Professional development opportunities in Scotland

OVO was launched in 2009 as a market disruptor, and in 10 years grew to 1,900 employees and over 1 million customers. In 2020, SSE Energy Services joined the OVO family, and the business became the UK’s third-largest energy supply company with 6,000 employees and 5 million customers.

As part of their commitment to drive human progress through clean affordable energy for everyone, OVO is investing in coaching for its 750 people leaders. Their aim is to create an inclusive, progressive culture which will empower their people to thrive and ultimately benefit their customers across the country.

To aid this, OVO partnered with Coaching Focus in 2021 to develop a skills development and mindset-shifting programme for all 750 people leaders, named “The OVO Way of Coaching”.

OVO and Coaching Focus worked in collaboration to create a bespoke programme, that aligns with their people’s needs, ways of working and language, whilst helping achieve the wider goal of creating the inclusive and progressive culture mentioned.

Currently, around a third of the people leaders have undertaken the programme, with short-term benefits already being realised.

Observed success:

• Additional “mini” version of the project, deployed across the UK, USA, and Germany.
• A bespoke report of areas of great practice produced to share with all colleagues, celebrating success
• A collection of opportunities for further development which have all been individually actioned, providing different training opportunities, additional coaching topics, support materials, and further cultural change discussions at senior levels.

In collaboration with MPW Learning, a programme called ‘Leadership Pathway Programme’ was designed to bring all of the skills of a large high street charity organisation management team up to date. After introduction of the programme, common working practices were restructured, productivity increased and management satisfaction improved.

Read some testimonials from some of Mercuri's previous training.

Observed success:

• Supplier Viewpoint scores have increased since the start of the programme
• Every Voice Matters data is used to tailor workshops and coaching discussions and tackle personal obstacles that stand in the way of achieving personal and organisational goals
• A bespoke report of areas of great practice produced to share with all colleagues, celebrating success
• A collection of opportunities for further development which have all been individually actioned, providing different training opportunities, additional coaching topics, support materials, and further cultural change discussions at senior levels.