Corporate report

Professional manager programme: 1 year on (agenda item 9)

Published 22 December 2023

Applies to England

• Publication for Northern Ireland
• Publication for Scotland
• Publication for Wales

1. Purpose

1.This paper provides an update on the progress of the FC Professional Manager Programme (PMP) after the first year of delivery.

1.1 It outlines the continuous improvements already made in response to participant and senior sponsor/facilitator feedback throughout the year.

1.2 It asks the Executive Board (EB) to agree how the remainder of the existing contract should be progressed.

1.3 It makes recommendations upon how the programme should continue to be delivered in any subsequent contracts.

2. Recommendations

2.1 On the current contract, deliver a condensed, residential PMP for learning group 11. This will be a pilot event, offered as an alternative to the existing delivery which is over 5 – 6 months. See Annex 1 word document attached with this paper for details.

2.2 On the current contract, deliver learning group 12 as per the existing format (over 5 to 6 months).

2.3 Renegotiate the contract with Ernst Young (EY), for up to a further six programmes to be delivered over two years, starting in January 2024, sub-contracted to Bailey & French who will continue to deliver the six leadership and behavioural elements, subject to a thorough review and assurance that they have acted upon participant feedback to continuously improve content and delivery. The staffing figures to support this proposal are at Appendix 1 page 7.

3. Background

On 15 December 2020, the FC Executive Board approved proposals for a development programme for line managers in pay bands 3, 4, 5 and 5 Ops in principle, and requested a final proposal be brought for consideration by the board. This took place on 25 March 2021. A cross-FC project board was established led by OD Leadership Development Manager, as the Project Manager and Jo Ridgway, OD Director, as the Senior Responsible Officer.

The content, duration and approaches were agreed by the project group and developed by the Leadership Development Manager working with EY and Bailey & French, the external training provider. See Appendix 2 page 8 for details. The contract with EY for delivery of a three to six month programme which included 6 behavioural and leadership modules, delivered by Bailey & French as the training partner organisation, was developed and the delivery of 12 learning groups of 25 participants with Agenda Item 9 EXECUTIVE BOARD 31 January 2023 Paper 3/23 2 2 representatives from Forestry England (FE), Forest Services (FS) and Forest Research (FR), over 3 years from November 2021 to March 2024 was agreed.

4. Discussion

4.1 The FC PMP was launched in November 2021, during the Coronavirus Pandemic. The vision of the programme is:

to have inspiring and effective managers who engage successfully with their teams and enjoy collaborating with others, ensuring the FC thrives. The FC manager will attend to their own and others’ wellbeing, ensuring an inclusive environment where they and their staff give of their best.

The focus of the programme is developing emotional intelligence and self-awareness, focusing on strengths and developing a coaching approach. The high level content of the programme is outlined in appendix 2, page 6. It offers a combination of online workshops, awareness sessions and face-to-face leadership and behavioural skills modules, complemented by Peer to Peer Coaching (PTPC) sessions delivered by internal senior sponsor/facilitators, who are usually Pay band 1 or 2, although we have also had support from some suitably skilled Pay Band 3s. Due to the pandemic, work was undertaken to enable the programme to continue. This meant many of the sessions intended to be run face-to-face had to be developed and, in some cases, abridged for online delivery.

4.2 Current status

4.2.1 Making a difference and changing the culture Six programmes were delivered between November 2021 and November 2022. Overwhelming feedback from participants, their line managers and senior sponsor-facilitators is that the programme is making a significant difference to the way line managers work, giving them confidence, new tools and techniques and essential learning.

Excellent feedback from FR outlined that the programme is having a great impact, with participants starting to see the importance of people development, using the tools and embedding the learning to make a real difference. The programme helps participants build upon existing skills, develop more self-awareness and embed a strengths-based coaching approach to team working. Further, it gives the opportunity to network and build relationships, with colleagues across the three business areas and allow them space and time to focus and reflect on their leadership and management development.

4.2.2 Learning Groups 7, 8 and 9 are currently being delivered, with LG 10 planned to start in March 2023. This means approximately 150 managers have completed the programme with a further 100 either in progress or starting this year (2022/23).

4.2.3 It has required a substantial amount of administration to plan, organise and manage, with around 18 sessions for each learning group. All administration is undertaken by members of the Leadership Development (LD) OD team. Additional administrative support is now in place within the OD team to help manage this going forward.

4.2.4 Ongoing contract review and evaluation meetings

These take place following completion of the Bailey & French elements of every two learning groups. They are managed by the L&D OD team with EY and Bailey & French in 3 3 attendance. This allows us to analyse and evaluate the feedback and decide if further improvements or changes need to be considered and actioned.

