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For 165 years, EG has been an established provider of data, news and analytics supporting the UK commercial real estate industry. We attribute our success and long-standing reputation in the industry to one of our founding values: ‘we put our people first’ and are constantly looking for ways to support their personal and professional development.
We are thrilled to have been shortlisted for the “Best Employee Development Programme (in-house)” at the UK Company Culture Awards for our Future Leaders programme. We partnered with Ginger Leadership Communications to bring a visionary and forward-thinking programme in-house to our employees. In 2022, over the course of 6 weeks, the programme was designed to boost the confidence and leadership skills of our employees, each focused on developing a 10-minute TED-style talk and delivering it at a live showcase event. The rules of engagement involved speaking to an audience of colleagues with no accompanying notes. The eight participants were chosen from a range of departments across the business including marketing, editorial, tech, data and sales:
Wlodzimierz Kwasniak – Senior Software Engineer
Rob Baynes – Key Account Manager
Jess Harold – Deputy Legal & Professional Editor
Pui-Guan Man – News Editor
Kane Griffin – Key Account Manager
Sara Lindblom – Market Development Associate
Jack Maughan – Senior Data Scientist
Karen Machado – PR & Communications Manager
In February 2022, the programme kicked off with a welcome call from the team at Ginger, followed by 3.5 days of high-impact, in-person group training. Each participant was challenged to ‘speak now, before you feel ready’ to step them out of their comfort zone in a way that was also held with safety and care. In this structured learning process, the speakers received detailed personal feedback, coaching and championing from the course trainer, Jojo Thomas, who encouraged them to integrate their learnings both within the context of the training and in the workplace.
As the training progressed, they not only learned the critical techniques for effective leadership communications, but, more importantly, how to apply them to different communication scenarios in a way that was authentic to each individual. What resulted was not just a theoretical learning journey, but a transformative change process.
Each participant developed their talk during the course and had a one hour 1-2-1 session to perfect their talk structure ahead of the final showcase. The showcase of their final talks then brought the learnings back to the wider company, extending the investment in the programme to create a culture shift in how the whole company communicates. Following the completion of the programme, participants played a pivotal role in supporting some of EG’s key initiatives such as the launch of our new internal employer brand in January 2023.
Karen Machado said: “To win a UK Company Culture Award would be amazing and a reinforcement of what we already believe in which is that investment in our employees matters to us – Future Leaders is a change-making programme and gives participants the skills and confidence they need to flourish in their careers.”
Wlodzimierz Kwasniak said: “My experience with Future Leaders last year was incredibly inspiring and impactful. I met a diverse cohort of people from across businesses, which enabled me to broaden my perspective and gain invaluable insights. The programme also helped me to hone my soft skills, such as communication and collaboration, which has had a direct impact on my job as a software engineer. On top of that, the program gave me a huge boost in self-confidence and enabled me to take greater ownership of my work.”
The Ginger Communications team said: “It was a massive pleasure to partner with EG on this ground-breaking project. We were super inspired by the strength and diversity of ideas that came across from EG’s young leaders and were thrilled to see them growing and stepping into the power of their voices. What a great way to celebrate future talent.”
