client case studies

How Royal Mail Empower Women

A Boost to Confidence

Kay Clements, Inclusion and Project Manager for Royal Mail explains:

"In 2005 a survey revealed what appeared to be a lack of confidence amongst our female employees. It seemed to be this issue that was preventing them from seeking new responsibility and challenging inappropriate behaviour and language in the workplace."

Kay continued, "At this time only 15% of our workforce was made up of women, and only 10% of our managers were women. We were in the process of developing a Gender Strategy and this lack of confidence was included in it as a result of the survey. It was at this point that we approached The Springboard Consultancy and asked them to come in and to help us deal with these problems."

Working With Springboard?

When asked why The Springboard Consultancy had been approached, Kay replied:

"We’d worked with The Springboard Consultancy in the 1990s as we had even fewer women in the workforce back then. Having gained such positive feedback from the participants, we knew exactly who to contact in 2005.

What is perfect about the Springboard programme is how well it fits with the organisation’s internal structure. Being run over 4 days meant we only had to release the participants for one day every month for 4 months, causing minimum disruption to service.

We really like the workbook too – it showed that the women had real commitment by continuing their work at home, and gave them something tangible to remind them of the good work they’d done."

Training The Trainers

The Springboard Consultancy was invited into Royal Mail to train 10 female managers from various areas of the business.

As a result of the training these managers would then become trainers licensed to deliver the Springboard programme for women to Royal Mail employees.

Kay explained why this was the right approach for them at this time:

"The license and training meant that we could offer the programme to many more of the women in our organisation. This meant that more of our female employees would benefit from the programme, the issues we were struggling with would be addressed and as a consequence, the organisation would reap the rewards of a stronger, more assertive and goal focused team. What was so great about the team from The Springboard Consultancy was that they worked closely with us to develop the training making it even more relevant specifically to us here at Royal Mail."

The Statistics Speak For Themselves

"We evaluated our training and levels of satisfaction were extremely high. Out of over 300 participants:

• 77% reported better communications
• 74% felt increased self-esteem
• 75% took on more responsibility
• 80% reported improved assertiveness skills

Overall it is obvious that women are taking on more responsibility as a result of the Springboard training. Some have become deputy managers whilst others have offered to take on the role of ‘work-place coaches’, supporting and guiding new employees.

Confidence and assertiveness skills have also risen overall, and over the last 5 years the numbers of women in management in the Royal Mail has doubled to 20%."

Kay concludes, “The results of Springboard training speak for themselves in the statistics: the women at Royal Mail are gaining the confidence to shape their own futures and seek the promotions they deserve.”