Introduction
For two years now, Positive have been working in partnership with sustainability champions Cool Planet Group, a family of environmentally positive businesses and brands.
Rita Lalor is Chief People and Culture Officer at Cool Planet, and she’s been instrumental in embedding Positive’s science and skillset across the group. Here’s her take on our work together so far...
Challenge
Our vision at Cool Planet is ambitious, and we have always understood that our people are our greatest strength. With rapid growth on the horizon, we partnered with Positive to ensure our people had what they needed to deliver on our growth goals.
We wanted a holistic approach:
- to align our vision and goals with the overall psychological health and wellbeing of every team member. When our people are thriving, so are our goals – success and wellbeing are not mutually exclusive
- to bridge the gap between our technical skills and our psychological skills, in all that we do - within the team and with our clients
- to build momentum, energy and team support for a future of aggressive expansion
(Above) Rita Lalor, Chief People and Culture Officer at Cool Planet. Image credit: Maura Hickey
Solution
First, we ran the Positive Leaders programme for the 15 most senior leaders across the group. Positive empowered us with the science and tools to support our psychological health, resilience and wellbeing, both personally and as a leadership team.
Following the programme’s success, we decided to equip every employee in the group with the same core psychological skillset. Using Positive’s Insights survey to focus our efforts, Cool Planet leaders worked together to engage our colleagues with the same psychological skills we’d strengthened for ourselves. Challenges were set after each session, ensuring the science and tools were immediately embedded into the day-to-day of the business.
“Positive have empowered us to take control of our own psychological health and performance for the long-term, with lasting benefits in our personal and professional lives.”
Rita Lalor, Cool Planet
Impact
We are committed to the psychological health and well-being of our team, and Positive’s Insights data has been an invaluable resource. We’re proud that our people perceive psychological health to be strongly embedded within our culture; the Insights data shows that this rating has risen from 7.4 to 8.2/10.
Positive have been working closely with Cool Planet leadership, and we’ve seen a 17% increase in people perceiving our senior leaders to be positive role models for psychological health. From Positive’s Insights reports, we know how strongly this correlates with psychological health and performance at work.
In this hybrid world of work, we’re committed to building strong connection into our culture, and Positive have helped us do just that. Our team cohesion scores have gone from 8.0 to 9.0/10, while line manager relationships have increased from 7.6 to 8.4/10.
The culture and spirit of the company is always to the fore, and this work has further embedded this. We’ve identified our combined strengths as a passionate, committed, innovative team. Ultimately, we’ve challenged ourselves to build a better business, redefining and improving our structure and approach.
“Overall our experience of this programme was extremely thought-provoking and valuable. The Positive team were excellent in every area and we look forward to developing a long-term relationship with them.”
Rita Lalor, Cool Planet
Key takeaways
Positive very quickly understood our business, our culture and spoke our language. Their science-based approach has a strong appeal for our technically-minded people. They’ve empowered us to take control of our own psychological health and performance for the long term, with lasting benefits in our personal and professional lives. The strength of Positive’s collaboration is at the heart of our partnership’s ongoing success.
Positive's Viewpoint
“This continues to be a hugely enjoyable, fulfilling partnership for us – a true collaboration. There’s a satisfying synergy in our work together: Cool Planet leadership care deeply about their people, seeing them as the key to their strength and success. Our journey began with the senior team, and they’ve set the tone throughout the organisation, working hard to ensure psychological skills are embedded sustainably across the business. We look forward to building momentum and deepening impact in the years to come. ”
– Sinéad Devine-French, Chief Product Officer
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