Background
Hitachi Capital, established in 1982, is owned by Hitachi Capital Corporation one of Japan’s largest financial institutions not involved in banking. The parent company, Hitachi group celebrated its 100th birthday in 2010. Hitachi Capital service a variety of sectors, typically financing the purchase of vehicles, specialist business equipment and consumer goods.
Hitachi asked Facet5 UK to build and energise a sales team using Facet5’s team development module, Teamscape. “Our first task was to integrate two groups” says Wendy Capelin, Hitachi Capital UK’s HR, Training and Facilities Manager. “Originally there were two sales teams: internal business development and field sales. The internal team was enormously successful and needed to work more closely with their field colleagues, so we restructured and integrated them.”.
“You have to address a new team’s working methods and culture right at the start. That was a key task for the newly promoted Head of Sales. This project took place in the context of an overall Hitachi objective: to put in place structured development plans for individuals and teams. Obviously this was important for its own sake and because it could support succession planning”.
Why Hitachi chose Facet5?
‘Simple’ says Wendy.’ We needed a way of obtaining information on which to base team and individual development work without having to learn lots of different complex tools. Facet 5 allowed us to do this. It has modules which can be use throughout an individual’s career and TEAMSCAPE provided us with away of addressing group issues simply and easily. Initially we chose it for a pilot.
Tools & Approach
The HR team had limited experience of using Facet5 and running TeamScape projects. Rosemary Cope of Consulting tools comments: ‘ Wendy asked us to help in the project but we made sure that her team was involved throughout. That way we could transfer skills and equip Hitachi to run future projects internally.’
A four stage project ensured team buy in which is critical to success in such projects :
- A half day team introduction to the importance of personality in business and the Facet5 approach. The team ‘got this’ quickly as sales people tend to be very aware of personal issues in selling.
- Administration of the tool and one-to-one feedback to individual staff
- A one day workshop built around TeamScape results including a number of team building activities.
- A facilitated session in which team developed collective mission statement, and personal objectives which drew on the mission.
Results
“We achieved what we set out to achieve in the project” says Rosemary Cope who presented the results to the senior team in Hitachi. “Which in itself helped me in my job” says Wendy. “It opened some board members eyes to the power of psychology at work and Facet5 in particular. Having a vision and objectives is the first step. The team now has to realise them. So, they’re on the team’s monthly agenda and form the basis of individual development plans created during the performance management process.
Facet5 results identified some key individuals who may have the capacity for promotion to leadership roles. But ultimately the success of exercise comes down to concrete performance. After such major changes we expected performance to be soft but the team is beating its targets by 5%.”
What’s next
Hitachi Capital is now using Facet5 with line managers across the organisation linked to team days and two of the HR team are now accredited in Facet5 usage.
Having carried out several follow-up sessions since the completion of the project, Jennifer Shipside, Consultant at t-three, has commented on the outcome, saying:
“Wendy says: “I have only received positive feedback from the process””
Continue the conversation
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