Scotland Leads the Way2019-08-22T14:14:17+01:00

Scotland Leads the Way

Workplace Innovation Europe CLG is proud to support Scotland’s pioneering initiatives
to promote better, more productive workplaces.

Since the beginning of 2016 we have been working with Scottish Enterprise, Skills Development Scotland
and Highlands & Islands Enterprise to promote and resource workplace innovation in a diverse range of companies.

How does the Workplace Innovation Engagement Programme help?

Workplace Innovation Engagement Programme (WIEP), Workplace Innovation, Scottish Enterprise, enhanced performance and working livesWIEP was designed to overcome the gap between evidence-based workplace practice and common practice in Scottish companies. We know that there is a ‘long tail’ yet to benefit from workplace innovation, with consequent losses for productivity, product and service innovation, skills development and utilisation, and employee health.

The programme brings diverse cohorts of companies together on a nine month shared journey towards the sustainable transformation of workplace practices. Two participants from each company gain the knowledge and skills required to engage others in their organisations to plan and implement exciting changes.

WIEP combines a state-of-the-art Workplace Innovation Diagnostic ®, interactive workshops, an online platform for learning and interaction, peer-to-peer support through action learning, individual coaching and in-house facilitation, helping each company to address its individual needs and opportunities as part of a community of companies on similar journeys.

Individual participants gain an internationally-recognised qualification in Leadership & Management while their companies gain sustainable improvements across a range of indicators and continuing capacity for change.

Impact

The first cohort of ten companies began the programme in November 2016, completing it during Autumn 2017.

Cohort 2, with nine companies, commenced the programme in September 2017 and continued until completion in June 2018.

Each company made tangible changes in working practice, including self-managed teams, employee involvement in improvement and innovation, reducing functional silos and hierarchies, changing management roles and behaviours, eliminating low-trust systems and procedures, delegating decision-making, greater openness and transparency, introducing or revitalising employee forums, and building more inclusive approaches to leadership.

Companies enhanced profitability and competitiveness by improving cost control, workflow, decision-making, quality, customer service and capacity for innovation. 100% participants satisfied or very satisfied, and each company reports that benefits would not be have been achieved at all, or to the same extent, without WIEP.

Here is a small selection from the 19 companies:

Argenta
Pharmaceuticals

Reduced the impact of functional divisions to improve workflow, delegated decision-making to team and involved staff in innovation.

Significant cost reduction and efficiency gains, and major steps towards creating a culture of improvement and innovation.

Booth Welsh
Engineering services

Greater transparency and measures to engage staff, reducing functional silos and stimulating employee-driven innovation.

60+ ideas generated by employees; Martin Welsh (MD) argues that WIEP has placed the company 12 months ahead of its competitors.

Cornerstone
Social care

Introduced self-managed teams and a flatter management structure to address changing and more complex demands in the care sector.

Enhanced client satisfaction, greater resource efficiency and improved staff engagement.

DS Smith
Packaging

Leadership transparency; delegation of decision-making to frontline meetings; employee-led process mapping and improvement.

WIEP played a vital role in changing work practices through DS Smith Lockerbie, leading to a £1.4m profit upturn without capital investment.

Laing Traditional Masonry
Building renovation

Leadership transparency and enhanced 2-way communication with site-based teams combined with good practice teamwork principles.

Significant improvements in meeting targets and an average improvement in profitability of 6% per project.

Premier Hytemp
Engineering

Introduction of a representative ‘Shop Committee’ bringing employee voice into decision-making and stimulating ideas for improvement.

MD claims that KPIs have all improved as a result of employee voice measures introduced by WIEP, building pride in the workplace.

What they say about WIEP. . .

I highly recommend WIEP and suggest that everyone should go on it. It works for every size of business.

Chris Owens, IOM

WIEP exceeded all expectations and was enjoyable and rewarding. Invaluable facilitation of cultural change.

David MacPherson, Charles River

This programme affects the way people involved in change think and act, and gives a power to the change process.

Sara Blanco Rodriguez, Kilco

It’s been an eye-opening experience not just personally but as a company. It’s changed the way we look at staff and how at how I interact with people working around me. Especially after a session, I think about the way you’ve supported us, yes that’s okay, what do you think? A good idea! Just the way you were speaking and sharing so much.

Iain Heddle, Laing Traditional Masonry

Rosemary and Peter from Workplace Innovation have taken participants on a learning journey. The programme has been excellent for learning from other organisations. Building key networks and relationships has been invaluable. The content of the programme has been geared to ensure all organisations gain something. We are introducing a new business model and this programme has certainly helped guide and support us as we commence our three year Strategic Plan to bring transformational change to the care sector.

Mairi Martin, Cornerstone

We wouldn’t be thinking like this at all without being involved in the programme . . . there wouldn’t be that journey to where we are now.

Harriet Boyle, Glenton

I can see a difference also in the two people that have been in this course and I can see how they are keen to see that change to be replicated within the business. For me it has exceeded all expectations, probably gone beyond the boundaries of where I thought it would go, it goes right under the skin of the business. I am happy that we are now at the other side of it, that it’s made a big difference.

Martin Welsh, Booth Welsh

Conclusions

Companies participating achieved significant improvements in a relatively short period of time, and have establsihed a sustainable momentum of change with real potential to go much further.

Feedback on the programme has been overwhelmingly positive, focusing on the overall quality of support, the learning, sharing and ‘camaraderie’ between companies, and the practical outcomes stimulated by WIEP. Group-based programmes such as WIEP offer policymakers particular value for money, firstly because most of the expert input is shared by the whole cohort, and secondly because peer-to-peer support, as an important motivator and a valuable source of ideas, comes as part of the package without extra cost.

How Scotland’s policy-makers are leading the way in workplace innovation

Rarely in the UK has the role of policy-makers in creating a vision of the workplaces of the future been so decisive and catalytic. The challenge was taken up by Scottish Enterprise, the country’s main economic development agency, who began to work with partners in the public and private sectors to identify and exploit the best opportunities to deliver a significant, lasting effect on the Scottish economy.

Scottish Enterprise Workplace Innovation Masterclasses

Scottish Enterprise has announced the continuation of its nation-wide programme of workplace innovation Masterclasses confirming Scotland’s status as one of the most pro-active European countries promoting long-term sustainable economic growth through the development of inclusive and creative workplaces.

The Masterclasses will take place in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Stirling.

News

Impressions from our Glasgow Masterclass Creating Leaders for the Future

By |February 14th, 2020|Categories: News, Scotland|Tags: , , , |

Our latest Masterclass brought together over eighty attendees from sixty companies across Scotland, who found inspiration and took away examples of good practice from our brilliant speakers.

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