Yvette Gyles

My areas of expertise

• Leadership and Management
• Change and Innovation
• Personal effectiveness

At the moment

I have recently been supporting leaders and managers with their development, through variations of our Transformational Leadership programmes. I’m particularly excited to have worked with leaders at several universities, including Brunel University of London, University of Worcester and City St George’s University of London. Leadership can be tough, especially when over recent years we have been navigating through challenging times. The City St George’s University of London programme completed at the start of the summer, for the 9^th time. This is a brilliant way for people from across different departments and areas to connect, explore leadership together, bring the City values to life and share their experiences. Read more about that in our case study. These programmes include topics such as Strategic Thinking, Innovation, Change, and Motivation.

Coaching is also a key part of these programmes. Coaching is a really empowering way to enable people to perform at their best – without you being physically present. Having practical skills to hold the conversations that help people to solve their own challenges, and learn from their own experiences is a real confidence booster: both for the coach and the coachee. I have also been privileged to support managers from a range of charities through one-to-one coaching. These structured conversations provide crucial time and space to reflect on management skills, leadership behaviours and how to get the best out of yourself and others. I am always thrilled when I see someone have a breakthrough in their thinking, and set really clear actions that will be impactful for them, their work and their colleagues. I’m inspired by their self-awareness and motivation to be a better manager.

Sadly, we’ve seen a significant number of charities are having to make job changes and redundancies. I have been supporting individuals and groups in preparing for job hunting and interviewing as part of our outplacement service – which continues to be a popular way to support exiting staff. I have also been running workshops to help people with managing their career – through confidence building, self-awareness development, techniques for handling work challenges and learning from feedback. Giving participants a structured process for thinking about their career aspirations, identifying changes they can make in their approach, and techniques for self-development has been really beneficial, and you can see their confidence growing. These programmes are all based on developing a growth mindset, and its wonderful to see how much people get from them. I think it is incredibly generous and also absolutely right that organisations  able to offer this support to their staff.

It’s certainly turbulent times in the sector. We’re also seeing charities reimagine their strategic plans and undertaking restructures to be fit for the future. As a result , I am also providing lots of different organisations with our two Change programmes. Managing Change provides crucial tools to support others through change, especially for middle managers who are facing challenges in lots of directions. I’ve also been able to support people with handling change through our Change and Me programme. Navigating change can be uncomfortable and challenging on so many personal levels, even when we can understand why the change is needed and necessary. I think it’s wonderful that organisations are willing to invest in their staff with such essential skills especially during tough times.

Before =mc learning

Before joining =mc learning, I worked in HR for several years in both the private and charity sectors. I started out at a major City Law firm, where I provided a support role to staff, managers and senior management on all kinds on employment issues. Whilst there, I really enjoyed developing and facilitating training for staff and HR colleagues alike. My interest in helping other people to do their best work and facilitating that grew from here. I was also involved in large change projects, working with management to lead change and providing support to staff. I’ve seen change projects managed really well, and know that even so people can find it hard to handle. Changes in technology, ways of working, job roles and even people joining or leaving a team can all have a different impact on different people at different times. Being involved in these programmes meant I saw first hand how important communication is, and planning!

I then moved to the charity sector, as I began to develop as a values-lead manager. I was the HR Manager at ODI. In this role, I managed a team to deliver lots of different HR activities. I particularly focused on designing and implementing the Learning and Development strategy. I also enjoyed providing support, advice and coaching for line managers. Throughout my time at ODI, I lead the performance management procedure. This meant working closely with the senior management team and CEO to ensure the process was strategically aligned, fair and met organisational goals. I also had a key role in providing training to staff and managers, and ensuring staff had development opportunities.

Now I am very lucky to be able to work so many great charities and organisations through our work at =mc learning. I am constantly inspired by the work the people on our programmes are doing and how our customers handle the tough challenges that they face. I’m really enjoying seeing people develop as leaders as they go through their own learning journey on our courses. This means honing their skills so that they are confident to lead others, to make tough decisions, to improve their own performance and develop their teams. I’m always delighted when I can see participants applying the tools they’ve learned on the course, and getting tangible results. When I hear from them several months after the course, I’m thrilled to hear how they are making techniques work for them.