Howard Crook has been working with Skanska for over 7 years, helping to design, deliver and develop the ‘Future Talent’ programme. Delivering over this extending time has been achieved by seeking to create a long-term partnership, never taking for granted our relationship and always seeking to develop and improve the programmes. Economic and strategic priorities shifted, and we have worked with many new faces both in terms of both managing the scheme and co-delivery. Very early on we realised that its easy to be left with a programme that no longer fits today’s world, hence building in a continuous review process at all levels.
The Skanska Future talent programme provides opportunities for new entrants and rising stars to form development groups that explore personal effectiveness within their roles and challenge each other in their development. It also creates an extended network which allows the sharing of best practices and differing viewpoints across a large organisation. Participants on the programme are expected to commit to and act on their development and link development to effectiveness within their roles in the business.
The programme is delivered in 3 modules (total of 5 days) spread over 9 months, with pre and post course work requirement between modules.
Module One seeks to build a network and highlight key development areas that will make an immediate effect.
Module Two tracks progress and investigates personal effectiveness and influencing skills in more detail, via a series of coaching conversations and experiential projects. The programmes is designed to highlight the situations this talent pool commonly encountered such as:
- Having to manage multiple stakeholders at the same time.
- Influencing others who may have a more senior role or be an external stakeholder such as a client or sub-contractor.
- Driving quality and cost savings from the position of being reletaively new hire.
The final module allowed participants to see how far they had progressed, defined next steps and explored how to continue with self-sustaining development.
Please take a look at http://www.rethinktraining.co.uk/about-us/feedback/ for some sample feedback from just one cohort.
A programme which has gone from strength to strength, originally working within one operating area, the programme is now delivered across all areas of the business and is open to a wide pool, not just graduates but those who are identified as the ‘future talent’ of the business.
This work has given us the knowledge of the construction sector and the pressures and culture within. An understanding further enhanced by other programmes delivered to Bovis, EC Harris and ECH within this sector.
