Development during a pandemic - HOW AND WHY?
Monika Wietrzynska
How to support an employee's development during a pandemic? Is this even possible? Or do employees themselves, in a period of uncertainty and a sense of threat of an epidemic, expect more to be assured of safety, to have their emotions taken care of, than to participate in a development program? A conversation with Małgorzata Cyganek and Olga Szaro - Development Project Managers at Bank Pekao S.A., Coordinators of the Talents Up Program.
The pandemic has proven not to be a temporary condition and is more likely to accompany us to a greater or lesser degree. In an organization focused on continuous development, it is impossible to shelve development programs, even, or perhaps especially, during a pandemic.
Let's take a look at the Talents Up program that Bank Pekao S.A. has been implementing for over a year in cooperation with Concordia Design. What does it consist of and how is it implemented?
FIRST: PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
The Talents Up program is designed to develop both the competencies necessary for the organization and those resulting from the individual needs of the employee. This is why program participants develop on two parallel paths: project and development.
The design path, which ended in December 2021, was implemented based on Concordia Design's proprietary method - Creativity+Thinking, inspired by the Design Thinking process, but with slightly different elements and sequence of each stage. In this method, a great deal of importance is placed on the design team, and the whole process starts with this - with building a diverse team that will be motivated and decisive from the very beginning when it comes to working on each successive stage of design. The FRIS tool helped to connect the program participants into teams, which made it possible to build teams with different operating and thinking styles. Ultimately, each design team included representatives of all four styles: "researchers" - structure-oriented, "players" - emphasizing facts, "partners" - valuing relationships, and idea-creating "visionaries." Further, the teams themselves chose the business challenges they were to work on over the next few months. Once the challenges were selected, goals were set, the teams looked for inspiration in trends, conducted research and user interviews on their own, and then generated ideas and created prototypes, which they then tested. In Creativity+Thinking, a lot of emphasis is also placed on the implementation of ideas, so the final stage of the work was the preparation of a professional business presentation of the developed solutions, presented to Bank Board Members and Business Leaders.
The development path is an integral part of the Talents Up program, and in the first year of the Talents Up program, it was mainly based on individual cooperation with a Learning Coach (i.e., a development consultant who deals with employee development at the bank). At the beginning of the process, each Talent, together with the Learning Coach, defined his or her development goals that he or she wanted to pursue in the program. These concerned the development of specific competencies and skills, e.g., influencing, creativity or flexibility. The Learning Coach's role was to work closely with the Talent, to provide feedback after the workshop and to share their experience in personal development.
An important moment on the development path was the Feedback 360 survey, which Talents participated in after completing the project path. Together with the Learning Coach, they summarized the results of the survey, drew conclusions and finalized their development goals. The IZ360 was an excellent starting point for further development activities within the 2nd year of the program path, which is mainly devoted to the development and planning of the next career steps of Talents Up participants.
SECOND: DIVERSITY
The talent program at Bank Pekao SA relied on diversity - not only during the recruitment process for the program, in which 50 people with different experience, age, place of residence, position were selected, but also at the stage of project challenges, which involved both the development of services and solutions for an external client and for the organization's employees.
The project path itself involved learning various competencies, versatility and diversification of techniques and tools, so that the development of Talents was multifaceted and the skills were useful in their professional development. And so the program participants learned, among other things, how to conduct research with users, how to build prototypes and test them with users, analyze trends, create empathy maps, prepare the implementation of a service using service blueprint or design a professional sales pitch.
Diversity was also guaranteed by the Concordia Design trainers themselves, headed by design track coordinator Sylwia Hull-Wosiek. The 8 experts guiding the teams through the meanders of the design process for 8 months were carefully selected for their diversity of knowledge, experience, skills and personalities. Among them were a trend analyst, diversity & inclusion coach, improviser, executive coach, and leadership mentor.
The first year of the development track also focused on a variety of forms and experiences. Talents had the opportunity to work with improv theater actors, participate in an improv performance or take part in retro sessions, but they also prepared videos, worked with Gallup's Talent tool, organized consultations and gave each other feedback.
