Case Study

Empowered Workforce

Situation:

One of our clients, in the financial services industry, was interested in changing their culture from a hierarchal environment to an empowered workforce. Built on a traditional model where leaders make all the decisions, they knew it would require three to five years to change leadership’s mindset about letting go and trusting employees to make the “right” decisions. H-C-HSM was hired to assist several “Empowerment” teams with developing a strategy to change the organization’s culture into an empowered workforce at all levels.

Solution:

H-C-HSM consulted with the Empowerment teams on the principles and practices of an empowered workforce. We were also responsible for coaching, training and guiding the teams, as well as facilitating their monthly meetings. Our team building and team tools workshop included the following components:

• Understanding the four phases of team development and how to address each phase (forming, storming, norming and high performing)
• Managing and leveraging group dynamics
• Effective use of team tools (brainstorming, multi-voting, data collection, problem-cause-analysis, force-field analysis, process mapping, displaying data, etc.)
• How to run effective meetings

Outcome:

The Empowerment teams developed empowerment plans, which led to successful, effective solutions for changing the company’s culture. The company is in the third year of its culture change; they measure their empowerment index, conduct employee surveys and continue to implement strategies for empowering the workforce.

Based on the teams’ experience with a formal team process, training on team tools, and facilitated sessions, they were able to build an “Empowerment model” for the company to follow. The organization created an implementation team to execute the strategy, incorporating recommendations from prior Empowerment teams.