We were recently asked by an IT function of a large financial institution to assist them in resolving a significant internal issue. The new IT manager had realised that historically people were being paid at one level in the hierarchy, but generally carrying out the functions of the level below. For example, the strategists were fixing the difficult technical problems, the senior technicians were fixing mundane technical issues etc.

He wanted to 'raise the game' of the whole IT department (containing hundreds of people) whilst not allowing a drop in ongoing performance. (As he put it 'to upgrade the engines whilst keeping the airplane flying'). Oakwood Learning worked with him and his senior team to develop a vision and a plan to achieve this change over an 18 month period. We worked with cross-sections of people in the department to implement the plan. We helped them devise measures to assess their performance and implemented a new communications strategy. Whilst they implemented the plan we facilitated workshops throughout the department as part of the process. They identified a number of training needs arising from the changes, which we ran or organised. Just over a year later, performance criteria have indicated a 12% improvement, morale is higher and customer satisfaction is increasing.