The second year of the development path includes a whole range of development methods and tools that Talents can use to design their own development. On offer were coaching, action learning, mastermind, Gallup Strenghts survey, Job Crafting, mindfulness course, job rotation and many others.
When designing the development program, care was also taken to ensure that the Bank's employees' experiences were diverse, creating a space for combining the perspectives of the network (sales departments from all over Poland) and support units. Participants became better acquainted with their professional daily life, understood the needs of others and different points of view. This was a valuable experience, also in terms of building collegial relationships that can pay off in the future.
THIRD: PERSONALIZATION
The unquestionable value of the Talents Up program was, and still is, its focus on both the development of teamwork skills, team spirit, a clash with different styles of thinking and acting, as well as self-reflection - the place in the organization in the context of personal development and plans for the future.
This is especially evident during the 2nd year of the Talents Up program, where the focus is on the individual needs of Talents. To begin with, two unique tools were created especially for them: "Rozwojownik full of inspiration" - a guide to the offer of development methods and tools dedicated to Talents, which, in addition to theoretical knowledge pills, descriptions of models or book recommendations, contains many practical exercises, and "Map (to) development" - a tool for the best possible planning of one's own development, helping Talents summarize knowledge about themselves and their competencies, define their goals, and name and plan the steps needed to achieve them. During the workshop with Concordia Design trainers, Talents were introduced to the ins and outs of the Map (for) Development, but it is on their side to work with it individually and choose those among the 15 different development tools offered that will support them in their planned career path. Here the responsibility and decision-making is entirely on the side of the Talents, but it is always possible to consult the development plan with Talents Up program coordinators Olga Szaro and Malgorzata Cyganek.
WHAT TO CONSIDER WHEN DESIGNING A DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM?
In retrospect, after summarizing the design path of the talent program implemented at Bank Pekao SA, it is certainly worth sharing conclusions and insights that may be helpful for organizations planning similar programs.
When designing and implementing a development program, it is important to answer the question of what its purpose is - what value the program is expected to bring to the organization and its participants. It is helpful to refer to the organization's strategy, examine the needs of potential program recipients, but also look at what kind of organizational culture we operate in.
An important element influencing the success of the program is the involvement of the entire organization in the co-creation of the program, in order to make the most of the substantive potential of various units, but above all to enable cooperation and relationship building between people. Undoubtedly, it is worth taking care of the visibility, but also the accessibility of the program in the organization already during its duration, so that it is known to all employees and allows non-participants to take part in some of the activities carried out under the program.
When planning an effective schedule for such a program, it is worth taking into account the different nature of its participants' work, what roles they play in the organization and how participation in the program will affect their daily work. This will help ensure that the program's goals are effectively met, taking into account the comfort of its participants.
However, the key to a successful development program is to respond nimbly to the needs of the organization and the participants as the program progresses, and to adjust the program to changing circumstances. If the goal of the program is clearly defined at the outset, it is much easier to modify the approach and make needed changes.
HOW TO EFFECTIVELY IMPLEMENT A DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM DURING A PANDEMIC?
Here are some tips from the coordinators of the Talents Up program.
→ Hybrid formula (online workshops, supplemented by onsite meetings) - allows for comfortable participation of employees working across the country on a daily basis.
→ Tools for online work - working on a business challenge, participants learned about specific tools to support them in their design work in virtual reality (e.g., Mural, Zoom).
→ Use of various methods of activating participants - in the online world, for example, a form of conveying information about business challenges - videos recorded by mentors, videos recorded by teams, work on Mural, gamification on the Ideacrowd platform.
→ Maintaining a blog with inspiring articles for both development program participants and other bank employees interested in acquiring new skills and knowledge.
→ Webinars with experts in various fields - recorded online meetings, thanks to the possibility of replaying them at any time, provide a flexible approach to planning work and development time in a remote formula.
→ Wellbeing at work "from home" during online meetings it is essential to take care of breaks and rest and their optimal frequency.
