“The changes in the role and culture of Personnel were initiated by a number of factors. One was the increasingly competitive retail environment within which the company has been operating. Sainsbury’s had had a remarkable history of successful growth and profitability over nearly 130 years but by the early 1990′s it was apparent that we needed some radical changes to respond to our competitors. These included reducing the cost base, which was addressed through a business process re-engineering exercise which reduced costs considerably and transformed business processes to be more customer facing. As a company we also needed to move away from a rather over directive style of management which had inhibited creativity and innovation.

A key dimension of the changes needed affected the Personnel function. With over 120,000 employees Personnel/HR was (and is) a vitally important activity in the company. However by the early 1990′s it was apparent that the function had not responded adequately to the needs of the business in a number of areas. When we surveyed managers around the business they told us a number of important things about the changes they wanted to see.

The main changes that were needed included Personnel moving away from being a fragmented and bureaucratic function to one that acted more like an internal consultancy supporting managers in developing a more coaching style of leadership.”

>

• Personnel professionals have the confidence to challenge line managers, and the professional competence to address issues
• The function, and personnel professionals in it, are more respected, valued by line and seen as a ‘one-stop-shop’
• Managers and personnel professionals work in partnership to solve business problems
• Line managers are more actively involved in training, selection, coaching, managing absence, etc.’

“In between the Mapping Workshop and the Development Workshop we asked people to get evidence about themselves via 360-degree feedback. As with most parts of the design and operation, the external consultants worked with our own staff to devise an effective way of carrying this out. The most novel feature was that people devised their own 360-degree feedback questionnaires. They were given a handbook on how to do 360-degree feedback and they had a briefing at the Mapping Workshop on what to do. From a purist point of view many of these self-created questionnaires would not look very sophisticated, but what we sacrificed in purity we gained in commitment. People had to take seriously the feedback they received as they had created the questions and chosen their raters.

We were clear that the 360-degree feedback was only one part of the diagnostic evidence each person used to create their strategic learning contract. Also the results of this exercise were only seen by the person’s learning group and were not recorded elsewhere e.g. on their personnel records. The feedback was only used for learning purposes and raters knew this.’

Strategic learning contracts:

“The contracts were agreed in learning groups and were supposed also to be agreed with managers. The sets were, by and large, quite rigorous in doing this. However in a later evaluation we found that not all managers took seriously their role in relation to the person’s strategic learning contract. We provided guidance on writing strategic learning contracts in the handbook everyone received and we included in that some criteria by which to judge an acceptable contract.

In our own contracts we identified about five areas each that we wanted to work on over the nine-month period. In Judith’s case this included a goal around shifting time towards developing strategy and less on day-to-day demands. One way she worked on this was with her personal assistant. Nigel’s strategic learning contract helped him to address areas such as conceptual thinking, influencing styles and a number of personal values – all with some success.

The initial phase of the programme covered 180 personnel managers, all of whom worked in sets for about nine months. The programme was then rolled out to the other 520 personnel professionals over a period of two years.”

Sainsbury’s carried out an internal evaluation, with design assistance from Ian Cunningham, at the end of the first phase. This evaluation study included:-

• questionnaires to participants
• interviews with a sample of participants
• interviews and focus groups with line mangers of participants

. Quantitative measures were devised against all nine criteria (aims). A ten-point scale was created and the mean scores prior to the programme were around five.

Achievements

After the programme all scores against the nine criteria had improved significantly, the mean being around 7.5 i.e. a 2.5 average shift in a positive direction. This was in addition to all the personal learning that had taken place.

“The value of the programme has been enormous to the company in times of change and turbulence in our markets. The principles of Self Managed Learning, such as using real work as a basis of learning, have underpinned a major change management programme for Directors. Without the success of the Personnel Development Programme we would not have been able to pursue that and other new projects. We have also incorporated the thinking coming out of the programme into our strategic business planning, so the principles again live on in these new modes.

It is easy to take for granted the function we have now, as having always been there, but the Personnel Development Programme was a key stepping stone in helping personnel/HR people take responsibility for their own development. The function and the individuals within it are much stronger as a result. They both need to be, in order to help the organisation meet the needs of an increasingly competitive environment.”