Lendlease is a leading international property and infrastructure group, with approximately 13,000 employees across operations in Australia, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Headquartered in Sydney, Australia, their employees help to create places that leave a positive legacy with a focus on health and safety, customers, innovation and sustainability. Lendlease and their legacy businesses have been entrusted with many projects that have become the cornerstone of cities and communities – projects like the September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York, the Athletes’ Village in London, Sydney Opera House, Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, critical infrastructure, stadiums and entertainment facilities around the world, hospitals, schools, shopping centres, residential communities and high rise apartment buildings.

In February 2018, Lendlease identified a need to create a business initiative that demonstrated the core values of the business regarding employee engagement and career development. The issue (of underutilised development plans) was discussed with members of the Lendlease People and Culture team, and it was decided that the organisation needed a way to activate development plans, help them become relevant and useful to support the ongoing personal and professional growth of their employees. A working group was established, led by a new role in the organisation “Learning Community Manager”, who was tasked with leading the solution that would address the problem.

The working group assembled not only posed the question “how do we make Development Plans meaningful?”, but also: “do Development Plans matter?” Research was undertaken, showing that indeed Development Plans matter, but more importantly, having employees understand and know what development options are available to them, was crucial to constructing a meaningful Development Plan.

In an effort of aligning to the Lendlease Innovation pathway, the Develop You Festivals were created, resulting in 984 employees attended one of the 7 festivals across Australia. The Develop You Festivals were held in the following locations: Barangaroo, NorthConnex, Canberra, Kingsgate, Parramatta, Melbourne Quarter and Chatswood. The festivals traditionally ran from 11am to 2pm, across the lunchtime period.

Where possible, there was a consistency of operation applied to each festival, with repeated sessions and rotated guest speakers. The look and feel of the festivals were repeated in each location, using sustainable bunting, reusable posters and a recurrent setup for the stalls. Each location had tailored sessions to address the needs of the anticipated audience, however the overarching theme of career support and raising the awareness of development options was maintained.

Following the success of the Australian Develop You Festivals in 2018, as evidenced by the resulting feedback, they’ve now gone global across Lendlease. A number of Festivals are now running in Lendlease’s site locations in the United States, Asia and across Europe. The collateral, marketing, posters, artwork and design ideas are all being leveraged to ensure a consistency of event brand. The breakout session topics and stall holders are being replicated, again to ensure a consistency of event and maintain a high-quality experience is associated with the event, regardless of location.

Within Australia, the events for 2019 are now in planning phase, with further investment given to ensuring a broader reach and increased value to attendees. Senior Leadership within Lendlease have agreed to support the Develop You Festivals running on an annual basis, ensuring our commitment to employee career and development is maintained as a strategic priority and key driver to ongoing business success.