GOFORWARD LLC

From Stressed to Impressed

A small, growing company (XYZ for our case study purposes) recently developed a partnership with a large corporation, creating excitement AND pressure. XYZ has 60+ employees - with multiple promising products under development. Success has translated into a doubling of the workforce and an increase in its “virtual working” with vendors and partners.



The senior HR person for XYZ contacted GOFORWARD to enlist support for a workforce that appeared stressed, overworked and overwhelmed. Representing the leadership team’s business concern, that is, the need for staff to maximize delivery of current products (as well as minimize the risk of staff turnover), HR was interested in defining a staff development strategy. He knew that he needed to partner with a flexible consulting group to help him identify, develop, and deliver the appropriate solutions.

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Following brief, focused interviews with key leaders and representative staff, GOFORWARD conducted a staff survey, designed to surface the key issues underlying the observed organizational stress. The survey data, interpreted in consultation with HR, revealed that
• Many of the leaders recently transitioned from large corporations and academia - and did not have sufficient grounding in how a small, growing company operates.
• With the recent staff expansion, there was confusion in roles and responsibilities at the project team level.
• The staff expressed a loss of the simple, small company environment they used to have. They were overwhelmed with the demands of multiple business partners and the 24/7 nature of virtual working.

The GOFORWARD team has extensive experience in HR, organizational development, technical leadership, and process improvement. We partnered across our own team to design and deliver the following customized interventions for XYZ:

• Highly interactive workshops covering the key topics of
• Partnerships–big business/small business/vendors/internal groups
• Engagement = Productivity
• Project Leadership & Management
• Virtual working
• Team Effectiveness.

This training was supported and reinforced by

• the familiarization and practical application of “cool tools” across the workshops to increase staff participation and engagement and to improve processes
• 1:1 coaching for selected individuals.