Investing in people is key to success in business and essential for developing the right culture and capabilities to propel organisations forward with purpose. Whether it's training-up new comers, providing growth opportunities for emerging leaders or refining capabilities within existing roles and executive positions - investment in people keeps an organisation aligned, agile and relevant.
Bupa is an example of an organisation that cares a great deal about it's employee value proposition and invests significantly into growth and development opportunities for it's people at all levels across the business. A core development opportunity is structured training programs that enable people to step-up, hone valuable skills and develop a greater sense of alignment and personal motivation as they grow in their careers.
Bupa engaged Gone Bush to provide an experiential learning layer for its flagship 12-month 'Future Leaders' program offered to selected emerging leaders within the Australian Customer Growth team at Bupa.
Gone Bush approach
Working with internal training managers from Bupa, we tailor-designed program elements, including workshops, participant surveys and homework tasks that built on themselves throughout the year leading towards a capstone overnight learning adventure in the bush. Timings for activities as well as the selection and sequencing of themes were aligned to Bupa's training calendar and leadership frameworks.
To help inspire and embed foundation leadership skills, we enlisted the support of leadership coaches Clint Seares & John Sutherland, who's motivational and thought-provoking styles were leveraged in both the workshops and nature-based sessions with Future Leaders.
In total, 55 Bupa Future Leaders participated in the program split across three groups for workshop and bush-based sessions. Bush sessions were held in National Parks and State Forests in close proximity to Bupa's offices in Melbourne and Brisbane such as Lamington National Park (QLD) and Yarra Ranges National Park (VIC).
The bush immersions, including the facilitated sessions along the way were designed as a platform to embed learnings from the full 12-month Future Leaders program and also to refocus participants on their personal growth and goals as they gain more leadership responsibility over the next phase of their careers.
The capstone adventure experience concluded with a graduation ceremony at a picturesque boutique winery complete with awards presented to participants by the Gone Bush crew and senior leaders within Bupa.
Many participants credit the Future Leaders program for giving them a boost in confidence and ability as well as increased sense of purpose and direction. The bush experiences also provided a platform for participants to reflect upon and consolidate insights from broader course content related to self-leadership, mindset, driving change, managing people and goal setting.
"One of the best development programs we've offered at Bupa. Our future leaders got a lot out of this journey, the feedback has been extremely positive. We're looking forward to offering this experience to more of our leaders."
Miles Williams, General Manager Capability & Transformation, Customer Growth - Bupa Australia & New Zealand