A large in-house Legal Department was challenged with the simultaneous achievement of substantial internal efficiencies while continuing to defend the corporation against burgeoning external threats.
One of the consequences of adapting to change was a decline in colleague engagement among a highly skilled and experienced colleague base. Composite colleague engagement had sunk to 50%. The group’s dynamic leader championed an ambitious year-end goal of dramatically improving colleague engagement, while still forging ahead with a host of sweeping change imperatives.
Supporting the Department’s leadership team on both an individual and organization-wide basis, LRI helped plan and execute on a variety of integrated initiatives defined by a deep understanding of drivers of colleague engagement within the unique enterprise, legal practice area, and departmental sub-cultures. Carefully applying data gleaned from engagement assessments, LRI partnered with the group’s leadership team members to devise unique work distribution and professional development strategies for specific cohort/interest groups; strengthen team bonds; enhance underlying organizational health conditions; and engage every group member in consistent, regular, and transparent communications. Key to the success of the execution plan was the assumption of personal accountability for raising engagement indices by the groups’ leaders – who each became champions for a particular initiative.
In less than one year, every performance and change objective was achieved or exceeded. Most importantly, during a period of great change and uncertainty, colleague engagement increased from 50% to 71%.