Blanchard is here to help you improve employee productivity and performance. Contact us today to discuss your organization's unique needs.
GAME (UK)
The Challenge: Develop an HR strategy to position the HR department as a business partner.
The Solution: Find learning initiatives to assist the company in maintaining market share, inspire growth, and enhance customer satisfaction.
The Results: Build a training department capable of delivering to individual needs across all levels of the company.
As one of Europe’s fastest growing retailers, GAME’s HR Department faces a continual challenge to prepare people for fast-track promotion within its rapidly expanding network of stores. When Malcolm Knight joined the company, his top priority was to develop a learning initiative to meet that challenge.
“Our organisational culture is fantastic—we just needed to enhance what we already had. I planned to do that by developing a training programme internally, but then I saw the Situational Leadership® II package. I realized that we couldn’t develop anything as credible and effective as SLII® and instead had GAME’s trainers accredited through Blanchard’s Training for Trainers process.”
With Blanchard’s support, SLII® was delivered first to regional managers and selected directors. The process is taking longer than initially anticipated, but Knight isn’t worried. “Too often in HR, training initiatives are rolled out and then forgotten. We are looking at a phased, top-down approach. In my department we all speak the SLII® language— when the managers are trained, too, I know that common language will pay dividends.”
Results
People who trained in SLII® a year ago are still talking about it. Store managers have seen a change in their regional managers’ style, and the company won its first people award, the Thames Valley Employer of Choice Award. SLII® was a part of the presentation for the award, demonstrating how GAME treats, trains, and communicates with its people.
Malcolm Knight is Head of HR at GAME, Europe’s leading video games and computer software retailer. GAME has 400 stores in the UK and Ireland and employs 5,000 staff group-wide. The company also has a strong presence in Sweden, Denmark, France and Spain. Malcolm’s position gives him responsibility for recruitment as well as training, and he advises the HR teams in each European country. He worked previously in training and HR for supermarket chains Kwik Save and Somerfield.