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Investment to develop a performance and innovation culture at Innovation Group

Background


Innovation Group plc was founded in 1997, and operates in the software and computer services market. Most of its business focuses on insurance software and international outsourcing although more recently the Group has begun to move beyond the insurance sector to offer business process solutions to the broader global market.

The group employs about 1,500 people and turnover in 2006 was about £80 millions. The Group Head Office is in UK and about 400 people are based in UK. The group has experienced rapid growth through a series of mergers and acquisitions and operates through a range of strategic business partnerships and through the activities of subsidiary organisations. Nearly half of the group employees are based in South Africa and the rest are deployed in Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Pakistan, South Africa and the USA.

The contribution of learning to the organisation


The market for IT services was expanding when Innovation Group was formed but when the IT ‘bubble’ burst the organisation went through a tough time. Now the group is back in a growth phase and Shaun Gwilliam, the Software Solutions Director, who is responsible for new product and process development, is clear about the need to ‘grow our people with us’. To be successful Innovation Group needs ‘knowledgeable professionals’ who are able to improve processes and thus enable their client organisations to deliver appropriate levels of customer service in a fiercely competitive environment. A culture of continuous process improvement and the development of an entrepreneurial and innovative spirit are key features of business success for the group.

Learning contributes in three ways to this business. First, management learning is a key priority to sustain the growth phase. Many managers have backgrounds in organisations that have been acquired or merged within Innovation Group and part of the contribution of learning is to enable the integration of people at the top of different parts of the Group to achieve clarity and ‘see the big picture’ in developing the business for the future.

A second key issue for Innovation Group is the ‘time to competence’ of its employees so that they achieve the level of organisational competence required to win business and provide effective client solutions and services in a time and cost-effective way. Knowledge sharing is also important in the dynamic and fast-changing environment in which the group operates and learning provides an avenue through which communication can be enhanced, both internally and in terms of ‘outward facing communication’ with business partner organisations and with clients.

Third, learning contributes to the development of the entrepreneurial culture that is a vital part of the business strategy for the Group. For Shaun Gwilliam, the ‘buzz’ of the place is “a good indication as to whether people are motivated, people are doing the right thing”. In these three ways, therefore, learning translates into business results through increased productivity at all levels of the organisation.

Investment and alignment processes


Like many young organisations struggling to cope with fast growth in a challenging and competitive environment, there has been little time to develop the routine procedures, budgets and processes that may be taken for granted in larger and more established organisations. In 2006 the Group appointed a learning specialist to develop this area and to communicate the business case for learning through identifying what needs to be done and what results can be expected from it.

A key feature of maintaining alignment between learning and the business for Innovation Group is the performance management process. This focuses particularly on productivity and the development of capability within staff groups so that they can work on a range of products and provide a flexible resource for the organisation.

The organisation is keen to develop further metrics to cement the alignment of learning within the organisation but Shaun is aware that at present alignment is a continuous management judgement process:

“We’re trying to develop our people; trying to develop the learning. It’s not quite where I’d want it to be, we’ve still got a lot of room to grow, but I know it’s aligned or I know it’s not aligned because it’s my job to do that”.

Innovation Group is not content to stop at knowledge-based and ‘focused’ learning and development. Shaun Gwilliam is aware also that wider learning opportunities have a big part to play in the continuous development and motivation of the Group’s skilled and valuable knowledge workers although the consequences of these opportunities are much less quantifiable. Shaun Gwilliam sums up as: “That’s my job: to sell the intangible.”

Measuring and reporting the value of learning


As a systems company Innovation Group is well aware of the need for metrics relating to value for a range of business processes. Course-based evaluation measures are used for the technical, knowledge-based, product training processes that occur at Innovation Group and the company has recently introduced a work management tracking system to provide information about work flow and productivity.

Whilst such systems, provide managers with a wealth of information about differences in productivity they are less able to explain the reasons for the differences. In relation to learning, therefore, Innovation Group focuses on feedback, often anecdotal, from managers to estimate the value of learning. Investment in learning is made against the expected strategic end gain and the evaluation of the return on that investment is based on the experiences of those who have managed the relevant business processes or projects and in informal feedback from employees and client organisations relating to issues like culture and attitude. The value of learning is estimated more on the ‘return on expectation’, therefore, rather than on the more limited ‘return on investment’.

Partly this is because Shaun Gwilliam is very aware that ‘value’ is differently perceived by different stakeholders. He believes that, by understanding and engaging with the values held by employees (for example in relation to ‘green issues’) the organisation can leverage its learning to better understand how to deliver value to the shareholders. When Innovation Group develops its scorecard measure, therefore, they want to assess not just what their people are doing for the organisation but what the organisation is doing for its people, thus exploring ways of fostering a ‘two-way’ learning and engagement process as part of their innovative and entrepreneurial development.

External benchmarks are less important – the key benchmarks at Innovation Group being the organisation’s strategy and goals. Shaun Gwilliam comments that: “My whole working life is measured against our strategy. That’s my measure. That’s our strategy.”

 
 
 
 
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