Ecora Engineering Case Study

You can’t improve it if you are not aware of it.

“Our investment has brought significant returns to our meetings, our leaders’ management styles, engagement throughout the organization, and to our bottom-line.”

– Kelly Sherman, President and CEO, Ecora Engineering Group Ltd.

Company Background

Ecora was launched in 2010 as a forestry and environmental services firm and soon after officially expanded into the engineering space. The Kelowna, BC based enterprise expanded to 150 people over the first eight years.

Ecora offers a full spectrum of consulting services in natural resource and engineering to diverse clients in forestry, oil and gas, municipal developments, environmental, alternative energy, and other industries. They also provide services and support to meet the unique needs of multiple First Nations communities.

Industry:
Engineering & Natural Resources

Solutions:
People Analytics: Vital Statistics Report
Team Development Program
Leadership Development Program

Challenges

Ecora’s CEO was experiencing stress and uncertainty as he watched his young new hires leave his growing, multiple location engineering company within their first 60 days. He was frustrated that his employees were not communicating effectively or understanding priorities and thought they were afraid to engage in difficult conversations.

Approach

Ecora engaged with Vivo Team to deploy a development program for their senior leadership team. In consultation and partnership with the President and CEO, Vivo Team set out a course of action based on the process of people analytics. Namely collecting, measuring, analyzing, predicting, prescribing, delivering solutions, and reporting data with the aim to optimize and improve the senior leadership team’s behaviorally-based performance.

“I had some assumptions about where we needed help, but Vivo Team’s people analytics left no question as to where we needed to focus. They pin-pointed the issues of our teams and leaders and outlined a training plan that fit seamlessly into the flow of our workday.”

– Kelly Sherman, President and CEO, Ecora Engineering Group Ltd.

Vital Statistics Report (VSR)

The VSR anonymously measures how well team members and their leader are functioning together in six key indicators of highly functioning teams: communication, accountability, interactive feedback, structures, emotional intelligence, and cohesion. Within each of those six key indicators are measures of competence, motivation, and collaboration.

The data also yields an evaluation of leader effectiveness—the differences in perception about what the leader thinks they are doing and what their team members see them doing in the key leader behaviors that affect team performance.

The analytics illustrated that Ecora’s senior leadership team were 53% effective when working with one another, resulting in a loss of $366,600 per year, also known as the cost of lost productivity (validated by University of British Columbia Statistics Department).

Team and Leadership Development Program

The VSR pinpointed priority areas that the team needed to improve—communication and structures—and live, online instructor-led training sessions were delivered in interleaving segments (60-minutes per session) over four months.

After each session participants received recordings for review. Team members also receive a hot sheet (a summary of the key points ) for each session.

“Vivo Team is an effective, responsive, and highly engaged partner.”

– Kelly Sherman, President and CEO, Ecora Engineering Group Ltd.

Results

After completing the program a second VSR was deployed to participants. In reviewing these results leaders can see the behaviorally-based changes and the ROI as a result of the program as well as areas that continue to need improvement.

Senior Leadership Team

Both communication and structures improved on the senior leadership team by 27%, with one team increasing their structures by 41%. The CEO’s team reclaimed $85,800 in lost productivity.

Cost of Lost Productivity:
First Report $366,600
Second Report $280,800

Note: The results across the nine teams were not equal. Some teams improved more than others and one team reported worse results. The beauty of Vivo Team’s people analytics is that Ecora was able to flag teams who are high priority for development so senior leaders can support and develop them.

“A benefit I had not anticipated was the positive impact on the rest of the company who didn’t participate in the training.”

– Kelly Sherman, President and CEO, Ecora Engineering Group Ltd.

Overall Organizational Impact

Vivo Team also deployed the VSR (before and after four months) to nine of Ecora’s departmental teams. Aside from the senior leaders, team members did not participate in the program. The senior leaders were encouraged and reminded during their training to transfer their learnings to their direct reports.

The total cost of lost productivity of all teams at the beginning of the training was $1,600,000. After only four months the cost of lost productivity was $1,380,000 for a recovery of $220,000. That’s an ROI of $7 for every $1 spent on team development in just four months.

Cost of Lost Productivity:
First Report $1,600,000
Second Report $1,380,000

Next Steps

Due to the success of the initial engagement with Vivo Team, Ecora continues to commit to investment in team and leader development guided by people analytics to further measure the specific impact of these data-driven solutions.