah enrolled in the SWHRC[2] Influencing Skills Program for People and Culture Professionals, facilitated by Janet Tucker.  The key learning for Sarah from the Program was to influence a critical stakeholder to come on-board with a recommendation.  Sarah says that what most shifted was the impact of her new communication methods, including more advanced questioning and listening skills.  Sarah was now more curious to understand the stakeholder’s point of view, as well as their needs and preferences, as this enabled her to have a greater understanding of their perspective, leading to both parties being on the same page and better able to agree on a win-win outcome.

This really turned things around for Sarah.  Learning more about strategic influencing, Sarah prioritised building genuine relationships, credibility and trust with each senior manager.  She looked closely at the broader context and each senior manager’s needs, to find clues for effective influence. Next, Sarah needed to set a strategic objective for the conversation, which focused on generating thoughts, feelings and inspiring specific action.  This was achieved by preparing key questions along with a snappy value proposition pitch, and being prepared for any questions or pushback. 

Results
Sarah successfully engaged and built relationships with key stakeholders across the business, with value-adding outcomes: leaders were avoiding conversations they should have been having, and now this capability gap was closing.  She secured endorsement to train emerging and middle leaders’ conversation skills.  These 20 workshops have now been successfully delivered.  Feedback from leaders about the workshops highlighted that managers now have 20% greater confidence in having difficult conversations.  Senior managers report they spend less time on escalated issues.  Participants in the workshop reported an increased willingness to have the tough conversations, and provided feedback on the success of the techniques they had learned.  Going forward, Sarah’s influencing and facilitation success is the ideal solution to tackling the challenge of dealing with a wide range of leadership capability skillsets and mindsets.

Notes .... 

[1] Names has been changed for confidentiality.

[2] SWHRC – Samantha Wilkinson Human Resource Consulting