2005 HRINZ HR Award Winners
HR Initiative of the Year Auckland Region Winner: HortResearch
The “Good to Great” leadership development programme was born out of HortResearch’s recognition that its national and international credibility depended on it transforming its “good” leaders into “great” ones.
“As a research organisation we have many people who are highly qualified experts in their areas of science but relatively few who have been exposed, in any detail, to concepts of effective leadership,” HortResearch GM of Human Resources Craig Jensen said.
Following extensive workshops and international research, HortResearch created a leadership model with 22 competencies – and established that strengths in three or four competencies was sufficient to lift a leader’s overall effectiveness into the “great” area.
Two “Good to Great” Leadership development initiatives were created: a Senior Programme using “feed forward coaching” methodology, so called because the emphasis is on what a person needs to do in the future to develop.
Leaders choose four to six people who will be their feed forward coaches and periodically ask them for two suggestions for things they could do to improve their leadership in the competencies they choose to develop.
The second development initiative, a Team Leader programme, comprises a series of modules a fortnight apart, with practical assignments between each module.
Mr Jensen said the programmes had enabled HortResearch to develop a language around leadership that now served as a reference point for the organisation’s collective behaviours, values and culture.
Over two years HortResearch has recorded a significant improvement in personal and leadership effectiveness and in the morale of staff whose leaders have participated in the programmes.
There has also been a marked improvement in a number of other organisational measures. For instance, the number of disengaged employees has dropped from 29% to 13%, and voluntary employee turnover is down from 8.7% in December 2003 to 4.6% in July 2005.
