A world in motion. That is the ultimate goal of the retail chain Sports Direct. Literally because they want to motivate people to exercise, figuratively because they want to continuously evolve as a company in this challenging economy. A lot of change creates frustrations and stress for both managers and employees. To deal with this, Obelisk started interactive in-house training on dealing with change and increasing resilience. The result? An interesting combination of practice and theory, co-creation and intervisions and many aha moments.

Dealing with stress at work: increase your mental resilience

Optimizing operations, motivating employees, digitizing processes, improving customer service, ... Sports Direct is an ambitious company that sets the bar high. From its headquarters in the UK, the various Belgian subsidiaries are managed with the aim of providing the best possible support to management and employees. Sports Direct approached Commerce Training , the Belgian training fund for the retail sector, to organize a learning program around resilience and dealing with change.

"Sports Direct's question was crystal clear: how can we ensure that everyone in the company shrugs off this change and commits to our company's goals together? How can we grow as a team, as a company? A task that is right in the store of our training partner Obelisk." - Sabien De Mont, Director of Commerce Training

In-house training: resilient managers and teams

Obelisk engaged senior trainer Heidi Peeters for this assignment. She specializes in resilience and change, dealing with work pressure and connecting communication, among other things. After an intake with Sports Direct's human resources manager, the managers completed a preliminary questionnaire to identify their individual learning needs. They were also shown a video with a real work situation, which they had to assess individually. How do you think this manager handled it? What do you like, what would you do differently?

Based on these learning needs, Heidi put together a first training day: how to recognize your own stress signals, how do you handle change yourself, what are your energy drains and what energizes you? After this introspection, they learned techniques to also guide your team through change in a positive way as a manager. The focus is clearly on the coaching approach, even when resistance is shown. The transfer to the work floor was of course the ultimate goal. Six weeks later, Heidi organized a resilience peer review to learn from the exchange of experiences and to discuss how they had put the exercises into practice.

"What struck me was the enthusiasm and the growth mindset of this group. From the beginning there was a lot of openness to name the problems and to tackle them. This is only possible if there is a sense of security. The big aha moment? That as a manager they don't always have to provide the solutions themselves, but that they can stimulate employees in a positive way to look for solutions themselves."
- Heidi Peeters, senior trainer Obelisk

Strategically embed resilience in corporate vision

For training around resilience and change to succeed, it must be strategically embedded in the company's vision. Sports Direct wants to invest in a learning and innovative culture where they are committed to motivated employees and make the shift to a flexible and agile company. Because in addition to betting on tools for leadership, attention to a pleasant working environment through clear communication, for example, is also important. By bringing the managers of different Sport Direct branches together to spar about this, a sense of belonging and a common language was created. The participants were therefore unanimously positive about the training.

"It was an enjoyable and valuable training day. I was able to share and air my problems which made me feel supported and heard. The positive vibes of the group gave me a lot of energy to apply the new insights immediately in practice."
- Thomas Van Hecke Manager Sports Direct

Interested in resilience and change training?

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