Case Study: Leadership Training for Supervisors
The Client. The Conroe Independent School District, located north of Houston, Texas, operates 55 campuses across 348 square miles, with facilities for more than 51,000 students. In order to address professional development needs within the district’s custodial staff, the administration retained TTD to conduct its Leadership Training for Supervisors (LTS) program.
The Challenge. The custodial staff reflected a diverse group of employees, for many of whom English was a second language. The school district’s goal was to educate and empower front-line supervisors and leads for more effective leadership and motivation of custodial staff across 55-plus sites. After a close review of the organizational issues, TTD’s training’s focused on the following goals:
- Build supervisors’ communication skills
- Train supervisors in effective techniques for boosting employee motivation and engagement
- Expand supervisors’ expertise in coaching employees and providing productive feedback
- Foster supervisors’ team development skills and conflict resolution techniques.
- Ensure that training would be effective in a bilingual, cross-cultural work environment.
The Solution. After interviews with senior leadership to assess needs, Trinity customized itsLeadership Training for Supervisors (LTS) program to address specific supervisor skill gaps. Each session of the year-long program blended topic-related hands-on activities, video, self-appraisal and reflection, role-playing and skill practice activities. To meet the needs of Conroe’s diverse staff, Trinity developed a Spanish version of the LTS program that was used with Spanish-speaking staff.
Sustainability. The LTS training integrated specialized activities from Trinity’s Putting the Skills to Work program as a way to apply learning back on the job. These structured activities included one-on-one conversations, team meetings and self-assessment activities designed to reinforce specific skills back in the workplace.
The Results. Within two months of beginning the program, employees and supervisors reported a marked decrease in employee complaints to senior leadership and human resources, marked improvement in employee morale, reduced conflict within teams, and stronger team engagement throughout the organization. Participants reported increased confidence in managing others, better employee engagement and involvement, and better self-awareness of their roles and responsibilities. Supervisors reported having clear, practical and immediately applicable management strategies.
“I can strongly recommend Trinity Development and Training without reservation. Trinity has been instrumental in transforming a staff of more than 125 managers and potential managers into leaders. We have a diverse staff in terms of backgrounds, educational levels, experience, and skills. Robert and his team created tools and content that not only addressed those differences, but also provided the foundation necessary to be more effective leaders. Trinity was able to meet the needs of our diverse staff by offering presentations and training materials in both Spanish and English. Time management, personnel management, team building, and conflict resolution are only a few of the areas effectively covered by Robert and his team. The training has given my staff confidence to deal with the challenges they face every day. The feedback from our staff has been overwhelmingly positive and without a doubt has had a positive impact on the individual leaders and the Department as a whole.”
Marshall Schroeder, Director of Maintenance and Custodial of Conroe ISD