Steps

Appraisals & Feedback

Appraisals are supposed to be a positive developmental experience but often they are seen as a box ticking exercise that both the appraiser and appraisee dreads.

The workshops have proved very effective for Oracle. Steps are a pleasure to work with. They not only role play very well but they mix humour and professionalism.
Allan Miller, Oracle Corp UK
 

Steps use professional actor-facilitators to play out realistic scenarios which explore these concerns from both points of view. The sessions can be developed for managers with little or extensive experience and can include facilitated discussion around the barriers to having effective conversations, enabling the groups to focus, through our interactive Forum style, what best practice might look like.

Depending on the delegate group size, we can also offer one-to-one  skills practice for each delegate, involving mock appraisals with an actor taking on the appraisee role. This enables delegates to ‘practise’ and develop their skills in a safe environment. We research and design the role plays in advance to accurately reflect your organisation and provide the appropriate level of challenge for the delegates.

Sessions for appraisers are designed to help those conducting appraisals facilitate the process and to provide the right environment. This can cover issues such as:

• preparation
• setting and reviewing (SMART) objectives
• development planning
• giving constructive feedback (including a practical feedback model)
• dealing with emotional or defensive responses

Feedback is a much used word but is often avoided in organisations. Ideally a feedback session should be a dialogue where both parties leave with absolute clarity around the issue and a common understanding of what should be done differently (or what should be repeated) to ensure that the individual concerned is motivated going forward.

We can run sessions independently, or with your in-house or preferred trainer to enhance the learning for the delegates, giving them an opportunity to turn common knowledge into common practice.

Coaching & Mentoring

Coaching is a useful technique allowing an individual to reach personal or organisational goals that they might otherwise not have felt able to focus on. Often misunderstood as a way of improving the performance of under-performing staff, it has proven to be an effective way of further motivating employees who are already achieving well. Managers and Coaches don’t have to be the same person, but a manager that understands the value of coaching can add enormous value to the business as well as be an inspiring leader.

Whilst the coaching process encourages the coachee to own the process, the mentoring process allows for the mentor to more actively engage the conversation.

Mentoring is most effective if it is taken out of the manager-report relationship and can add great value to both the mentor and mentee as well as effecting the bottom line by ensuring that skills and experience are passed down through an organisation.

Steps use professional actor-facilitators with extensive knowledge of the principals of coaching and mentoring to role play realistic scenarios which explore these techniques. The sessions can be developed for those with little or extensive experience and can include facilitated discussion around the barriers to having effective conversations, enabling the groups to focus, through our interactive Forum style, on what best practice might look like.

Using models such as GROW as a back-drop to the interactive scenes can retain structure but allow for fluidity so that the delegates get to experience a more realistic version of a coaching conversation.

In particular we can:

• Bring concepts to life
• Discuss the differences between coaching, mentoring and managing
• Reflect different personality profiles i.e. Myers Briggs (MBTI) profiles provide “stretch” for the delegates

Stress & Work-life balance

A manager’s job is undoubtedly getting more challenging. Increasing legislation, competing priorities, greater diversity, employees working more flexibly and remotely all add to the pressure. All companies have a duty of care to the employees and the manager is the person who has the first responsibility in that regard.

They need to encourage people to fulfil their potential and be effective but also need to identify when the pressure is turning into stress, both within themselves and their immediate teams.

We run workshops that help managers:

• Identify stress within themselves
• Identify stress in their colleagues and reports
• Increase awareness of where their responsibilities lie with regard the legislation and sharing best practice
• Gain in confidence by practicing conversations with individuals that may be in denial, or emotional.

We do this by running a simulation, or a facilitated drama based Forum Workshop with discussion and exercises. We also work with a range of specialists (including employment lawyers and business psychologists) that can design a day long workshop using drama. We can also work in conjunction with your in-house or preferred trainer to enhance any existing course that addresses these issues.

Development & Assessment Centres

Anyone on a development centre wants to come away with new skills that they can put straight back into the workplace. By allowing professional actors of a high standard to “do the acting” the delegates are free to remain themselves and can create meaningful memory anchors to help them in the real discussions and conversations they have in their professional lives.

We provide professional, well-briefed, suitably cast actors for your development and assessment centres. All of our role players are trained by us and are able to be sensitive to the skill and confidence level of the delegate and to make the experience more or less challenging according to their brief. They are also able to deliver feedback that is both sensitive and constructive and, where relevant, ties in to the training model that underpins the day. Our role players make sure that they are familiar with HR competency models and as such are conscious of them during the role play and can refer to them when delivering feedback either to the delegates or the assessors.

Situational Coaching Surgeries

Steps' Situational Coaching Surgeries are dedicated on-site timeslots for individuals to explore problems, issues or barriers through the use of coaching and experiential learning techniques. Participants are offered 45 - 60 minute slots in which they explore the issue with a Steps coach before testing out ideas through bespoke skills practice - receiving immediate advice and feedback.

Steps' interactive approach combined with the skills of our facilitators offers a unique opportunity for individuals to explore their situations and receive focused take away benefits.

Typically, participants are given the opportunity to book a shorter, follow-up session after a few weeks to discuss outcomes or undertake further skills practice.

These surgeries prove to be very cost effective for clients - as they provide limited time away from the business for individuals - and only require a small meeting room to meet the participants' needs.

Impact & Client Feedback

Steps has run performance management training workshops and provided professional roleplayers for a wide variety of clients in both the public and private sector, across the UK, Europe and beyond. Our clients include major multinational companies in the Banking, I.T. and Pharmaceutical sectors

“The workshops have proved very effective for Oracle. Steps are a pleasure to work with. They not only role play very well but they mix humour and professionalism. The workshops made objectives clear and measurable and they encouraged a full discussion on the skills and behaviours required to get the job done. They’ve dramatically increased the impact of our training and the effectiveness of the learning and I think the business has benefited from that.”
Allan Miller, Oracle Corp UK

“We chose Steps because they have a practical and lively approach and because they could adapt their style to suit the staff groups we were targeting. Some groups were initially cynical about the need for training but the resultant feedback showed that people enjoyed the workshops and thought they were extremely beneficial.”
Ruth Appleton, London Borough of Sutton

“Steps were recommended to me as they’d previously run two workshops on performance management for BBC Broadcasting and Presentation. We had already run one workshop on giving feedback but I was keen to concentrate on the issue of communicating difficult messages, including negative feedback, which is a key skill for any manager. The important thing is that the Steps approach encourages people to think the issue through. They see good and bad approaches to a particular issue and they make personal decisions themselves about how they would handle a similar situation in the future.”
Clare Selerie, BBC

“Role plays can provide very effective learning. Steps understand how the NHS works and what the real issues are and that gives them an important edge in terms of credibility. They deliver very realistic role plays, which keep people involved and engaged, and they always receive very positive feedback.”
Anita Kapoor, Barts and the London NHS Trust’s