VSO Case Studies

Developing Change Management Capability

The Organisation

VSO is an international development charity promoting volunteering to fight global poverty and disadvantage.

The Need

The VSO strategy is based around 6 goals; Education, HIV/AIDs Disability, Health and Social Well-Being, Secure Livelihoods, and Participation and Governance. Each overseas programme office develops plans to support these goals locally through placing volunteers with partner organisations. There are 5 volunteer recruitment bases, dotted around the world and a range of different types of volunteer (long term, short term, youth, national etc). A large part of the programme offices' role was to source appropriate volunteers across the range of volunteer types and the recruitment bases. The recruitment bases needed to reorganise to align with the six goals, enabling recruitment teams to better understand the needs of the overseas programmes and for the programme offices to better understand the range of volunteers available to them through a single point of contact. The changes affected the overall structure of the recruitment teams, the nature of the jobs in the recruitment bases, and the relationships the recruitment teams had with volunteers, the overseas programme offices and their colleagues across recruitment bases. A VSO project team was established with additional change management expertise from J Hill Associates to support those involved.

What We Did

Recommended appropriate change management strategies by analysing responses to a staff questionnaire.
Enhanced the effectiveness of the change management team by clarifying roles and establishing agreed terms of reference.
Developed a communications strategy by assisting the communications team to develop plans and activities to keep recruitment staff and others appropriately informed and involved.
Improved staff morale and participation by jointly developing a workshop for staff to understand the rationale for the change, the change curve and how it might affect them, and gaining their feedback and ideas on how best to support them.
Increased confidence of managers by coaching them through the change. conversations they would have with individual staff members.
Helped staff develop new working relationships through activities and workshops.
Helped managers to identify the required culture changes through a workshop.
Increased manager's capability by exposure to well-established change management models and helping them put these models in the VSO context.
Worked with managers and HR to ensure processes were in line with overall VSO policies and practices.
Led research into managing complex organisational structures (matrix management) resulting in a set of recommendations for VSO.
Contributed to longer-term HR support planning by providing observations on areas for ongoing development.
Provided a positive, energetic role model for managers and staff.

Benefits

A structured approach to managing the change with appropriate contributions from staff and managers.
Improved morale as staff better understood the reactions to the changes they were going through and that these were perfectly natural.
New change management and communication skills and models transferred to VSO staff.
Staff equipped to develop new working relationships quickly and effectively.
Flexible approach; providing input when required over a five month period.
Access to commercial organisations and their experiences e.g. meeting with Reuters.

Comments from VSO managers and staff

"Jacqueline's focus, questioning, outside viewpoint and relevant experience all cast light on what we were trying to achieve, how we might do it better and how it was perceived by less involved colleagues."

"I felt like I was talking to someone who really understood the whole area of change management."

"Jacqueline always brings huge energy and enthusiasm to meetings. She has a helpful style which facilitates others coming up with ideas but at the same time has been willing to input ideas if people have wanted this e.g. teasing out key messages to communicate after management meetings."

"Jacqueline has more than knowledge and tools, she is a keen listener, is extremely patient and understanding and very empathetic. Jacqueline has been asked to do things at the last minute, some 'doing' rather than coaching tasks, and she has done these with great professionalism."

Setting Strategic Direction at VSO

The Organisation

VSO is an international development charity promoting volunteering to fight global poverty and disadvantage.

The Need

In implementing its strategy, "Focus For Change", VSO wanted a process that would help them take stock of achievements and opportunities, shape the top level of VSO’s work programme for the next couple of years and to get a stronger sense of what they were likely to be able to afford to deliver. VSO's asked two internal facilitators, one from the Chief Executive’s Office and one from Training to develop the process and design appropriate workshops. The aim was to provide a forum for the Senior Management Team and other managers to contribute their ideas and thinking, develop a range of options for strategic priorities over the next three years, identify the preferred options, and analyse the broad resource implications. VSO also asked J Hill Associates to provide a facilitator to bring an external perspective.

