The Challenge

When Wickes approached VA, their intention was clear. They wanted to build a more inclusive business and improve diversity so that everyone had access to opportunity.

As part of a wider inclusion policy, Wickes planned a programme for female rising stars. The programme aimed to support women as they progressed from junior to senior management roles. In doing so, Wickes sought to increase diversity within its senior leadership population.

The programme also needed to contribute to the wider diversity agenda. Therefore, VA Consultants designed it to encourage action research, meaningful conversations and visible role modelling. This ensured the impact extended beyond the participants and supported wider systemic change.

 The VA Approach

The programme VA designed and delivered was sensitive to participant’s workload and existing demands. The programme remained practical, pragmatic and manageable, while still delivering impact.

Our approach reflected VA’s core beliefs about women in leadership.

Firstly, the most successful women in leadership programmes do not run in isolation. Instead, they form part of a wider, systemic inclusion strategy that enables organisations to realise the business and societal benefits of diversity.

Secondly, the programmes do not assume the participants’ leadership was broken or needed fixing. Instead, it focused on enabling women to play bigger in their organisation and the wider world, while remaining authentic.

To encourage this mindset, participants helped shape and lead elements of the programme. As a result, they took ownership of their learning and created real work opportunities that increased visibility and leadership presence.

The programme also explored second-generation bias and how it influences perceptions of women as leaders. By understanding how this bias shows up, participants gained more choice in how they flexed and developed their leadership style.

In addition, the programme addressed how traditional workplace and career models often reflect masculine norms. These norms influence progression through factors such as networking, sponsorship, access to stretch assignments, feedback and job applications. Understanding these dynamics helped participants unlock progression opportunities more quickly.

Finally, VA Consultants strengthened organisational impact through participant-led action research. This approach extended learning and embedded change beyond the programme itself.

The Result

Nicola Clark, Wickes L&D partner said;

“As part of our ‘Making Wickes Inclusive’ agenda, addressing female representation at all levels in the organisation but particularly in more senior roles, is an important part of our strategy. We asked VA Consultants to support us with a programme that would harness and nurture our female talent.  As a business, we would like to increase our female presence in our leadership team and recognised that to do that we needed to support women by giving them the tools they needed to increase their confidence and encourage them to start to ‘playing bigger’.

We are in our third year of our Women of the Future programme and it has become a programme that the women in our business aspire to be on. The most powerful influence the programme has had has been the clear message that women can ‘have it all’.  They can be great at their job, they can aspire for promotion and they can also be working mothers.  The course has taught the women how to network and widen their net.  It has given them the confidence to coach, mentor and support other aspiring women in the business but most importantly, it has given women the confidence to take a leap of faith and go for the promotion, grab the next challenge, lean into their discomfort and play bigger at Wickes.

Since the first programme, we have had some women who have moved into bigger roles outside of Wickes and a third of the ladies who are still at Wickes have had movement in role, some have been promoted and some have had a lateral shift to more responsibility.  This is a massive success for us and all the women who were part of the programme are still developing and moving towards their next challenge.”

How VA can help your business?

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