Employees using PwC Canada’s Enhanced Working Practices score 12 percent higher in people engagement and high-performance team scores than their peers.
by Site Staff
November 19, 2012
KARIN MUCHALL
Development Leader, PwC Canada
Professional services firm PwC Canada, the Canadian affiliate of PricewaterhouseCoopers, approached changes to its learning modules by answering one key question: How can we accelerate individual and team development to achieve and sustain competitive advantage?
Internal surveys concluded PwC Canada was not delivering a distinctive experience for its clients, whose top priority was to retain proactive, insightful, relevant advisers. Advisers also need to be aware of the constant changes to regulations and standards.
With these concerns in mind, development and transformation leader Karin Muchall and the learning team at PwC Canada developed Enhanced Working Practices (EWP), now referred to throughout PwC as Team Based Learning. EWP includes a set of routines, behaviors and mindsets designed to increase the potential for high performance and learning in the workplace.
The program’s goals are to increase people engagement and foster longer relationships with clients and teams. Program success is measured in a number of ways, including effectiveness of learning and development to prepare for future work assignments, employee comfort voicing opinions, ability to receive constructive feedback, using client feedback to improve work processes and responsiveness to client needs and issues.
Learning leaders designed the EWP program as informal learning that is part of employees’ day-to-day routines. This approach shows employees the real-world applications of EWP from the start. The multinational corporation’s global people survey found individuals who implemented EWP scored 12 percent higher on people engagement and high-performance team scores than their peers at the company. Anecdotally, the program also has increased team morale and energy, promoted higher quality of documentation and greater involvement of everyone on the team. The program was so successful PwC expanded it throughout the corporation.