JOANNA CAREW

Carew culture encourages employees to develop their career in-line with their passions – so whatever fires them up we’ll try to develop their role to match. Sometimes this means creating a new position, other times it’s filling a vacant role, or we may simply incorporate new tasks into an existing job description.

So far we’ve found that there has been a business need to match employee passions and a symbiosis follows: the business thrives and our employees love their work.

With high motivation we have a dynamic workforce seeking promotions and this brings with it a need to upskill the team. Further, because we plan career trajectories collaboratively, we identify skills gaps early and begin training way before the person formally takes on new responsibilities. We find this preparatory training hugely successful and that it engenders ownership of- and eagerness for self-development.

Case Study

This is one of those proud parent kind of moments and fantastic to share! I have a staff member who is starting to think about moving into a leadership role; something they previously haven’t contemplated and it’s a huge leap for them.

First, I am so proud that they want to stretch themselves! Second, we’re about to embark on a recruitment and growth strategy so to promote a dedicated, proven team member who lives Carew culture is ideal for the business.

Notwithstanding, we’d noticed this person wouldn’t or couldn’t delegate, which would be problematic in a leadership role. So we set up a series of 1-2-1 training sessions between myself and the team member.

The first session was an exploration of the person’s behaviours. I wanted to understand why they didn’t delegate. Then we agreed some toe-in-the-water type tasks to be completed over the next week as very gentle exposure to adopting different communication styles.

The following sessions built on skills and understanding, and throughout the team member experimented at work and at home. Critical to the training was zooming out as though observing how their interactions with others played out, then reflecting and learning from them.

In the final session the team member was buzzing, empowered and had experienced significant change both personally and professionally. They hadn’t delegated previously, because they were trying to avoid replicating horrific management styles they’d experienced working in other dental practices.

These honourable, but misguided intentions have now been explored, understood and reconfigured to lay the foundations for this employee to become an effective leader and communicator. They laughed sharing how they’d applied the training to parenting and their marriage, and it was a joy to see the growth in confidence and self-esteem that this tailored upskilling had brought.

What else can I say, except what an absolute privilege … I LOVE MY JOB!!!!!!!!