A successful international energy company engaged JMW to help them manage organizational challenges which arose from a restructuring effort to reduce costs and increase operational efficiencies. Based on the results of an employee benchmark survey, a majority of employees in the organization indicated that they were not satisfied with the leadership being provided by the Management Team during this period of transition. The Leadership Team recognized that senior members of their staff needed to develop their leadership skills to best capitalize on the opportunities of this reorganization.

JMW was engaged to provide leadership consulting and coaching sessions that would enable members of senior and mid-level management to maximize operational effectiveness and enhance employee satisfaction. The agreed-upon metrics for the results of this work would be
(1) the overall demonstration of leadership capabilities required for the high-performance of the facility, (2) improved scores on leadership-related items in the company’s employee benchmark survey, and (3) improvements on an already outstanding safety record at the facility.

As the nature of the client’s objectives was comprehensive, JMW designed and engaged with the client in a comprehensive approach to the work. It featured:

• A leadership program to enable executives, managers, and supervisors to develop their capabilities to (1) build a foundation for greater accomplishments, (2) build relationships and collaboration, (3) inspire and motivate others, and (4) make significant contributions to the organization.
• Leadership team sessions intended to reinforce and deepen the critical principles, skills, and practices for elevating performance and enhancing leadership.
• Individual coaching to help support both senior and mid-level managers in improving business performance throughout the engagement.
• The work involved group sessions with management teams focused on developing collective missions and objective targets for which they would hold themselves accountable. In addition, participating leaders developed individual projects for which they committed to delivering measurable outstanding results within specified time frames.
• Overall, JMW worked intensively with nearly 60 leaders falling into the categories of Leadership Team Members, Managers, Supervisors, and Senior Staff.

After approximately one year of working with JMW, the company delivered the following improvements and achievements:

• A significant leap in leadership performance, as measured by the employee benchmark survey—making them the only company in their nation’s energy sector to be rated in the upper quartile for employee satisfaction, and as such, the “Benchmark Company” in their industry for employee satisfaction. This was an unprecedented result in the organization’s history.

The survey indicated that the dramatic increase in employee satisfaction was due to:

• Excellence in leadership and management
• Enhanced employee-management relations
• Effective management of Human Resources

As another demonstration of its enhanced capacities in leadership and management, the company won the Champion Employer Award for the first time.

Moreover, in an award competition based solely on employees’ views and perceptions of the company, the company was awarded the regional Chamber of Commerce’s Corporate Social Responsibility award for “Recognizing the Value of People.”

“The notions and ideas offered by JMW gave me a roadmap to effectively engage the Leadership Team and the organization in implementing a Business Excellence Model that will enable the company to improve profitability by 20 percent.” – VP of Strategy

“The leadership principles JMW introduced enabled me to build a sustainable organizational capability of leadership specifically to manage capital growth projects.” – VP of Engineering

Already internationally recognized for an outstanding safety record, the company continued to enhance safety operations to prevent accidents and incidents by increasing a key safety audit metric by over 300 percent.

In addition, the company remained on track for delivering cost savings and benefits valued at $1.3 million to the company. These savings included:

• Improvements in safety culture: $100,000
• Improvements in reliability culture: $500,000
• Improvements in schedule adherence: $500,000
• Reductions in Contract Labor and Repair/Maintenance budgets: $100,000
• Improved efficiencies with Materials, Finance and IT groups: $100,000