Building commercial fluency in engineering and delivery leadership capability at First Choice

First Choice approached the corporate learning desk with a capability problem in commercial fluency in engineering and delivery leadership. The presenting symptom was account conversations moving from effort and headcount to outcomes and commercial risk, faster than delivery leaders were prepared for.

Discovery ran across three sessions with the L&D team and the business heads who owned the gap. The population in scope came to 4,323 employees, spread across levels, which ruled out a single course and pointed towards a levelled structure.

We built a role-level competency matrix with the First Choice HR team and baselined the population against it before any content was written. 3 programmes were then designed against that matrix, each module traceable to a named competency.

Delivery ran in 6 waves so the business was never short-staffed, with roughly 303 line managers briefed on what their teams were being asked to do differently. Every live session was recorded, and the schedule was built around the technology operating calendar rather than faculty convenience.

Cohort completion settled at 94%, measured as learners who cleared every assessment, not as learners who attended. The same competency instrument used at baseline was repeated at the close of each wave.

The end-of-engagement review with the sponsor covered movement against baseline, the effect on win rate on renewal conversations, and — as in every iAdmit review — the design decisions that did not work and were changed between waves.