What We Did

To fit in with VSO's planning timetable it was important to schedule the first workshop quickly. We had to be very flexible in finding time to read all the background papers, working together around existing commitments, and building an effective team over the telephone. The VSO facilitators provided the context and workshop ideas whilst the external facilitator was able to clarify overall objectives, map out the process, and position the workshop. We then met to pull together the final agenda and materials and decide who would take which roles, involving the Chief Executive throughout to ensure he was comfortable with the approach. It was important to that all 20 participants could contribute so the exercises were mainly group-based with plenary sessions to ensure everyone was at the same point before key decisions were taken. We also took into account the fact that the participants had not worked together in this way before. During the workshop the facilitators shared the delivery and observing roles, used breaks to check with each other and refine the next steps, and spent the evening of day 1 reviewing the feedback before finalising day 2. We also documented the key outputs from the discussions and these were used as inputs to the next stage of the process.

Benefits

The workshop exceeded the expectations of both the participants and facilitators in the outputs achieved and the way in which the two days were managed.
The workshop provided a forum for significant discussion and debate, identified the areas in which VSO needed to be more clear about its direction, and gave the Senior Management Team valuable input into their prioritisation discussions.
Participants appreciated the opportunity to contribute and to learn from each other, some saying that even if the original objectives had not been met it would still have been a very worthwhile 2 days.
A mix of internal and external facilitators enabled new ideas to be put into the VSO context and aspects of team dynamics to be addressed.
The external facilitator was able to ask questions and pose challenges that may have been difficult for an internal facilitator to raise.
The internal facilitators knew the senior managers and the VSO context well, and were experienced in training and facilitation techniques. The external facilitator brought experience of strategic planning and an ability to stand back from the detail.
Establishing excellent relationships from the start meant that the team worked well under significant time pressures.

Comments from VSO managers and staff

"VSO really benefited from the range of skills and experience, both domestic and international, that Jacqueline brought to the team oragnising this workshop." Mark Goldring, Chief Executive, VSO.

"'This was an incredibly challenging assignment and we wouldn't have got through it without Jacqueline's ability to think on her feet, assume responsibility for tasks and get stuck in and contribute creative ideas without feeling they all had to be taken on." Rachel Bartlett, Chief Executive’s Office and co-facilitator.

International Team Building at VSO

The Organisation

VSO is an international development charity promoting volunteering to fight global poverty and disadvantage. VSO is a federation, the members of which are based in the Philippines, Kenya, Canada, Netherlands and the UK, plus two additional Recruitment Bases in India and Ireland. VSO’s Federation Directorate, based in the UK, provides international co-ordination and best practice for volunteer recruitment, communications, marketing, fundraising, volunteer training and organisational development. VSO’s structure is a matrix in which in-country professionals report to their local Federation Member/Recruitment Base Director with a ‘dotted line’ relationship to the Federation Directorate. The larger Federation Members have both Marketing and Communications professionals; in smaller FMs one individual covers both roles.

The Need

An international conference was arranged to bring together the communications and marketing professionals from each Federation Member and recruitment base. The challenge was to make the most of the limited time the team members had together by balancing team building and project activities. There were also a number of team dynamics issues along with some resistance to VSO’s internationalisation change agenda.

What We Did

The first step was for Jacqueline to work with Jo Adddison, the International Head of Communications, and Gemma Hoskins, the International Marketing Manager, to explore what they wanted to be different as a result of the conference. From these discussions Jo and Gemma identified the following objectives:

To create an open, positive environment where the team could share best practice, their views, and make productive suggestions
For the International Communications team members to meet each other for the first time
To develop both the International Communication and International Marketing teams’ effectiveness by better understanding the context in which they are working, clarifying goals, understanding more about themselves as individuals and how to best to work with each other, sharing strengths and skills and learning from other team members, agree ways of working as a team, and agreeing individual roles in supporting team processes
To progress international projects such as Values, Digital Brand, Audience Profiles, and Local Marketing Strategies, and to gain a common understanding amongst the International Marketing Team of their targets and finances.

Jacqueline worked with Jo and Gemma to develop an agenda for the 3 day event, based on a well-researched team effectiveness model and incorporating diagnostics to help team members explore their own learning and communication preferences and those of their colleagues. Given the change management challenge, it was also important that team members understood the context and could see that the change was supported at a senior level. Jacqueline suggested the involvement of VSO’s senior management team and the conference kicked off with a video by the Director of the VSO Federation explaining the external and internal context, and VSO’s HR Director provided input to the Values project session. The conference was co-facilitated with Jacqueline either taking the lead or supporting Jo and Gemma so that they could be participants in the relevant sessions whilst retaining ownership and leadership of the conference.

