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Sixteen of thirty participants moved into new roles
The leading Noordwest Hospital Group in The Netherlands, like many other hospitals, was struggling with a shortage of middle managers. Advancement from the work floor was difficult because the step was too big.
The "Leading Teams" development program offered employees an opportunity to learn the basics of leadership. This program helped Noordwest solve staffing shortages and stimulate internal growth.
Narrowing the step to middle management
The focus of Noordwest Hospital Group as an employer is "Becoming better than you already are. If you work at Noordwest, then at least you know you can develop further. Within Noordwest 5 years ago, they saw that it was not easy to recruit middle management executives. There was no flow through from the teams and the step from employee to middle management was too big to take all at once. So Northwest created its own development program.
'Leading teams' development program
It started with pioneering and starting a first group. With which elements do you build the program as completely as possible? Learning and development are mainly done in the dynamics of practice, so just a few training days is not enough. How do you ensure that professionals without leadership experience can still get to a leadership position?
This brought the following elements into the picture
- A developmental assessment to determine developmental goals
- Training days
- Internship days in practice
- Intervision
- A mentor from the practice
- If necessary, an external coach
What brought real change?
During the course of the program, lessons were learned that made the program even more successful internally. The program was modified accordingly, making it unique to the Noordwest Hospital Group.
Provide clear frameworks when developing
Link participants directly to managers, make internship days an explicit part of the program and include leave hours in funding.
Take the non-commitment off
Screen participants in advance through of a talent scan and determine with each other the starting commitment. The participant is prepared for a future leadership position.
Include management even more
The talents you are looking for, you already have! Choose talent internally. The development process reduces the "no experience" step.
Success Factors
Cross-fertilization between disciplines: organization-wide recruitment of participants
Participants are recruited broadly, so there is diversity in the group. A participant may have 20 years of experience in health care and be ready for a new step, a young direction nurse has ambition and potential to develop into a position as a manager in a nursing department, but medical and support disciplines were also represented in the group. Participants' perceptions of Noordwest from their own departments became broader, more colorful and their networks expanded, increasing their chances of developing or changing positions. But satisfaction with Noordwest as an employer also increased with a wider range of opportunities.
Collaborating internal and external supervisors
The training was provided by Tijm of Relevance. As development director, he facilitated that also in the training, participants had to take the lead. Internal facilitators Joyce Kruijff and Hanneke Derksen led the intervision and, as HR specialists, were the lubricant to link participants to departments or mentors. This led to expansion of their network and visibility of participants in the organization. Hanneke and Joyce were able to address bottlenecks that stagnated the development and movement of participants. Each participant was also assigned a mentor with leadership experience.
Internship experiences in addition to training and peer review
A unique feature of the program was that in addition to six training days, coach interviews, pairing with a mentor and four intervision days, 12 internship days were also linked to the program. During the first program, we noticed how difficult it was for participants to take time for internships with a supervisor outside their cluster in addition to their job and workload. Their own department misses their employees for 12 days in addition to the training days and intervision. This needed to be facilitated better and made clearer from the start. Therefore, the internship days are now included in leave hours in the financing of the development track. One's own department is compensated. This sends the message that Noordwest is happy to invest in development and that the participants are serious about learning and development and orientation to a next step in their careers.
Pleasant co-creation
Trainers from external organizations are regularly used to help develop a particular skill for an organization. It is not so common that the fulfillment of the course takes place in close co-creation with the internal consultants. By doing so, in recent years, it was found that the training return was much higher. And all three professionals also grew themselves in this trajectory, more than they could have grown without each other. Perhaps that is the best reason to look back on this development track with such satisfaction. And on to the next leadership track!
Success in numbers
- 30 participants in total.
- 16 participants have moved on internally to another position.
- Of these 16, 10 participants are in managerial positions, 2 participants are project leaders and 4 participants have a new position in another organization.
- 14 of the 30 participants have grown in their current positions and are leading projects in their departments.
Paul Jongkind attended the development program "Leading Teams" in 2019. He has been head of HR Services since January 2023.
The practical approach, tailored to the needs of the group, was a very nice way for me to further explore the profession of leadership and receive guidelines to develop myself as a person and as a professional. In addition, it created a nice network with colleagues from all kinds of disciplines in the hospital. Chemistry developed in the group, creating a sense of safety and trust in a short period of time. The facilitators provide customization to arrange the content so that everyone in the group benefits, without losing sight of the common thread. That makes it a unique program that Northwest can be proud of.
Paul JongkindHead of HR Services
The story in their own words
The biggest takeaways
- 1
Narrow the step: internship days, a mentor and intervision give people leadership experience before they hold the position.
- 2
Take the non-commitment off: a talent scan and an explicit starting commitment change how seriously everyone takes the track.
- 3
Recruit organization-wide and co-create with internal facilitators: the network effect is half the result.
A one-page PDF with the key items, the numbers and the biggest takeaways. Handy for a meeting, or to forward.
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