Bristol-based customer relationship marketing agency Armadillo, which works with big-name brands such as McDonald’s, Disney, P&O Cruises and Cunard, is offering employees external coaching as it moves away from a traditional line-managed structure.
This move aims to give its staff the opportunity to work through their challenges, ambitions, frustrations and ideas, empowering them to seek their own solutions and decide their own actions. 
The introduction of the sessions with renowned confidence coach Jo Emerson comes as Armadillo replaces line managers with task-based support to bring clarity to deliverables, skills-based support to build expertise in key specialism, and growth-based support.
Armadillo strategy and planning director Fiona Craig said external coaching was a must-have for the business and its 45-strong team.
“Internal support is very much focused on the work we do for our clients – you could say the client is the key stakeholder here, and all efforts are focused on doing a good job for them.
“The support offered by external coaching is centred exclusively on the individual – often there can be a tension between the two areas of focus, and in a traditional structure, line managers can struggle to do a really good job of supporting on all fronts.
“So this allows those who are exceptionally skilled in one area to excel, while the individual still gets supported on all sides.
“Jo is highly experienced in dealing with change and confidence and has a wonderful energy that felt right for us here at Armadillo. She will spark some great conversations and even greater ideas, we feel sure.”
Jo Emerson, pictured, a confidence and human behaviour expert, author and the winner of International Executive Coach of the Year (2019-2020), added: “It’s a real privilege to be working with Armadillo at such a critical time and to support team members as they grow and develop within an incredibly fast-paced industry.
“Armadillo’s new networked-support structure coupled with external and objective coaching shows what an innovative and agile company they are.”
Since its launch more than 25 years’ experience, Armadillo has helped major brands develop profitable connections with their customers.
It does this by building creative customer relationship marketing (CRM) campaigns that use latest technology to create digital communications based on real data insights.
