Peak Productivity’s engagement with HORAN in 2022 is a great example of building a culture of productivity within a large organization. HORAN has been serving the Greater Cincinnati area and beyond since 1948. The company provides service, support and partnership in employee benefits consulting and wealth management regionally & nationally to corporate and individual clients. HORAN’s leaders and team members are driven by five core values: integrity, commitment, accountability, corporate social responsibility, and innovation. Horan highly prioritizes the professional and personal growth and development for its employees and recognizes people as its greatest asset.
The Challenge
The 2020-2021 business year involved work-from-home and hybrid work environments, along with many pivots, changes, and disruptions to the standard systems used to manage workload and deliver top-quality customer service at HORAN. Leaders in HORAN’s Employee Benefits Team recognized the need for additional support to assist employees with recalibrating personal productivity strategies and refining company-wide performance standards and expectations for teams. Many team members had experienced a gap in professional development opportunities during the Covid pandemic. HORAN prioritized employee training and support based upon input from current team members regarding the common productivity challenges they were facing: email overwhelm, high meeting volume, prioritization struggles and limited opportunity for focus time.
The Solution
HORAN’s VP of Human Resources, Michelle Furlong, reached out to Peak Productivity to explore a professional development program for the company’s Employee Benefits team. This is the largest team within the organization, making up ~ 70% of their employees. Peak Productivity created a customized 90-day training and coaching program, based upon discussions with the Human Resources team and interviews with key leadership members and managers.
The Approach
Peak Productivity kick-started the engagement with a team-wide training to teach six productivity principles specific to professionals in the workplace. This training was delivered in-person at two different HORAN locations to accommodate the Dayton and Columbus team members, in addition to those working from the Cincinnati Headquarters. Remote employees were able to participate via Zoom and the training was recorded for use with future employees.
Next, HORAN team members were assigned to small group coaching “pods” for application and pull-through of the productivity principles and strategies taught. For the next 90 days, Elisabeth met monthly with each pod, during which time additional productivity strategies were discussed, unique to the needs and challenges of each pod. During these group coaching sessions, individuals identified their own productivity goal(s) for the upcoming month, partnered with an internal accountability partner within the team, and committed to daily/weekly tracking to measure individual progress and success. Some pods also established monthly group goals to address team initiatives &/or to establish new best practices for improved collaboration and communication.
Elisabeth corresponded with all pod leaders between each group session to provide additional support and to encourage continued growth and commitment to the productivity coaching program. When requested, Elisabeth interacted via email with individual team members who needed personalized feedback or strategies due to their unique role or circumstances.
The Impact
- 70% satisfaction rate of met &/or exceeded expectations
- 47% of participants reported measurable progress &/or mastery of new habits, strategies and techniques
- 73% of participants expressed moderate & high levels of interest in attending additional customized trainings to continue strengthening personal & team skills
This 3-month engagement with HORAN resulted in a positive impact on the team and on each individual employee who participated. They continue to implement and build upon the new best practices discovered, for increased personal and business success. Could your team benefit from this type of collaboration? Reach out to request a customized professional development program, for your team and organization’s unique needs.
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