BAA - Case Study

It is one year since BAA introduced an accredited coaching qualification for its operational HR team at Heathrow Airport. What did they do, what are the results so far and where are they taking it?

Elaine Grix, Head of HR Operations at BAA & Elaine Patterson from The OCM explain.

What we wanted to achieve: Our vision and HR

BAA at Heathrow Airport have been focusing on employee engagement and improving leadership capability in recent years in order to improve customer satisfaction and the passenger’s experience.

The Company Vision is to “Become Europe’s airport hub of choice by making every journey better”. The HR strategy behind this is to ‘focus people and teams on service and results’.

There were 3 steps in this process. The 1st step in achieving this was for HR to business partner the line managers who ran each operational business unit. The 2nd step was to create a new leadership and performance culture which saw people and teams tightly aligned to the delivery of the business bottom line. The 3rd step was to make this happen through the introduction of the coach approach to leadership and problem solving.

One year ago BAA had a team of highly motivated HR business partners who had predominately learned to work with the leaders within the business in a coaching capacity using a pragmatic and common sense approach, learning from experience rather than with any formal training or accreditation. formal coaching was limited to more senior managers receiving externally provided executive coaching.

However, the HR team had their own vision – to earn the right and the license to competently coach by gaining a recognised qualification. The team of HR business partners wanted to improve the support they could give the organisation and believed if they could provide a credible internal coaching option this would lead to better leadership and consequently improved employee morale.

The result was the launch of The OCM In-Company Certificate for Coaching and Performance at EMCC level 4 which ran from November 2007 to July 2008.

What we did: The OCM EMCC Level 4 Qualification Programme

12 HR Business Partners took up the invitation to join the qualification programme. A part time blended learning programme was co- designed with BAA which included briefing days, action learning sets, working with 3 or 4 learners, sessions with coaches, writing reflection notes, self assessment exercises, targeted reading and 180 feedback.

Over thirty managers benefited from the option of a coach from the qualification programme during 2008 and this number will treble in 2009 as the plans with The OCM continue.

What happened: The benefits

BAA found that the coaching journey and acquiring the accreditation built up a huge momentum and seemed to have a domino effect with ripple effects across the organisation.

180 feedback questionnaires from both the HR Business Partners and the people they coached provide a weight of evidence to demonstrate benefit and impact on a number of different but very complementary ways.

For the HR Business Partners individuals within the team said that they had gained major personal insights and self awareness which improved their performance and motivation. many quoted the positive knock on effect they found within their ‘whole life’ – not only work related relationships. for example:

“The personal development that I have gained from my Level 4 accreditation has been truly amazing. I’m more self aware of how I behave and of the impact my actions may have on those around me. I have also extensively developed my listening skills and my patience skills. For me level 4 OCM has not only been a recognised coaching accreditation but a personal development journey.”

For the HR Business Partner Team at the same time there was change to the dynamic and effectiveness within the HR team. They became a high performing team benefiting from shared learning, increased trust, empathy, greatly improved listening skills and very strong results against performance objectives. as one of the HR Business Partners said:

“Completing this coaching accreditation as a team has been an invaluable experience. Having achieved and worked through this accreditation together we have been able to share personal insight, personal learning, learn as a team together and really convert our learning not only in our team approach but also within our client areas. I’ve found that as a team we are listening to each other more effectively, we are more aware of each others styles and respectful of each of our differences. As a team this has been amazing to see and be a part of. Truly inspirational!”.

For the Managers who were coached an anonymous 180 feedback questionnaire was given to the coachees as part of the accreditation. It also served to attempt to measure value for money and return on investment. There was also space for individuals to make personal statements.

Below is an example of the great feedback which was received from the HR Business Partner’s coachee:

“It has been a life changing experience. I was able to deal with some personal issues that have haunted me for years. I have used the new skills and awareness in my work life and had some great early results. It is exciting to see how far this will take me in the future.”

For HR in BAA the reputation of HR within the business significantly strengthened and the summary 180 feedback relating to organisational benefit (without exception) was higher than the national average. (Click here to view organisational benefits 180 results) This feedback measured the managers who had received coaching in relation to their performance improvement, motivation and likelihood of remaining with the business.

The coaching intervention has contributed to a significantly more confident and credible HR team who are capable of supporting the directors of the operational business to deliver the people strategy. This is critical to the performance of the company at a time when results and reputation are paramount to business success and gaining support for expansion which will benefit the UK economy and global business.

It is this success, which led to the group HR director Fiona Rodford, deciding to invest in a further 18 HR professionals for the same qualification. Also many of the original HR business partners have decided and are being supported to continue onto The OCM’s APEL Programme – Accreditation of Prior Experience and Learning Programme – at EMCC level 7. This is the highest level of practitioner coaching accreditation.

Return on investment, a very simple calculation has shown that the direct return on investment can be calculated by the difference in the cost of providing external coaches and the cost to accredit and train the HR business partners and this is in the region of £150k.

Typically 10% of managers do not complete or cancel training and this was not the case with coaching. managers both started and finished their programme and were able to work on their personal goals in real time.

However there are both wider direct and indirect benefits to the introduction of the coach approach and therefore BAA plans to work with The OCM in the future to identify a simple and easy way for the organisation to assess the value of executive performance improvement.

Going forward: The future

Going forward the plan to improve employee engagement is being supported by a change to first line managers rosters, so each front line team member is co-located and working at the same time as ‘their boss’.

To support this the managers will be equipped with coaching skills and a new leadership and talent framework so they are able to lead their team in a more inspiring way. The operationally focused HR teams will provide the input, support and direct coaching for senior managers and directors to make this possible.

Download: In Company Prospectus

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