As a young, dynamic and highly ambitious design business, our output is critically affected by the office culture, team values and individual commitment of team members. This enables standards to be raised, deadlines to be achieved and design vibrancy to be excelled.
Successfully winning projects across a range of diverse sectors is dependent being able to demonstrate our credibility as a professional and progressive organisation. For us, the Investors In People (IIP) accreditation was the perfect vehicle to not only symbolise this, but more importantly enshrine the ethos of it into our operational activities.
Achieving IIP status requires a high level of commitment and collaboration from the team in addition to clear direction from management. The process involved detailed questionnaires, one-on-one interviews as well as comprehensive exploratory interviews with the leadership team in order to fully understand the organisation’s philosophy. Failure to meet the standards results in a total loss of the (substantial) application fee and makes the organisation ineligible to tender for projects within certain procurement frameworks.
Naila Hussain’s Personal Development Coaching was invaluable in identifying and defining essential characteristics and issues that could affect our ability to secure accreditation. Through an extensive evaluation process with the leadership team and a full assessment of the IIP appraisal process, core goals and targets were established. These were then incorporated into the organisation’s ethos and formed the basis for the group coaching sessions.
The sessions were incredibly enlightening, motivating and energising. Using a series of tools enabled team members to ask themselves pointed questions around their goals and objectives. This led to very lively debate with a range of differing views. However ultimately, everybody agreed on a series of values and clear objectives.
The process for defining this was very informative and thought provoking. The fact that it was skilfully presented by Naila in a humorous and engaging way helped to ensure the group sessions were highly productive and maximised the team’s potential.
This process led to Yeme Architects successfully securing Investor In People accreditation on the first application and was extremely close to achieving Silver status. We were informed this is virtually unheard of for an organisation in our circumstances.
Following this process it became abundantly clear the benefits Naila brought to the organisation and individually for each team member. One of the key factors revolved around how issues and problems could be handled and challenged. This mechanism was very empowering and enabling for the individual as well as the organisation as the ethos was further reinforced.
Naila now undertakes regular 1:1 coaching sessions with all team members at their request. This has been invaluable in helping to define goals and aspirations however it has been particularly useful in overcoming personal obstacles to development. This has not only impacted their professional outputs but has also improved their personal lives and relationships.
We have been very impressed by Naila’s approach, professionalism, insight and ability to get to the nub of an issue. We would not hesitate to recommend Naila and believe her input will deliver tangible benefits as well as influence wellbeing, aspiration and help overcome individual and organisational challenges.
Amir Hussain
CoE (Chief of Everything)
Yeme Architects
