The “Grow Your Own” (GYO) Development Programme

A Global Universal Bank initiative to develop, mobilise and retain talent across a wide selection of Shared Services functions for a newly hired population.

The Challenge

A major European bank approached Alpha Development to restructure an existing 1 year global development programme for new hires with less than 2 years of finance related experience. The programme needed to address the issue of ensuring consistent development for off-cycle recruitment intakes while running simultaneously in various global locations. The critical challenges for Programme Management were to:

• Ensure all eligible hires are offered development within their first three months in role.
• Minimise participant time away from the desk throughout the programme.
• Provide end-to-end programme management without increasing internal headcount.
• Deliver the programme cost-efficiently.
• Improve retention after the first year of junior talent on boarding.

The Solution

Delivery:

Alpha developed a flexible “packaged” programme that adopted a broad range of learning delivery methods, including: classroom training, interactive webinars, short video primers and online simulations with eLearning modules.

The 3-day classroom training gave participants the appropriate introductory insight into the bank, the industry and their new careers through teaching, group exercises and opportunities to network with business stakeholders.

Technical content was integrated with professional skills to build a platform for ongoing development. Online webinars and eLearning provided flexibility and regularity for sustained learning.

Resourcing and Budget Management:

Alpha and the client analysed employee spend data, from recruitment through to the end of year one in the role. As a result, Alpha was able to offer a bespoke per-head fee structure which gave all departments clarity on development budgets and enabled accurate annual budgetary forecasting across the business.

Programme Management:

Alpha provided an outsourced Programme Management team and received enhanced security clearance to access the client’s data and systems. This enabled Alpha to take full responsibility for the administrative burden of the programme, freeing up the client’s Learning Team to undertake more strategic “value-add” projects for the business.

Key programme tasks include:

• Participant communication, on-boarding, scheduling, query handling and chasing.
• Line Manager “Webinar Briefings” prior to each cohort.
• Quarterly material update to reflect market and internal changes.
• Sourcing monthly headcount data.
• Ongoing programme performance and engagement reporting.

Central to the success of the solution was a clear understanding of service level expectations, supported by consistent communication between the Alpha team and client stakeholders.

The Results

The programme has received consistently positive feedback from participants, managers and Learning and Development teams globally.

Reduced business risk and improved performance:

• The learning experience is seen to be more sustained and rooted in the business than traditional up-front, “all-at-once” induction programmes.
• Line Managers have found participants to be more effective in their role and equipped with more transferable skills at each year one evaluation stage (3, 6 and 12 months).
• Desks are able to forecast budgets effectively and deliver consistent development opportunities to all new-hires.
• Business units have reported a reduction in post-hire development costs and improved staff retention.
• Learning and Development teams have been able to transition business perception from reactive “order-takers” to proactive “relationship managers”.

Senior Management has identified the GYO Development Programme as an example of learning best practice and have targeted replication across other geographies and business areas in 2016.