aviva | Farscape

Companies’ Case Studies

Overseas Delegates’
Case Studies

Case Study Aviva

Synopsis

Following a talent development programme working in partnership with Farscape, 4 delegates have already been successfully promoted. They stood out as candidates who were ready to take the next step and have hit the ground running.

Background and Context

In 2010, Aviva’s Regulated Sales Channel identified that they did not have a pool of talented people in place - ready to take the next step into leadership roles. The need for effective succession planning within the channel was recognised - in order to manage risk within their business. Aviva’s leadership decided on a proactive approach to talent development - in order to fill this gap and to support the development of their high potential staff within the channel.

The Farscape Learning Experience

Working in partnership with Aviva, Farscape designed and delivered a Talent Development programme which focused on and included:

Creating a high impact launch to the Talent Development Programme in order to communicate the value that Aviva was placing on this investment in staff;
Exploration of behaviours in leadership, in order to highlight the importance of self awareness; relationships with others; and flexibility in leadership styles;
Creating a challenging and emotionally engaging programme in order to push delegates outside their comfort zones and give them an opportunity to experiment with different leadership techniques in unfamiliar situations. These were then related back to the context of the workplace at Aviva.
An outdoor Learning Experience, designed to create opportunities for leadership and feedback in an exacting environment in order to enhance self awareness and drive forward performance;
Individual feedback about performance, including key strengths and areas for development. This was fed into Personal Development Plans and is being driven forward by Managers at Aviva;
Group action learning follow up designed to focus on the transfer of learning in the workplace and to focus on specific leadership challenges at Aviva.

Thanks again for a quality programme, it totally exceeded my expectations. It delivered exactly what I was looking for, not only around the exercises but also, and most importantly, the leadership messages. It was very refreshing to work with a company that share my views on L&D.

Michael Pearse, Consultant, Aviva Sales Training & Capability Development

What were the outcomes?

4 delegates have already achieved promotion as a direct result of the talent development programme. They were more confident; had greater self awareness and have been able to hit the ground running;
Feedback to delegates has resulted in all individuals raising their performance and aspirations. They are now communicating and behaving in a way which indicates that they are ready to take the next step as leaders and are proactively taking responsibility for their own development;
A pool of talented people is being created, which helps with succession planning and career development.

The results from the succession planning/talent development programme have been clear with 4 of the delegates already having gained promotion. The combination of the leadership activities together with the highly detailed and insightful feedback delivered by Farscape, certainly provided the delegates with the increased self awareness that allowed them to then focus on their own leadership style and skills. This input from Farscape definitely created the strong foundation for the individual\'s development, progression through the programme and their eventual promotion.