Embracing change: How Anglian Water and Blue Sky won Gold at the UK Employee Experience Awards

The Blue Sky team are chuffed to bits, having just picked up the prized Gold award for Business Transformation and Managing Change, and Silver for Delivering Customer Experience at the UK Employee Experience Awards with our client, Anglian Water.

Fresh from picking up the trophies (and reluctant to put them down again) Carl Lovelock, Director of Client Experience at Blue Sky, explains what it means to win these awards and the story behind the success.

It’s been a challenging year for the water industry, with a shifting regulatory landscape and new Ofwat measures on the horizon.

Anglian Water, already a leader, knew they needed to work hard to maintain their top spot in the rankings. They set their sights high. They wanted to be recognised as a top UK service provider, providing their customers with the level of service expected of a top UK brand.

That journey started with their employees.

They knew it would require a transformation in people’s mindsets as well as behaviour and a shift in organisational focus, and it would demand a commitment from everyone in the organisation to put the customer first, whatever their role.

The judges were looking for evidence of strong capability of managing change and significant improvements which resulted in a positive employee and customer experience. They wanted to see employees embracing a change – and with Anglian Water they saw it in the bucket load.

Make Today Great started with the leaders and cascaded throughout the business. The result? Customer-focused employees, ranked No. 1 by Ofwat, and on track to be a leading UK service provider.

So what made Anglian Water and Blue Sky stand out from the rest? What can other organisations learn?

Our top three steps to embracing change:

• Give Clarity

Craft the right story to create a clear, compelling sense of purpose for your organisation.

Create clear narratives that carry values and spread the behaviours you want to see. Anglian Water worked with Blue Sky to understand how to make positive, persuasive storytelling an everyday behaviour. It isn’t easy, but it’s the most powerful performance tool you have.

• Create a Climate

Connect people to create the climate where people change can thrive.

No learning programme is an island, nor does change happen in isolation. By harnessing human instincts, Anglian Water enabled an agile, creative, trust-based climate ready to handle anything the future might bring. Because that’s something no-one can control.

• Drive the Conversation

Capture the behaviours that get results and spread them through great conversation.

Understand how to capture the performance of your over-achievers and replicate them across the organisation. Anglian Water spent time understanding what drives the right conversation and it transformed their ability to get the right outcomes.

People change is what we do. Take a look at our Blue Sky Approach.

We believe that the true measure of Blue Sky’s success lies in the performance of our clients and the external recognition and awards our clients receive as a result of our partnership with them.

We are delighted to have won 60 awards in the last 20 years for the amazing work delivered in partnership with our clients through their transformational programmes.

Want to know how to put these steps into action? Ready to embrace people change? We’re here to help, drop us a line today.