With 660 employees and five offices throughout Ireland, Friends First is a leading financial services group which provides life and pensions products, general insurance products as well as personal finance and investment services. It is part of the pan-European Eureko Alliance which is the sixth largest insurance group in Europe.
Having established its core values and introduced competencies, a new performance management system, continuous feedback and coaching, Friends First is introducing two internal qualification programmes. The aim is to develop a consistent style of management across the business and to help its 60 middle managers improve customer focus, performance and innovation.
"We want to move the business from a life and pensions operation to a broad-based financial services company," said Frank Rock, Internal Training Consultant at Friends First.
"In order for the managers to drive the vision and take ownership of it, they need to have new skills and knowledge of all the strategic elements of the plan. They also need to fundamentally change their role so that they become less directive and more empowering with their people. But on top of this, they still need to focus on managing their service levels, budgets, resources and projects."
Roffey Park worked with Friends First to design a Diploma in Management programme and a Post Graduate Diploma, both of which are being run in partnership with the Trinity Institute in Dublin.
"The two accredited training programmes will provide our managers with ongoing training and education throughout their careers," said Frank Rock. "They will also ensure we have the skills and resources necessary to give Friends First a strong competitive edge in the marketplace."
Self Managed Learning
The Diploma and Post Graduate Diploma are both 18-month programmes and they run concurrently. Both feature a learning process called Self Managed Learning, which helps participants identify their learning needs in the context of their work. The managers meet regularly throughout the programme, in small groups called Learning Sets, and they assess and evaluate each other's achievements.
"The Self Managed Learning approach reflects the needs of the business," said Frank Rock. "It has been a long time since some of the managers have been in a learning environment, so we may have to re-teach them how to learn. SML allows you to identify what you want to learn and how you are going to learn it. It also enables you to base your learning on the work you are actually doing."
38 managers are taking part in the Diploma programme and 22 have opted for the Post Graduate Diploma, which is validated by the University of Sussex. Both programmes cover the same six modules but the Post Graduate Diploma is pitched at a higher academic level and has additional Learning Set meetings.
"We wanted to allow people to nominate themselves as potential star performers," said Frank Rock. "That's where the Post Graduate Diploma comes in. They can decide how far they want to take their learning. Their nomination has to be signed off by their manager then they go through the formal assessment, which is facilitated by Roffey Park on behalf of the University of Sussex."
Roffey Park is providing the infrastructure for each programme as well as Set Advisors for the Learning Sets and tutors for four modules: Leadership, Customer Focus, Change and Strategic Marketing. The Trinity Institute - which is affiliated to Trinity College, Dublin - is providing tutors for two modules: Finance for the Non-Financial Manager and Business Processes/IT.
Recognition
The programmes were developed after Friends First researched the training needs of the middle managers. "By providing an accredited training programme, we can offer a tangible form of recognition for the effort these managers are required to expend," said Frank Rock. "Our research also highlighted the importance of getting the general management team involved and we have responded to this. They support it, they are visible during the programme and they are even undergoing some elements of it as well."
The tendering process involved most of the leading management institutes in Ireland and the UK. "We selected Roffey Park on the basis of their people-oriented style of delivery and their balanced mix of theory and practice," said Frank Rock. "They're a very entrepreneurial organisation and their reputation is based on their research prowess. We're getting best practice and the latest ideas, all from accomplished tutors who have had line management experience in the real world."
The two qualification programmes will be evaluated throughout. A formal assessment centre will also be held at the end. This will include the use of 360Ì feedback which will be co-ordinated, analysed and presented by Roffey Park.
"We believe the programmes will result in bottom-line improvement and innovation," said Frank Rock. "Certainly some of the projects that the managers select will feed back into the business. That will all be part of the evaluation process. We will also be using evaluation sheets, looking at the Learning Sets and discussing the programme with focus groups of managers as part of our assessment."
Looking forward
"We have to get ourselves to the stage where we can give an exceptional level of customer service in order to compete and be profitable," said Frank Rock. "This development will take us towards that objective. It is a key HR initiative and we see it as a way of putting something back into the business. It's about refuelling the organisation."