Teach First

Teach First places high performing graduates and career-changers on a two-year leadership and teacher training programme in challenging schools. It is the UK’s largest graduate employer. The organisation aims to create thriving schools, delivering a fair education with great teachers, brilliant leaders and the right policy.

The context:

• In 2013, Teach First’s retention of trainee teachers was at 80%. This was over 10% below other, cheaper, teacher training routes.

Our approach:

• Between 2013 and 2019, we coached over 500 of the graduates who were at risk of leaving the two-year programme in our resilience building methodology. We provided 6 sessions of coaching tailored to each individual’s circumstance to provide bespoke support.

• We have trained, and continue to supervise, a group of Teach First staff, to support them to model our resilience-building methodology, and to make the approach sustainable across the organisation.

• We have worked with Teach First to create an online learning course, which is accessible to all of their trainee teachers and staff. This learning course provides our wellbeing content in the form of videos, online activities, and further ‘real life’ activities to build behaviour change.

Our impact:

• Over 3 years, we boosted the organisation’s retention of trainee teachers on the programme and in schools from 80% to 92%.

The Cambridge Building Society

The Cambridge has an excellent reputation for being trusted, customer-focused, valuing its people and having a strong commitment to the local community. It is currently undergoing a transformation to become a ‘Challenger Building Society’: becoming more innovative, creative and adaptable.

The context:

• The Cambridge wanted its manager and director team to confidently support their staff to develop a ‘Challenger Mindset’ where people felt resilient, innovative and adaptable.

• Alongside this, The Cambridge was over-hauling its rigid performance management system; it wanted its managers to develop a flexible, coaching-style of performance management.

Our approach:

• We developed a two day ‘Coaching for Performance’ programme – supporting mangers and directors to understand the emotional underpinning of high performance, and enabling them to use strengths-based coaching strategies to create culture change.

• We supported managers and directors to use flexible coaching approaches with their teams, rather than relying on the previous process-heavy performance management system.

• All managers and directors had a follow-up coaching session with us, to ensure that they were able to embed their learning in their management practice.

• We trained the People team at The Cambridge in our ‘Coaching for Performance’ approach - they are now able to train new managers, and they run a working group to support ongoing adherence and innovation.

Our impact:

• 95% of managers and directors rated the quality of training and facilitation as ‘excellent’.

• The Cambridge is using the ‘Coaching for Performance’ approach to underpin its new approach to performance management.

movemeon - a coaching case study

movemeon is a direct recruitment channel, with career exploration and hiring across start-ups, consultancies, corporates and PE/VC. It’s used globally by 37,000+ members and 2,900+
leading employers.

The context:

• movemeon was expanding rapidly, and its founders wanted to get the best from their new and existing team members.

Our approach:

• We bench-marked what competitors were delivering to support their staff and undertook a needs analysis with movemeon in order to better understand staff engagement within the organisation.

• We provided coaching to movemeon’s founders so that they were better able to understand the psychology of their employees.

• We worked with the founders to develop strategies to enhance employee wellbeing, engagement and productivity.

Our impact:

• movemeon continues to grow, and its staff engagement and retention are exceptionally high for the industry.

James* - a therapeutic case study

James approached The People Project for some therapeutic support to cope with feelings of overwhelm and burnout.

THE CONTEXT:

• James (*not his real name) is in his early fifties, and has recently been made partner at a leading law firm; he is also married and a father of three children.

• When James approached us, he was feeling overwhelmed and was aware that he had lost a sense of pleasure in life. He was struggling to perform at work, was feeling disconnected from his family and friends, and was experiencing suicidal thoughts.

OUR APPROACH:

• In order to gather some physiological data, James wore a Firstbeat monitor to measure his heart rate variability - this revealed that James was in an unsustainable state of heightened physiological stress and gave him strong motivation to create change.

• We undertook 10 coaching sessions with James, using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy approaches to support him to transform his emotional pain, to better defuse from unhelpful narratives and self-judgement, and to do more of what he valued and enjoyed.

OUR IMPACT:

• In the final therapeutic session, James reflected that he was better able to navigate his emotions, that he was experiencing more fun and pleasure when spending time with his family, and that he was more focused at work.

• After three months, James re-assessed his physiological state using the Firstbeat monitor: his results showed an increase in heart rate variability, indicating that his body was better able to cope with the levels of stress generated by his busy lifestyle.