Front line leadership

The brief

Upskilling front line leadership is a crucial part of raising productivity. Tegel Foods understood this, but earlier efforts had not fully engaged the team co-ordinators and supervisors it needed to upskill in its business. A previous course had ended with disappointing results. Now they wanted to try something different.

The aim was to get eight learners to complete a recognised qualification – namely the National Certificate in Business (First Line Management). Ultimately, the vision was to create better leaders in the workplace.

The solution

The Learning Wave offered Tegel the chance to pilot a new programme focusing on Front Line Leadership. As well as theoretical learning, each participant would be required to create and complete a WorkSmart project which applied the skills and learning to a real workplace quality improvement project. Linking theoretical knowledge to everyday workplace scenarios is often the key to helping learners “make the leap” and integrate new skills into their job roles.  To maximise chances of success, Learning Wave mentors undertook to work closely with the learners to motivate and support them to complete the programme.

The result

The programme was an outstanding success, with 100% attendance at all nine one-day workshops and 100% completion of all requirements to obtain the National Certificate in Business (First Line Management) Level 3. Managers commented on the positive impact of the programme and the way participants were using their new skills.

The WorkSmart projects completed by the participants delivered real quality improvements in four key areas:

• Team-building. A series of team-building activities improved team functioning and engagement, reduced absenteeism and gave the team a shared understanding of their goals.

• De-boning workflow changes. These improved the health and safety of workers on the de-boning line and improved productivity.

• Chicken-bagging. The project team made a series of layout changes, ran training sessions so all staff used a consistent process and made improvements to electrical wiring systems in the area where chickens were bagged. These changes reduced the average bagging time from eight to five seconds per chicken – a 37.5% increase in productivity.

• Warehousing and dispatch. Warehouse staff knew that mistakes were being made in dispatch. Research revealed that in the past 12 months at least $100,000 of product was sent to the wrong customers at the wrong time. Improvements to the labelling and loading systems were implemented, resulting in better service to customers and fewer headaches for warehouse staff.

Read other case studies:

Business leadership
Coaching
Communication skills for front line workers
Corporate social responsibility
Culture change
Customer relationship management
Front line leadership
Inspiring leaders programme
Learning
Learning Design
Leadership
Literacy and numeracy at work
Literacy at work
Literacy skill development
Negotiation skills
Performance management
Sales