Aston University Engineering Academy (AUEA) has won multiple awards for their dedication to staff and pupil development. They're attached to Aston University in Birmingham, UK and has more than 700 students and 100 staff.
Daniel Locke-Wheaton is Principal at AUEA. He was conscious that as the academy grew rapidly, his people would lose that feeling of being connected with and seen by their colleagues and manager.
What challenges were you facing?
Our growth has been rapid and corridor catch-ups just aren’t effective anymore. The gap between leadership and employees became a chasm. We started losing that family-feel and that’s meant our people felt they couldn’t raise their concerns as often as they used to. Before, they would have come to see me immediately.
We were using BlueSky to manage performance but it’s become stagnant. Our people want a little-and-often approach, getting more performance feedback, more often. They don’t want to wait for bulky end of year reviews that add unnecessary time and pressure constraints.
There's been so much turbulence in the education sector over the past year. Weekly10 has helped us to weather that by putting our people's needs front and centre each week.
Daniel Locke-Wheaton, Principal, AUEA
Why did you feel that Weekly10 was right for you?
I found Weekly10 early on in my search. Immediately I was impressed by the enormous impact a simple weekly check-in could make. That it can be done through Microsoft Teams is a huge bonus.
The Weekly10 check-in gives everyone that regular time to reflect on their week and ask for support. The employee recognition element is a personal favourite because people feel seen. It’s something we didn’t know we were missing.
I didn’t want to have to give my staff yet another product they had to get to grips with. We love that it is just there when we need it and works in a way that already felt familiar.
What results have you seen, and how has Weekly10 helped you and your people?
We’re able to spot potential issues before they become real concerns very quickly. But importantly, we can intervene early. That’s what sentiment tracking has enabled us to do. We’re implementing processes to remove blockers in a way that we’d never been able to previously – which is a huge stress reliever for our people.
One of my favourite results I’ve seen first-hand seems quite small, but for me is massive. One of our lab technicians, who is seven or eight line managers away from me, did this brilliant bit of work. I wouldn’t have heard about it. But this praise was passed up to me through Weekly10. A few days later I saw them in the corridor and I was just able to say “thank you” like I would’ve done back when we were much smaller.