About London Youth

Although Rosie had been with London Youth since 2005, upon her appointment to the Chief Executive role in April 2012, she took six months to meet every employee, Trustee, a cross section of young people, members, funders and external stakeholders. Her purpose was to understand how each person viewed London Youth, what they do, their challenges and priorities for the future – what they thought they did well and what they should be developing further. With this feedback Rosie considered and re-articulated the Vision, Mission and Principles cascading these through the planning process in 2013. In this way all employees had a part of the new Vision, Mission and Principles and can connect with either a word, phrase or expressed intention of these. Rosie empowers others to lead, manage and deliver the organisational aims. She creates a shared responsibility for what London Youth is and does. Simple acknowledgements – either personally or through organisation-wide communications – can impact on individuals’ sense of achievement, contribution and commitment.

Managers set realistic personal objectives at appraisal and review these periodically during 121 meetings. Every 121 meeeting to to include time for mutual expectations – for the line manager to express how they want their reports to behave and for the line report to express what they want and need from their manager.

The Federation of London Yout Clubs' internal employee attitude survey was introduced in 2011 and repeated in 2012. There was lots of positive feedback, emphasising the commitment of employees across all locations. There was some negative feedback too, albeit a small amount but this was seen as a good thing – they appreciate that employees feel connected to London Youth and confident to share their feedback. In 2012 the Federation noted that a lot of feedback from Hindleap was concerned with what the centre offers, its facilities and need for investment. Theye collect feedback at employee team building and development events to find out what people feel went well and what they’d like to improve. For their Development Days – which seek to improve the corporate responsibilities skills, understanding and involvement of senior delivery staff – they use this information to identify future topics to explore with the group.