Coca-Cola Enterprises is the sole licensed bottler for products of The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) in Belgium, continental France, Great Britain, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.
Global Diversity Practice was commissioned by CCE to design and deliver a Diversity and Inclusion learning deck for roll out across key regions. The toolkit was built to be dynamic, highly relevant and business focused as well as being transferable to all areas of the business from sales and marketing to the bottling plants. CCE trainers were trained to deliver in a memorable fashion; the toolkit included a deck with full trainer notes and a set of diversity sound bites. We were then further commissioned to deliver a session to the European D&I Council which was very well received.
CCE launched their European Strategy Policy on Diversity and Inclusion in 2013; an essential component of the policy was to develop the competence and confidence of the Executive Leadership population across Supply Chain, Marketing, Sales and Operation functions. The intended outcome was to influence the corporate culture by procuring an Inclusive Leadership Learning Intervention and Solution, which ensured that all Leaders were equipped with the necessary skills, competence and confidence to lead the company in an inclusive fashion and deliver both the aims and aspirations of the Strategy but also produce business results and effective management of talent in all its diversities. Coca-Cola Enterprises set out their requirements, which were to create and deliver a programme on Inclusive Leadership for 400 Executive Leaders across France, Great Britain, Benelux, Norway, Sweden and the USA. The specification for the full day workshop included developmental pathways with pre-assessments and critical analysis, followed by 3 and 6 month accountability calls with follow up action learning sets, focused on Unconscious Bias and Gender Balance within CCE.
DETAILS
Inclusive Leadership Program
KEY DELIVERABLES
After successfully winning the bid to design and deliver the Inclusive Leadership Programme for CCE, GDP began designing a full day session in line with CCE’s overall outcome which was to ensure Leaders and Managers, ranging from the CCE supply chain to marketing, are capable of understanding, valuing and managing differences effectively, with a particular focus on gender GDP used the methodology of the “Heart, Head and Hands” Model and D&I Window to design the Inclusive Leadership programme, which included four main areas:
- CCE D&I Strategy – linked to Leadership framework / corporate values
- Unconscious Bias / Micro Inequities
- Inclusive Leadership
- Being Gender Bilingual
The specific outcomes of the ILP training sessions were:
- Articulating the business case for Diversity and Unconscious Bias
- Understanding the Unconscious Bias mechanism
- Developing behaviour and practices consistently fair, inclusive and proactive
- Creating a gender bilingual working environment
Action Planning for change
GDP worked to a specific timeline, to deliver pilot sessions in Q2 of 2013 and roll out the sessions to Leaders by the end of 2013 into 2014.
Participants attended a full day course, which helped to build a compelling D&I action plan – on both a personal and business proposition level. The course was designed with pre and post surveys to gain an insight and collect feedback as to whether or not the course was successfully delivering and meeting the original requirements set out by CCE.
Clients were also provided with a workbook, which served as an aide memoire and included tips and techniques to help them cascade and integrate the core message of the course, champion culture change and role model Inclusive Leadership.
The Accountability Mechanism has had a particularly positive response and helped to develop energy and “buzz” in relation to D&I, linking the course to increasing sales, production, innovation and also connecting to customers, which has been a key component of its success and credibility.
IMPACT
GDP delivered a total of 30 sessions, including a pilot session in 2014. The sessions were received well from the Leaders, with 85.7% reporting that the course was “good or excellent”. The results from the pre-survey found that 74% of Leaders did not feel that they could influence others to promote Diversity and Inclusion prior to delivery. However, the post-survey results, showed an impressive 94% of leaders felt they could promote the message of Diversity and Inclusion.
Feedback comments included:
“The Inclusive Leadership Programme was without doubt one of the best development sessions I have attended during my career within CCE. The learning style is very participative and is centred upon learning through not only sharing group experiences but also practically applying the insight models introduced as part of the course. Recognising that despite all of our good intentions, we all suffer from unconscious bias was a real eye opener and has really made me focus on re-framing things from a much broader perspective. Fundamentally, my biggest takeaway is that enabling a diverse and inclusive culture is all about leadership, as an individual and collectively as a team, we must become the change we wish to see to create a workplace where everyone is welcome, included and valued.”
“The course helped me to challenge some of my own beliefs and ways of thinking, which surprised me as I thought I was already tuned in to the diversity agenda. It taught me that there is always room to challenge my own thinking, and helped me to focus on how to lead others to do the same.”
“Really excellent course. Engaging and interesting presentation style. One of the best courses I have been on.”
With such positive feedback from the sessions, CCE established that the course had a positive impact on influencing the leaders to be more inclusive, which then had a direct effect on the business and the D&I Strategy. As a result, GDP have been commissioned to roll out a further 10 sessions in 2015.
- Client Coca-Cola
- Category FMCG
