Manheim United Kingdom
Manheim HR manager achieves organizational and personal success with facilitation
“Facilitation is absolutely a true need.” – Rebecca Hartley, Human Resource Manager, Manheim United Kingdom
Background
At Manheim United Kingdom (UK), a division of Manheim International – the leading global provider of used vehicles, facilitation skills had not been a focus for internal training and development. Never having any prior facilitation training, Manheim UK’s Rebecca Hartley, Human Resource Manager, attended The Effective Facilitator, a course offered by Leadership Strategies, Inc. (LSI). Since Rebecca completed the course, she has seen the benefits of facilitation training at both an organizational and personal level.
Rebecca was first introduced to facilitation in 2012 after Michael Wilkinson, LSI’s CEO and Certified Master Facilitator, led a strategic planning engagement for the Manheim United States (US) business. After the success of those strategy sessions, Manheim UK saw the benefit of facilitation, and placed 10 of its employees in The Effective Facilitator, which included Rebecca. “The opportunity came about from the US strategy planning workshops,” Rebecca explained. “After the strategy work Michael did and seeing him facilitate, we all recognized how valuable facilitation is, and we understood that facilitation skills are a definite need.”
One of the recommendations Rebecca and the team made after the strategy session was, “Clone Michael.”
Benefits
Rebecca set out not to clone Michael – but to clone his skills. In The Effective Facilitator, Rebecca learned LSI’s 10 Principles of Facilitation as well as over 100 techniques that support each of the principles. Rebecca regularly utilizes techniques on information gathering and managing dysfunction – two popular topics of the course, which have helped her tremendously in leadership meetings.
“Facilitation training has given me confidence and exposure at my organization,” Rebecca shared. “It’s a cascading process. Being in HR, I facilitate a lot of meetings. I’m using my knowledge from the course to help lead and support sessions, and I’m also passing on my learnings to others in my organization so that these skills are adopted in our culture.”
Results
Since attending The Effective Facilitator, Rebecca has applied her facilitation skills in HR initiatives, including employee engagement efforts. In one initiative, Rebecca partnered with members from other Manheim offices to focus on enterprise employee engagement areas. This has required her to facilitate numerous meetings and surveys on a global level. Rebecca has seen increased participation in the meetings she facilitates, which is critical for HR professionals in successfully executing employee engagement initiatives. “In putting into practice the facilitation skills I’ve learned, I’ve been able to get people to arrive at answers themselves instead of me telling them the answers,” she says.
Rebecca has also benefited from facilitation training on a personal level. Because of her facilitation skills and the recognition she has received from it, she has been personally asked to participate with greater involvement in leadership meetings, including strategy sessions with Manheim’s top leadership members. Additionally, her exposure earned her a promotion. Rebecca believes, “I just think The Effective Facilitator is a brilliant course and well worth investing in because of what you get out of it.”
