The Client

North East Autism Society are a charity based in Sunderland who offer independent residential and day specialist provision for adults, young people, adults and children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder and Aspergers Syndrome. They employ some 400 staff working in schools, colleges and their residential accommodation. They approached us as advisors to their management training scheme.

The Problem

The Society had some 30 managers who had been promoted internally. They had significant knowledge and skills relating to their service users, however they lacked knowledge of management tools and techniques as well as the confidence in dealing with people issues. Senior management had to deal with many everyday people issues that arose.

The Society recognised that many managers were lacking the basic managerial skills that were needed to achieve the Society’s objectives and that standards had to be improved.

What We Did

The first step was to agree what was required of a manager by the Society. Previously managers had worked as team leaders rather than managers, with the core ‘management’ decisions falling to senior managers.

Working with the senior executives we identified the competencies required for the management roles. We devised and delivered a management development programme that met the competency needs by providing both training, and a coaching and mentoring process for each individual manager.

Assessment was an integral part of the design and there were some managers who could not meet the performance standards. We helped individuals reconcile their performance against the required competencies and we helped the Society’s senior team look for opportunities for redeployment.

The Results

Managers have now taken responsibility for many people management tasks, including absence management, recruitment and performance management.

Better hands on management is reducing absenteeism. It is improving individual employee performance and thus it is reducing costs. This has a direct impact on the quality of service that the Society is able to offer to the people in its care. The senior team is now able to concentrate on strategic issues and the growth plans of the Society.

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