Synovate

Synovate Case Study
Synovate, who have recently merged with Ipsos, is a large European market research company. With offices in over 80 countries and over 5000 employees Synovate generates insights to help clients drive competitive brand, product and customer experience strategies through extensive market research.

Purpose
The purpose of the learning intervention was to address the need that had been identified through feedback and employee satisfaction surveys. Synovate discovered that a large proportion of their first and second line managers had been promoted into the role with little or no management development training. They want to provide a bespoke solution that gave their managers the skills, knowledge and confidence to be effective managers. Watch a short video of Andrew Wood, Global Head of Learning and Development, explain why he choose to work with Zest Learning.

Solution
Zest was invited to tender and received specific learning objectives from Synovate. Against two other companies we put forward our ideas and won the business. Essentially our solution involved providing the managers with a challenging yet safe environment to try on new management behaviours and select the ones that worked best from them. This was delivered through four
interactive and highly experiential learning modules:

• Personal Awareness
• Building Strong Relationships
• The Importance of People
• Effective Conversations

Modules 1, 2 and 3 provided knowledge and skills for the delegates to choice the most appropriate learning from. Module 4 allowed them to test their ability to put these skills into practice, working with real play actors in simulated workplace situations.

After completing these modules the delegates spent a day at The Passage, the UK largest homeless centre, where they worked with homeless clients, giving them feedback and sharing knowledge on how to put themselves across effectively with different people. The purpose of this was to test in a more challenging situation the delegate’s ability to use their new skills. Finally the delegates had to provide a report and presentations to their Line Manager and the learning team about their experiences and changes they had made.

Watch a short video of Synovate Managers who have been on their development programme and listen to what this experience was like for them.

Outcome
This programme created more confident, flexible and people aware managers, who knew how to adapt their own behaviour to meet the needs of their team and the business. They left with a tool box of techniques and behaviours which meant they are able to get the best result for themselves and the business.

This programme continues to be rolled out in UK and has also been run launched in Europe.