Fennies LIFE Leaders: Setting the Pathway for Development

Our Senior L&D Manager, Jamie shares a little insight into our new Leadership Programme, titled ‘Fennies LIFE Leaders’ all focused around our LIFE values and the impact each of our managers can make.

Leaders: Setting the Pathway for Development.

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Sat round our table for our third meeting, planning on our new leadership program, a moment of challenge sat between us.

We were all aligned, that we wanted to engage and embed some developmental opportunities for our leaders across Fennies, but the reality was, we had different perspectives on where to begin. Sat down six weeks in, the reality was we had made very little progress in having something tangible that we could deliver.

In reality, working in a learning and development team, you have to take those moments to look back at yourselves, and recognise that you are still developing too. Being challenged, offered new perspectives, thinking outside of your four walls, can lead to some of the best work.

So fast forward two weeks and we had leant into these conversations and had some great ideas ready to deliver. We would be delivering our new programme, starting with a launch date in just four weeks time. The structure;

• It would have, a pick and mix options approach, allowing all managers to select what sessions would best support them.
• It would help drive the business goals and improve understanding of what it means to be a leader at Fennies.
• It would be centred around embedding our values (Lead, Inspire, Family and Empower), driving home a culture of recognition and fundamentally had to be engaging!

Launching: Fennies LIFE Leaders

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Titled as Fennies LIFE Leaders, we built a programme with the slogan of ‘Create a community that leads to inspire, empowers to succeed, and creates a family of leaders.’

This had a game themed approach, with a spinning wheel for prizes, a collectible stamp for attendance at each session, gamecards to encourage and engage in open dialogue, recognition vouchers - set out to notice those who are helping drive performance in each setting.

So many decisions made but yet we still had a range of course titles still to decide upon. This is where the work started…

Following our initial kick off, we dived into this journey of course titles. Our first set going live includes the Right Welcome to Fennies, Strategic Scheduling, The Well-being Mindset and Effective Supervision. The feedback we are hearing, having launched in September, is already creating a great buzz around our management teams.

It’s still early, to be celebrating and showcasing the impact it has made, but the statement below gives you an insight into early feedback:

“After attending four Life leader sessions already it has truly been such a beneficial training and upskilling session with vital information shared, your able to network amongst Managers and fully see the structure. You are also able to embed your own skills and strengths further! Overall, it’s been a great experience and fully enjoyable with the life wheel prizes and the great scheme of recognitions being introduce it really has increased my confidence and you can clearly see it has impacted all” - Loren, Nursery Manager

The future of Fennies LIFE Leaders

With eight months of this program still to run, we are excited about portfolios of evidence being collated. We are already looking to widen the opportunities to the rest of our management team. This programme will be helping us identify talented people amongst our teams who are just waiting for that next opportunity, who could make a wider impact across Fennies. We’re excited about building the leaders of the future!