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The Facilitation Impact Awards (FIA) honours organisations that have used facilitation to achieve a measurable and positive impact as well as the facilitator(s) who worked with them. More about FIA
Platinum award
Kingsway Mall
Edmonton, Canada
Client: 
Facilitators: 

The Kingsway Innovation Village

Impact

All the Kingsway Mall team (leadership, front line staff and contract staff) were involved in and affected by this process. The primary outcomes were:

  • Up-skilling of 20 department managers and supervisors.
  • 2 promotions of team leaders.
  • A library of tools was established, made available to all 65 staff and is actively used.
  • An 8% increase in employee engagement scores to 90%.
  • 12+ new cross-department projects created and implemented.
  • An office ‘renovation for innovation’ was completed to the satisfaction and inspiration of all.
  • There is increased confidence to navigate uncertainty.
  • The Foursight Profiles were activated and integrated.
  • The team transformed how they talk about and organize meetings.

Context and challenges

The Kingsway Mall is a regional shopping centre in Edmonton, Canada with 65 employees. It is a convenient destination for services, food and beverage and lifestyle offerings. Kingsway’s greater aim is to be a part of Alberta’s entrepreneurial ecosystem by supporting local business.

The Kingsway team strives to be a leader while facing industry change. The retail sector has experienced notable disruption such as an increase in online shopping, long-time brands closing their stores and customer desire for greater customization. In addition to these challenges, Kingsway is in Edmonton, which has the largest volume of retail per capita, making competition some of the toughest in the country.

Project objectives

To be successful and stay relevant in times of industry disruption and change, the Kingsway team set out to develop The Kingsway Innovation Village. Specifically, the objectives were to:

  1. Enhance the team’s knowledge of innovation processes and creative thinking.
  2. Create a tools and technique library that is accessible to all.
  3. Increase employee engagement and cross-department collaborative problem solving.
  4. Set up physical spaces that nurture collaboration and inspire creativity.

Approach

Kingsway Mall engaged Tamara Eberle, an IAF CertifiedTM Professional Facilitator | Master, and Shawna Eberle from Traction Strategy to help it achieve its objectives.

It was a priority that all key stakeholders co-create a culture of innovation together and that the process be collaborative, inclusive and participatory. As such, employing a facilitation approach was the logical choice. Group facilitation was used at all 5 key steps of the process:

  1. Engaging the team in the Foursight Framework.
  2. Co-creating a plan for the Innovation Village.
  3. Engaging front-line staff in the vision.
  4. Co-creating the office re-design.
  5. Applying skills and tools.