Benefits

At the end of the conference Jo reported that the International Communications team had measured a significant improvement in how effective they felt they were as a team in terms of goal clarity, understanding the role of the team and their own roles as individuals, how the team could work together more effectively, and team spirit. The majority of the International Marketing team felt that the conference objectives had been met, 83% felt that their personal objectives had been met, and a further 13% that they had been exceeded.

Jacqueline carried out a further evaluation a couple of months after the workshop. Jo reported that there was a continuing sense of team cohesion and members were making their own arrangements to see each other again. Jo also reported that another effect of the conference had been an improvement in the relationships between her and the Federation Member directors.

Gemma commented: “The face-to-face interaction and topics discussed at the conference has made it much easier to work together and identify the ways in which work overlaps. More importantly we are all able to identify the specific knowledge and information that can help support other members. The conference allowed the team to give thought to their work and celebrate the successes of the last few years, as well as hear about similar issues and challenges faced by their colleagues.”

Cross-Team Annual Planning at VSO

The Organisation

VSO is an international development charity promoting volunteering to fight global poverty and disadvantage. VSO is a federation, with members in the Philippines, Kenya, Canada, Netherlands and the UK, plus two additional Recruitment Bases in India and Ireland. VSO’s Federation Directorate provides international co-ordination and best practice for Federation Members and Recruitment Bases in volunteer recruitment, communications, marketing, fundraising, volunteer training and organisational development.

The Need

At the beginning of the financial year 2009/10 the Federation Directorate (FD) reviewed its goals for 2009/10 and identified a number of projects that could be most effectively carried out by people drawn from across the teams. The FD wanted to ensure that new project teams were built based on: best fit with existing skills and strengths; identifying where new roles needed to be developed; maintaining manageable workloads; and incorporating individual’s development aspirations. The process had to be flexible enough to accommodate the rapidly changing environment in which VSO works, involve all team members, and take account of the limited time and resources available.

What We Did

In conjunction with Kim West, the Head of Federation Development, and Brian Rockliffe, the Director of the VSO Federation, we designed a 2-day workshop that involved all of the FD team members to:

Raise awareness and understanding of the new context in which they were working, the cross-team nature of projects, and the assumptions and constraints inherent in allocating work in such an environment
Create clarity about the work that needed to be done and the strengths and skills of the individual team members
Match the project work to the team members based on a set of agreed criteria
Capture and document the conclusions
Enable the participants take resource allocation to the next step i.e. detailed project planning.

By the end of the workshop, each team member had learned about the different projects, contributed to identifying the activities that needed to happen within each one, and developed an individual profile. The profile showed their skills and strengths, the ways in which they prefer to work within a team (based on the Belbin model of team effectiveness), which areas of work they would like to get involved in, and their availability to take on additional work. The group also identified project managers for each of the cross-team projects, their potential team members, and agreed how they would start the detailed planning process.

Benefits

At the end of the workshop, 11 out of 13 participants felt the workshop aims were fully met and 2 felt that they had been exceeded. Feedback on the facilitator included: an objective perspective; provided a framework/process for understanding priorities, projects and team involvement; adapted the work well as the day progressed to take into account conversations of topics that people were interested in; explained the processes, kept objectives clear, had good time management, used a good choice of tools.

Four months after the workshop Brian Rockcliffe and Nick Gallagher, Head of International Volunteer Delivery, were asked to evaluate the longer term impact of the workshop and highlighted:

The team bonding that took place has resulted in greater cross-team working and support for each other
There is a greater level of acceptance and engagement when priorities and workloads change
The process and its underlying principles have proved robust in the face of change
More accurate assessment of individual strengths have increased the effectiveness of appraisal conversations
People with complementary strengths are mentoring each other
A renewed sense of commitment to the team and its work
Staff holding managers to account in ensuring they are involved in cross-team projects
The Belbin model has proved an effective language for discussing strengths and agreeing project roles
Benefits over and above those anticipated - a good return on the time and money invested.

Brian and Nick also commented on the need to maintain the process and its benefits, potentially by setting up a team to take it forward. The next step is to consider how to build on the learning.

Brian Rockliffe, Director of the VSO Federation commented: “ < to be provided > ”.

VSO can be found at: www.vso.org.uk

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