4.2.5 Continuous improvements already in place

Some changes have been put in place throughout the programme by both Bailey & French as the external training provider and internally by the L&D OD team. This has included improvements to the timing and duration of sessions, the order in which they are run and changes to improve and adapt the content. The biggest change is that all the behavioural and leadership sessions, which include the Peer to Peer Coaching sessions, are delivered face-to-face. See appendix 3, page 9 for improvements actioned and further proposed improvements. These have all been implemented following analysis of participant and/or facilitator/sponsor feedback.

4.2.6 A condensed programme

Some feedback proposed that an improved approach for future participants may be to offer a more condensed programme over a shorter period of time. This would offer a residential approach: participants would be expected to stay away overnight for at least two consecutive nights, giving them more time to build their network and share good practice on the margins of the learning day, allow longer learning days (they currently make a reasonable allowance for daily travel) and reduce daily travel and the overall amount of time away from work. This paper recommends a pilot intake for LG 11, which we propose would run in May/June 2023. See the word document Annex 1 with this paper for details of the options to consider for this proposal.

4.2.7 The final learning group

This will be LG 12 and is planned to be delivered as per the rest of the programme and will start around October 20203, ending in Feb/March 24

4.2.8 Contract renegotiation

This paper recommends that we continue with the programme (para.2.3, page 1). Based on the excellent feedback from participants and considering the numbers who will have accessed the programme through LGs 1 – 12, (approximately 300), and the current line manager figures as at appendix 1 page 7 it would seem reasonable to propose a minimum of a further 6 learning groups to be delivered over two years (three per year) from April 24 – March 26.

4.3 Evaluation

4.3.1 Evaluation already undertaken

EY undertake evaluation of each of the Bailey & French Modules. We changed this from learning group 6, so instead of six questionnaires, (one for each module) they are grouped in pairs, so three are now sent out. Similarly, we undertake internal evaluation of the Peer to Peer sessions and the Awareness sessions. To gain an overview of the programme, we undertake one end of programme evaluation following the closing event.

A summary of the findings from this survey is attached in Annex 2 PMP Feedback EB Paper Jan 2023. Response rates to the evaluation surveys has been varied and despite many reminders has been lower than we had anticipated and hoped for. For the EY/Bailey & French 4 4 sessions, the average response rate was 10 with an average overall quality rating of 7.5/10.The response rate to our internal evaluation surveys varies from session to session, with the average response rate of 6 responses per survey and an average overall quality rating of 7.7/10 .

4.3.2 Measuring success back in the workplace

There is a good deal of anecdotal evidence from participants on how the programme is improving their practice. These range from participants reporting more confidence to have difficult conversations, to using storytelling to engage their teams and to attributing confidence to apply for promotion, in many cases with success.

For a more structured analysis of measuring improvements and return on investment, the L&D team will shortly engage in a process to elicit more detailed evidence and share the results with you in due course.

5. Resource implications

The additional budget required to deliver the recommendations outlined in paragraph 2 has been identified and submitted to the FC OD Director and Head of Finance for inclusion in the 2023/24 budget planning round. This has not yet been agreed.

No additional staffing resource is identified as necessary to deliver these recommendations.

6. Risk Assessment

There is the risk that Bailey & French may cease trading. As the contract is with EY this risk is mitigated as the programme could be delivered by an alternative provider.

There is the risk that internal staff members involved in the development, planning, organisation and delivery of the programme may move into different roles within the FC or leave the business. This is mitigated by clear processes for how the programme is managed and delivered being in place and handovers would take place to enable continuity of the programme.

There is the risk that there will not be sufficient budget to deliver the programme as recommended. The anticipated costs for delivery have been submitted to the OD Director and FC Head of Finance to include in business planning for 23/24.

7. Equality Impact Assessment

An Equality Impact Assessment, if required, will be undertaken at an appropriate stage as the recommendations are progressed.

8. Communications

A comprehensive communications approach will be put in place as the recommendations from the paper are implemented, with clear information available in news stories on the respective business’s intranet pages and being incorporated into the appropriate pages for 5 5 future reference.

The OD Leadership Development Manager will attend the executive team meetings for Forestry England, Forest Services, Forest Research and the Tier 2 Staff Council, as required, to provide an update. Briefing sessions for senior leaders across the business will also be offered.

9. Conclusion and next steps

This paper has outlined the success of the FC PMP and the current delivery strategy. It suggests an improvement to delivery based on feedback, providing a pilot which will be a condensed, residential group for learning group 11. It proposes that subject to ongoing review, the programme continues to be delivered as business as usual with up to six further intakes being planned from April 2024.

The next steps are to discuss and agree the recommendations and decide on how these will be implemented. By effecting the recommendations, the EB will be able to provide clarity across the three arms of the business of our commitment to the development of our middle and first line managers, our leaders of the future.

OD Leadership Development Manager 19 January 2023.