Changing and Improving SEO Example Statement (250 Words)
At SEO level, assessors want team-wide change leadership. Your example should show you spotting a systemic problem, redesigning the process, handling sceptics through involvement rather than authority, training or briefing the team, and checking afterwards that the change stuck. Results should cover a whole team, not just your own work.
Example statement
SI supervised a team of eight advisers in a customer contact centre handling about 1,500 calls a week. Our call-logging categories were out of date, so management reports did not show what customers were really calling about.
TAs team leader, I was asked by the operations manager to review the logging categories and lead the change to a clearer set.
AI listened to 40 calls across a fortnight and compared them against the existing categories, finding a quarter of calls were logged as other. I proposed a revised list of twelve categories with clear definitions and worked examples for each. I tested the draft with two advisers for a week and refined the wording wherever they hesitated. I then ran a workshop with the whole team, explaining the purpose openly: better data would help us fix recurring problems, not monitor individuals. Two advisers were sceptical, so I involved them in the final review and added a category they suggested for a new billing issue. I updated the quick-reference guide, arranged short training sessions, and agreed a two-week settling-in period where mislogs were corrected without blame. I reported weekly to the operations manager on accuracy and shared one improvement each week that the new data had highlighted.
RCalls logged as other fell from 25% to 6%, reporting accuracy improved across the centre, and two recurring issues identified by the new data were fixed within a month. The operations manager rolled the category set out to the other two teams.
Use this as a model, not a script. This is an original example written for this site. Adapt the structure to your own experience — copying it word for word risks plagiarism and will not reflect your evidence.
Why this scores well
- You led the change end to end across a team, from evidence gathering to training and settling-in support, which is the scope expected at SEO.
- You addressed the cultural barrier openly, explaining the data would fix problems rather than monitor individuals, which shows change leadership.
- The result shows both a measured improvement (25% to 6% mislogging) and wider organisational benefit as other teams adopted your work.
What SEO level requires
| Grade | What assessors expect |
|---|---|
| HEO | At HEO, Changing and Improving means reviewing working practices, leading small-scale change with a clear method, involving the people affected, and measuring whether the change worked. |
| SEO ← this page | At SEO, Changing and Improving means leading change across a team: challenging inefficient practice constructively, bringing people with you through resistance, and embedding improvements so they last. |
| Grade 7 | At Grade 7, Changing and Improving means leading significant change beyond your own team: building the evidence and investment case, managing risk and inclusion, and delivering measured benefits at service scale. |
Common mistakes at this level
- Claiming credit for a change your line manager visibly owned
- No baseline: 'things improved' with no before-and-after comparison
- Listing activities (meetings, emails) instead of decisions and outcomes
Frequently asked questions
Big enough to show team-wide effect: error rates across a team's work, time saved per week, queue lengths, adoption by other teams. Exact figures are not required — honest estimates with 'around' are fine. What matters is that the result clearly affects more than just your own output.
Yes, if you challenged constructively with evidence and accepted the final decision professionally. Showing you questioned an inefficient practice and offered a worked alternative is exactly this behaviour at SEO. The mistake version is the story where you were simply proved right — keep the tone collaborative.
Add one closing line of follow-through: adoption by another team, inclusion in standard procedure, a review three months later, or training you delivered to new starters. SEO assessors distinguish launched changes from embedded ones, and that final sentence often marks the difference between a 4 and a 5.
Next step
Get the free SEO statement template pack — the same STAR structure used in this example.
Download the template pack