Onderwijsgroep Amstelland

What was the objective?

Education Group Amstelland (OGA) organised a workshop series with employees, both teachers and support staff, to involve them in the long term strategic vision of the organisation. People that work within education work on the crossroads of the personal, the professional, and the public: they shape young minds, within a changing social and political reality, while of course maintaining their own personal preferences and views. It is therefore no surprise that aligning values and collaborating towards a common goal can be challenging.

What did we do?

OGA used Civinc for a live workshop series with OGA employees to involve them in shaping the strategic vision for the next two years. The topics varied from the necessity of dual-language courses, to the extent in which you should start to learn toddlers about climate action. All sessions ended with a plenary reflection where participants took data outcomes as a trigger for group discussions.

What was the outcome?

Participants felt that they had an equal voice with regard to important but oftentimes sensitive subjects, where normally the ‘usual suspects’ take centre stage. Data analysis revealed new ideas directly from employees that could help achieving OGA’s strategic goals – something they would have missed during more traditional focus groups or townhall-type meetings.

What did the customer say?

“Civinc has designed a very valuable session for our educational staff day. Completely customized and with great cooperation, before and after. We really worked “together” and Civinc remained involved until the end. The outcome of this session on citizenship has given us as an organization good insight into which themes deserve our further attention. Civinc was also able to advise us on follow-up steps”

What did users say?

“I enjoy being challenged and I changed my mind a few times based on hearing a different perspective” “You can discuss topics anonymously and that makes you more honest or more likely to say things that you would normally keep to yourself”