Whizz-Kidz is a small UK charity that needed to stabilise following a period of expansion and contraction as a result of Big Lottery funding. A new senior team was appointed, including the Director of People and Engagement, whose brief it was to engage a workforce experiencing high turnover and low morale.
The Charity had gone from a stable, Discipline Driven environment to something more akin to a ‘start-up’ – a lot of trial and error, experimentation, creativity. Some thrived in this environment, others struggled with the lack of standard processes, and the complexity that this caused.
Fundraising was under pressure to replace the Big Lottery funding or face cutting Services, and Services felt pressure to deliver more with less. These areas worked in silos with little collaboration.
The Charity lost many staff through restructuring.
The staff engagement survey was linked to Lumina Spark so that all staff in the organisation got some development as an incentive, with Lumina supporting the investigation of a possible link between engagement and personality. The survey formed the baseline and would be repeated again a year later once changes and interventions had taken place.
The survey revealed that staff were committed, understood how they contributed to the success of the organisation and felt both proud to work for the Charity and appreciated. However, a lower proportion felt that teams worked well across the charity, believed that action would be taken on the results of the survey and that they received all the information they needed to do their job.
Early on, senior staff had personal one-to-one sessions to debrief them on their own Lumina Spark Portraits. From this, the qualities were identified for the recruitment of a new Fundraising Director (Outcome Focused, Big Picture Thinking) which proved to be very successful. In addition, half day workshops to explore the Lumina Spark portraits were conducted on an open basis (thus breaking down silos) as well as team sessions by function and region. Bespoke sessions were requested for individual groups and teams and demand remains high. A new collaboration platform was implemented (Workplace by Facebook) and a group called ‘Lumina Lessons’ was set up to embed the tool in the organisation, with Lumina Spark splashes shared on individual profiles.
The survey was repeated a year later. Some staff redid their profiles. The analysis includes all staff pre- and post- the initial survey being completed. This may show that the new staff had some impact on the culture. The staff who repeated the Lumina questionnaire may also have contributed to a change in behaviours. Mandalas were prepared to demonstrate the before and after preferred Qualities.
Results
The Charity accepted that it needed to improve internal communication, leadership (identifying what ‘good’ looks like) and to create a better sense of belonging for all staff, including those who worked remotely.
As a result of the interventions, staff and managers are having a different kind of conversation. An exploration of the Lumina Spark mandala and how all behaviours are positive, not just the blue and green ones, has led to a better tolerance of diversity, and understanding of the difficult decisions that senior (red) staff have to make. The fundraising team in particular have been early adopters, not just of the Lumina programme, but also of the collaborative platform, Workplace by Facebook – to promote the tool, using it to share insights and experiences. A new group, Lumina Lessons has been set up, to help embed the training, with regular posts on OCEAN Big Five research, etc. and other items of interest. A leadership programme is also being developed for roll out across the organisation.