Change – it’s one of the trickiest things for businesses to navigate. It’s understandable too, when the crux of any engaged workforce is a shared understanding of where the business is heading. Every motivated employee needs to feel connected to their business and its goals. So, when that vision changes and develops, it’s absolutely crucial that people feel informed, inspired, and taken on the journey to embracing change by compassionate leaders. Otherwise, they could start to feel left behind.

We started working with a leading Nordic rail maintenance provider that knows a thing or two about journeys. They had just launched their new transformation programme, a bold new vision for the future of their business, which had huge potential to help the business to flourish in the future. But this big, new initiative hadn’t quite yet achieved the company-wide buy-in needed to succeed. Few employees understood why the business needed to change track, let alone felt inspired and motivated to change up their ways of working.

The challenge

Their leaders needed to deliver clarity in order to steer their employees through the large-scale organisational change ahead of them. With employees working in silos, and remotely, how could this rail maintenance provider unite everyone under a new shared vision where people felt inspired, motivated and clear on their role in the bigger picture? And, how could its leaders be persuaded to focus as much on the people side of change as the operational side? Ultimately, its leaders needed all employees to believe in their vision for change as much as they did, and that’s exactly where we came in.

The solution

This rail maintenance provider’s employees needed to be taken on the journey. Staff needed to be shown where the business had started, how it had developed, and what had led to where they are now. We worked with their leadership team to put together an inspiring transformation story.

This would set out the path ahead, create clarity and alignment, and show each employee how they can have ownership over their part in the transformation journey.

We encouraged their leaders to strip away all of the noise, confusion, and misconceptions around the changes, and go back to basics – a powerful story that communicated the need for change – a clear vision of success, and the specific behaviours that would enable colleagues across the organisation to contribute to it.

During the Discovery phase, NKD canvassed colleagues from across the business, from the c-suite to the front line through a series of 1–1 conversations, focus groups, shadowing, and co-creation labs. This meant that we were able to unearth a story that captured the trajectory of the business through the eyes of the people on the ground. A story which inspired people to feel proud in their endeavours and motivated for changes ahead to make the business better.

Once this transformation story had been shaped and created with the leadership team, and visualised in the form of a clear infographic, this provider needed to get the story out to all staff in a way which would resonate. To do this, rather than send in external and unfamiliar facilitators to deliver the story, we upskilled and equipped their executive leaders to deliver an inspiring 3-hour workshop complete with interactive activities, film, and discussion. They then took this all on a roadshow to deliver to each department in the organisation.

Driving change requires strong leadership

Change doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The transformation story and workshops gave staff a positive and thorough understanding of the shared goals of the business, the need for change, and their role in achieving the vision. But real change happens over a much longer period of time and it requires strong, resilient and well-equipped leaders to navigate issues, inspire and coach their teams to succeed.

That’s why it was important for us to deliver structured leadership training for the business’ executives. A 2-day face-to-face leadership programme equipped them with the skills and confidence needed to bring out the best in their people and inspire them to embrace the change ahead.

Using our NKD ‘Ready-To-Go’ products, this targeted leadership programme provided training and skills development in areas like change resilience, positive thinking, psychological safety and performance conversations – all vital skills for leaders to master as the frontline in managing change company-wide.

This robust package, from unearthing their transformation story, to the inspiring workshops, and topped off with leadership training, gave this rail maintenance provider a strong foundation to go forward on their journey – driving real change for their organisation, with their staff all aboard.

The results

The training programme is still in rollout but underpins all new managers’ onboarding and is deeply embedded in the organisational culture, positively shaping leadership and employee experience at this rail maintenance provider.