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Community learning for emerging leaders at Sainsbury's

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Nature lines
Industry
Retail
Solution
Emerging Talent
Talent Management

About

Sainsbury's is the second-largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom. Impact worked with Sainsbury's to create a graduate programme that would bring to life Sainsbury's leadership behaviours using community action learning.

Sainsbury’s wanted to develop their graduates’ awareness of their personal impact and to increase their understanding of the interpersonal skills needed for working in a team environment whilst bringing to life Sainsbury's leadership behaviours

 

Impact designed a Community Action Learning project based at a primary school. The graduates were challenged to develop a green theme across the school and thus bring sustainability to life. It was a complex and consequential project to elicit real behaviours to explore and experiment with.

A half-day induction prior to the project framed the whole programme effectively, developing strategies and agreeing on outcomes without the risk of getting swallowed up in the task.

Innovative project design was required to meet the dual objectives of building leadership capacity and delivering a successful project for the community partner. The graduates worked in project teams to complete a healthy eating allotment, green team activities, an aromatic border and fence murals. Alongside the projects, a Learning Pod was designed to direct participants to explore and observe Leadership in Action.

"This is the first project we have undertaken with Impact. Our graduate induction programme has been traditionally very corporate - lots of slides and senior speakers. We strongly felt we wanted to provide an experience for these valuable new colleagues that better reflected the direction we are moving in as a business. The project delivered on every level; we were able to make a difference at the school in a way that was aligned with our different values and bring our behavioural framework alive for our graduates as they prepared to leap into the world of work. Their takeaways were very much about increased self-awareness and a great sense of camaraderie amongst the cohort, an experience we shall definitely repeat."

Sue Round, Head of Leadership Development

Testimonials
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Elena Jasvoin
CFO, Management Board Member
Ringier Axel Springer Polska
"We achieved all of what we wanted, and even more and largely thanks to the great design and organisational effort from the Impact team. I would very much recommend such a program: we felt that it is exactly what our teams need during this new for us time."
Piero Beltrame
HR Development, SE Europe
Ericsson
“Our programme was a great success. The participants were deeply involved and gained awareness and motivation about ‘who I am’ and ‘what I want to change/achieve’. Many have said this was the most memorable development event they’ve ever participated in. Co-operation with Impact was excellent. We especially appreciated their consultative skills and creativity in designing the programme, their ability to listen to our needs and also their observation and feedback abilities with the participants."
Dirk Anthony
Director Audio and Language Content
SBS
"An overall culture change was needed to ensure that the leadership development solution offered by Impact, gained traction beyond the training days. Management behaviour change is critical to ensuring we are able to retain the right skill base to deliver new services in a rapidly changing media world. Coaching for Success, and its aligned leadership expectations are critical to
improving our managers, therefore our talent and then our service to audiences."