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A regional bank
of the Federal Reserve wanted to address their TURNOVER and MORALE issues. They
had professional employees who felt undervalued relative to their counterparts.
More specifically, they found that their blue collar employees - fork lift
operators, guards, and maintenance techs - felt like second-class citizens
among the economists and financial specialists at the bank. With high
turnover effecting their recruiting/training costs and low morale effecting
productivity levels, solving these internal issues became a key focus. A
Human Resources group found the source of the problem was from inexperienced
managers making inconsistent decisions, resulting in a divide of the company.
Interact worked with this Human Resources Group, implementing “Performance
Problem Solving,” a training program focused on teaching the skills needed to
solve the everyday people problems that normally undercut performance. As a
result, the managers were able to identify/diagnose problems and consistently
navigate to a fair solution that everyone could agree on. The Federal Reserve
was so pleased with the success of the program; they eventually implemented it
throughout the whole region. |
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Fortune 100 Insurance Company - Performance Management |
A Fortune 100
Insurance Company had approached Interact because many of their employees were
NOT CONSISTENTLY MEETING OBJECTIVES and were UNAWARE OF HOW THEY COULD IMPROVE
to meet those objectives. In interviews, managers even stated that their
appraisal system was a little more than a paper exercise, focused on justifying
ratings as opposed to improving performance. In an effort to increase their
performance, they sought out a company that was successful in providing a
system effective in setting expectations, reviewing past performance, and
holding people accountable. Interact soon became involved with their Human
Resources Department, employing the “Performance Management” Program. Working
in conjunction with the HR department, we created a customized system and
developed a training program that emphasized coaching and performance in their
organization. Managers are now able to work with their team to identify the
most important objectives, communicate performance factors, and hold people
accountable. All of this resulted in their employees more consistently reaching
their objectives. Pleased with the outcome, this company has been using these
changes for more than ten years. As a regional vice president put it, “we put
the management back into performance management.” |
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Government Agency - Conflict Management |
A US Government
Agency approached Interact about teaching their bank examiners how to address
conflict and turn disagreements into positive results. These people are usually
sent into a bank when it is accused of some sort of wrongdoing, subsequently
they would run into a little hostility. Sometimes the examination process
created conflict with the bank officers for one of two reasons. Either they
were angry for being accused of something they did not do or, actually did
something wrong and do not want to be exposed. Either way, these officers were
unhappy and used their political connections doing everything possible to make
these bank examiner’s lives unhappy. As a result, these examiners were under
constant scrutiny, with people constantly trying to find a reason to discredit
their reports. Disgruntled, they felt the agency was not giving them the proper
protection, causing a HIGH TURNOVER RATE and a plethora of HARRASMENT CLAIMS.
Interact worked with this agency through the “Conflict Management” Program, resulting
in participants learning how to defuse angry situations, analyze the logic of
arguments, and resolve conflicts with a win-win solution. After the training
was completed, morale and retention had significantly improved, with
discrimination and harassment complaints dropped. This course became the most
sought-after training within the agency, with more than 500 people trained. |
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A Fortune 100 Tech
Company contacted Interact to help them with their PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS.
Project managers in this firm often missed deadlines, went over budget, and
failed to meet specs. The problem was that they managed teams consisting of
independent contractors and managers higher than them in the hierarchy. In
addition to this, everyone was working remotely, never allowing the project
managers to make an in-person connection with their team. This required a need
for a different kind of leadership, one that doesn’t rely on positional power
but instead, organically achieves results. Interact had the perfect training for
this situation in the “Managing Beyond Authority” program. The project managers were able to reach their
objectives, without having to lean on positional power. They even were able to
keep their superiors on task if they were letting things slip. In this company,
Managing Beyond Authority received the highest ratings any training program had
ever received, with managers reporting significant improvements in cycle time
and overall program integration. |
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