Asda is embarking on a company-wide leadership programme to engage more than 10,000 managers across its business.

The Asda Leadership Event, in partnership with leadership development provider Cirrus, has been designed to help senior staff across the business to bring strategy to life, and build on recent successes to improve performance.

Following a series of launch events, the programme will be rolled out across the organisation throughout 2011.

The launch process uses a range of techniques including specially designed activities and role-play to engage leaders and managers with Asda's vision, purpose and values. Cirrus has also created a toolkit of activities to enable Asda leaders to deliver the leadership framework internally and embed learning across the organisation.

Amanda Cox, head of learning and development at Asda, said: "The Cirrus team have worked closely in partnership with us to co-create a programme which will have an impact on everything our leaders do, every day."

In November 2010 Asda announced it will create more than 7,500 new jobs in 2011. Over the past five years the retailer has increased its sales by more than a third from around £15bn a year to around £20bn, creating more than 30,000 jobs across the UK in the process. In that time it has opened more than 70 new stores and rolled out its home shopping service nationwide.