Jessica BirdHeathrow saw a 19% increase in employee engagement and an 8% jump in trust in leadership, thanks to Solvd Together’s leadership programme. Charlie Kneen, managing director at Solvd, explores how it achieved this difference.
The challenge
Post-pandemic, Heathrow confronted a daunting task: reviving operations at full capacity with a depleted workforce.
Loss of experienced personnel had left a gap, and trust within the organisation needed urgent repair to unite a fragmented team.
Solvd partnered with Heathrow to create a transformative leadership development program called ‘Lead the Way’.
The 18-month programme integrated live and digital experiences into the workday, targeted at middle and first time managers.
Background and context
Heathrow is the world’s busiest international airport and the hub of the civil aviation world. More than 67 million passengers travel through the airport annually on services offered by 90 airlines travelling to more than 180 destinations in more than 90 countries.
Following the Covid-19 pandemic, with unprecedented disruption to the aviation industry, Heathrow wanted to acknowledge and reset their leadership expectations and behaviours.
‘Lead the Way’ was an award-winning, immersive development journey, designed to provide practical guidance for leaders in operational and non-operational roles.
‘Lead the Way’ was a reboot, refresh and recognition engine for more than 2,000 middle and first-time managers. The target metrics were engagement, trust in leadership, inclusion, and leadership confidence.
The impact was tracked through the company ‘Pulse’ survey, as well as qualitative feedback post-programme.
The ‘plot twist’ was that it needed to be relevant to a diverse range of roles from security officers to baggage handlers, and people with varying levels of experience, from 10-year veterans to those in their first leadership position.
Why Heathrow chose Solvd
Having worked in partnership with Solvd Together on an award-winning Graduate Induction Programme for Deloitte.
Lucy Davies, head of learning and development, was an advocate of human-centred learning design. Solvd’s innovative and collaborative approach under challenging constraints meant the client trusted us to create a compelling solution for Heathrow’s diverse range of leaders.
What Solvd delivered
Solvd created the internal brand for ‘Lead the Way’ through a series of creative workshops with stakeholders. This led to the development of an immersive learning environment that provoked a feeling of ‘something different is happening here’.
The programme journey was a combination of live and digital experiences spread over 18-months with various touch points in the ‘flow-of-work’.
Using real leadership stories captured on video, we created a teaser campaign and developed psychological safety so people would be open to sharing their experience, and personal leadership challenges.
The live events brought together 25 leaders and incorporated game design, simulation, and behavioural science. The ‘Cards Against Bad Leadership’ game explored the impact of leaders’ mindset, skills and behaviour on their teams and customers, and we developed actor-led scenarios to bring to life difficult leadership conversations.
To ensure application of the learning in the ‘flow-of-work’, we developed pocket guides for those conversations, and rewarded leaders with ‘Lead the Way’ badges: Gold, Silver, and Bronze, supported by peer-to-peer coaching and digital resources on the leadership ‘resource hub’.
The results
Lead the Way has been recognised by the C-Suite including the CEO, and Solvd Together was recognised as Heathrow’s Supplier of the Year in 2023.
The programme receives an average NPS +55 and has been a contributor in a 19% increase in employee engagement, 7% uplift in inclusion, and 8% jump in trust in leadership.
The Solvd Together and Heathrow L&D team are incredibly proud of their partnership, and this has led to the successful delivery of other learning projects in Customer Experience and Security Training. This leadership programme also won ‘Highly Commended’ at the British Training Awards in 2024.
Jason Knight, people director at Heathrow Airport, said: “‘Lead The Way’ has been a fantastic programme to reset the culture at Heathrow and equip the front line & middle managers to set the tone for our organisation.
“The feedback has been exceptional, but more importantly, it has had impact.
“We have increased our overall engagement metric by 19% points since the start of the programme and improved our scores around inclusion, and line management support.”
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