A leadership development programme for Watercare

Watercare’s old emerging leaders’ programme only had capacity for 28 out of 1,300 employees. It was aimed at mid-career professionals who’d been working for 10–15 years.

Staff said getting a place was like winning the lottery. Not only were there not enough opportunities for people to develop, but there was a real issue with awareness and access. When people did find out about the course, they might have to wait a year to get a slot.

Watercare’s Learning and Organisational Development (L&OD) team, led by Clare Sarney, said “We want to create a culture where people want to engage in learning. So, when people say, ‘I'm keen to learn,’ and we say, ‘You have to wait a year,’ it’s not ideal”. Clare explains, “Our vision is for everybody to have the opportunity to learn and develop. If you're early in your career and keen to grow in self-leadership, why would we say no?”

At the start of 2023, the L&OD team reviewed their leadership training offerings and realised there was little to encourage self-leadership, or the important associated soft skills such as:

• knowledge to develop resilience

• confidence to have productive conversations

• ability to question norms and evaluate your own approach 

• how to adapt your communication skills to enable effective conversations with people who have different communication styles

• greater self-awareness, understanding your strengths, challenges and values.

Their new leadership development programme, EmpowerMe, fosters self-leadership for their team and fills a gap in their leadership development offering.

Budget drove Watercare’s decision to bring their emerging leaders programme in-house and evolve it to focus on self-leadership. Every cohort that did the old programme cost a set fee which limited the number of people who could take part.

Creating EmpowerMe was a one-off investment. Inspire Group designed the programme with Watercare’s L&OD team – the workshops, eLearning modules and leader resources – and handed it over so Watercare owns the IP and runs it in-house. Now Watercare can train as many people as they want and the cost per learner will keep shrinking. Owning the IP for the programme allows Watercare to make changes as their context and learning best practice evolve over time.

Programme facilitation was brought in-house which allows Watercare to impact more people and gives them more flexibility to meet learners’ needs.

The new programme is six two-and-a-half-hour sessions, run every couple of weeks, each quarter. The bite-size format is in response to learner demand. Watercare’s previous emerging leaders programme was full-day workshops and it was hard for people to arrange cover. Shorter sessions over a longer duration work better for embedding new skills.

Watercare's Learning Business Partner, Michael Power, now delivers the EmpowerMe programme, which gives him more flexibility to adapt the programme to internal needs. Each cohort is usually 8–10 people who meet fortnightly, but Michael can do bigger groups or run sessions weekly to meet demand. The programme is also designed to be delivered in a non-linear way, or modules can be stand-alone workshops. If a team wants to upskill in communication, Watercare has a tool for the job.

The EmpowerMe programme has three parts to it:

1. Preparation

2. Workshops

3. Tools.

Watercare staff previously said training had too much pre-work and homework. As a result, EmpowerMe prep is optional. People can do a short eLearning module before each session to get a taste of the concepts they’ll cover, but if they don’t do it, it's not the end of the world.

The six workshops cover:

• Setting myself up for success: participants find their learning zone, adopt a growth mindset, discover the power of reflection and create good habits to support their growth.

• Knowing myself: participants develop greater self-awareness, understand what drives their behaviour, what they’re good at and how they can be themselves at work.

• Managing my time: participants recognise the control and influence they have over their daily routines and create ways of working that improve productivity.

• My communication: participants explore different communication styles and learn how to adapt their communication to relate more effectively with others.

• My resilience: participants learn approaches and tips to manage stress, maintain wellbeing and build resilience.

• Meaningful conversations: participants explore ways they can build and maintain trust with others, confidently have meaningful conversations and resolve conflict.

Workshops are a communal learning experience with discussion and group activities. Michael aims to create a casual atmosphere where people feel relaxed and comfortable. Michael says, “I want to minimise anxiety so people can bring their true selves, have fun and feel better about themselves.” His goal is to create a safe environment where people can share their experiences and how they’ve experimented with new skills.

A critical part of learning is sustaining and embedding behaviour change on the job. After each session, people get practical tools they can apply day-to-day, such as a template to guide them through tricky conversations or a three-step process for habit change. Instead of homework, they’re invited to try concepts from the session in their work environment.

Team leaders are given a kete of resources, reflections and activities to use with their teams to keep the learning alive. These resources also expose the whole Watercare team to the concepts of self-leadership, impacting everybody, not only those who enrol for EmpowerMe.

The L&OD team promoted the launch of EmpowerMe using Watercare’s internal channels. Word went out by email, internal social media and chat, while managers briefed their teams. Demand has been strong ever since.

The programme is open to anyone, people can self-enrol and participation has been diverse, with people enrolling from across the organisation at all stages of their career, from graduate recruits to general managers.

Measuring success and positive impact

The first success metric for EmpowerMe is demand. Since the programme’s launch, demand has been so steady they’ve run cohorts back-to-back and haven't advertised at all.

Watercare also track impact by regularly surveying learners. Short term, they’re looking for feedback to help them improve the programme. Long term they’re looking for changes in behaviour, such as greater resilience, more confidence, more productive conversations, greater self-awareness and a lift in performance.

• All learners do a post-course survey and give immediate feedback on overall satisfaction, how comfortable they felt being themselves, and how they found the facilitator.

• After six months, Watercare survey learners’ managers, asking if they’ve seen a change in behaviour and noticed people practising their new skills.

• At the six-month mark, Watercare also survey learners, asking if they can still remember what they learned and if they’re practising their new skills.

• Leaders and learners are invited to focus groups to give more detailed feedback.
  
  

Business outcomes

Bringing self-leadership training in-house allows Watercare to offer it to more people. The year before launching EmpowerMe they trained 28 people. Since the new course went live in October 2023, they’ve run five cohorts and trained 59 people, a 110% increase in impact.

Satisfaction ratings from participants exceed their old emerging leaders’ programme. The average satisfaction rating overall is 4.9 out of 5.

Watercare are also starting to see people who’ve gone through the EmpowerMe programme go on to bigger and better things. For example, Watercare recently restructured, and managers have noticed that EmpowerMe grads are asking for support to apply for the new roles. People are more self-confident in going for goals and putting themselves out there.

As a result, the L&OD team have started to track the development of EmpowerMe graduates, recording promotions, secondments and industry awards, to see if there’s a marked difference in progression for people who do the course.