Developing a Scalable Management & Leadership Capability at ManyPets
The Challenge
Following accelerated growth during the pandemic, ManyPets secured their next round of funding and continued its rapid expansion. While the organisation’s focus on hiring individuals aligned to its values and culture helped shape a strong people-first identity, it also led to emerging capability gaps,particularly within the management and leadership populations.
As the business scaled, there was an urgent need to strengthen leadership capability across two key tiers: managers and senior leaders. Building this capability was critical not only to maintain momentum, but to ensure the right culture, performance, and people experience could thrive during the next phase of growth.
Mission
To empower managers and leaders at ManyPets to confidently lead their teams, have great career conversations, and support people development, while contributing to a high-performing, values-led culture that scales with the business. This was to be achieved through the development of a practical, consistent, and scalable development programmes for both managers and leaders that would:
- Address specifically identified skill gaps, building confidence and consistency.
- Create a connected management and leadership community across levels.
- Lay the foundations for career growth and internal mobility.
Approach & Implementation
Creating a community of practice was critical for this group and therefore we designed two parallel development tracks, tailored to each audience but with intentional crossover to reinforce consistency and build a cohesive leadership culture.
Programme Focus Areas
Leaders:
- Strategic alignment and objective setting
- Problem solving and effective decision-making
- Courageous and constructive feedback
- Great career conversations and development planning
Managers:
- Effective objective setting
- Courageous and constructive feedback
- Effective decision-making
- Career conversations and development planning
Both groups undertook a 5-module programme over six weeks, blending in-person and virtual delivery to ensure flexibility and minimise disruption to business-as-usual operations.
Programme Components
Facilitated Workshops (tailored to each group) with supporting self directed learning to support personal growth and development
Group Coaching sessions to share insight and build peer support
Individual Coaching to embed learning and build personal confidence
Career Coaching Cards to equip managers and leaders with practical tools to lead meaningful career development conversations
Conclusion
By co-creating a targeted, blended learning experience, Let’s Talk Talent supported ManyPets in developing the next generation of leaders and managers, ensuring alignment to culture, clarity of expectations, and capability to drive future growth. This strategic investment in leadership is now paving the way for higher performance and deeper career development initiatives across the business.
The Results
The programme delivered early, tangible outcomes, including:
- Increased confidence among both leaders and managers to handle key people processes and conversations.
- Stronger consistency in feedback and development approaches across levels.
- Improved retention, with individuals feeling more supported and invested in by the organisation.
- A foundation of leadership behaviours and mindset ready to scale with the business.