Case Study – ALSTOM

We helped them with:

• Developing leadership
• Team development
• 360º assessment
• Development centre
• Strategy development and dissemination
• Common business objectives
• Executive coaching

The Brief:
ALSTOM provide infrastructure for rail and power. One of their major UK-based businesses had issues with top-team effectiveness ( a new team) and financial turnover against targets. We were asked to help ‘shape’ the top team and its strategic development.

The solution:
Based on business plan, short and long-term team needs, and leadership competences, we designed and delivered:

• 360 leadership assessment process.
• ‘Open’ development centre for all leaders.
• An inclusive team development set of activities to re-develop the business strategy.
• Coaching based on the defined competencies.
• The above blended to common objectives.

The outcome:
The result was to help this business achieve a €800m order book against a budgeted €550m. Moreover, a cost saving of an estimated 1.2m Euros in the first two months through enhanced decision-making. The process was so successful that it was also promulgated to the next layer of managers who became part of the strategy definition process for their own functional areas. This alignment turned this part of the business around from being seen as an issue to the wider business, to a model for other parts of the organisation.

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Case Study – EON

We helped them with:

• HR strategy
• Defining behaviours
• Branded behaviours
• Performance management system
• Talent system
• Pay and bonus systems
• 360º assessment

The Brief:

Undergoing rapid change, EON were building their brand with their brand consultancy partners. We were asked to develop new behaviours to reinforce the identified brand through staff behaviours to ensure a commonality between the brand and the organisations people.

The Solution:

Using the brand personality and values, we defined within the tone of the new brand description behaviours.

The Outcome:

The new behaviours were integrated into:

• Performance management – including the design and development of an on-line system for 13,000 users incorporating behavioural assessment as well as objectives and development plans (98% of staff set objectives on the system in the first year).
• Individual development through the performance management system.

To ensure continuity, we also provided:

• Several integrated e.HR projects in capability assessment, talent identification, leadership 360 assessment, and bonus allocation systems.
• A review of the HR strategy against organisational strategic needs.

Case study – Major High Street Bank

We helped them with:

• Performance management
• Developing a ‘High performance organisation’
• Career development
• Learning needs analysis
• Coaching
• Top-performer definition
• In-placement and out-placement

The Brief:

Our client had a major performance issue within a vital B2C division of organisation. With nationwide coverage, sales performance was significantly below budget, and staff turnover was under 2% per annum. Consequently, there was little room for promotion. We were asked to increase sales and help improve performance management to ensure the right consequences for performance – high, mid or low.

The Solution:

This was a complex solution for a complex business. It involved a blended approach which included:

• Assessment of all line managers against core performance competencies – measure and re-measure following solution implementation.
• Trait definitions for all staff to ensure the right motivators were applied to individuals.
• Definition of top-performers to act as role models by competence throughout the business area.
• Changes to some core reward and recognition processes to align with dominant motivators.
• Filming (anonymously) of ex-employee’s that had been badly managed within the business with their stories against their managers stories.
• Team manager training for performance management utilising on-line systems, personal action plans and the new processes.
• Workshops for low-performers to help them find the right role within the business elsewhere, or outside the business if they preferred.
• The above was blended into a set of indicators to ensure they became ‘business-as-usual’.

The Outcome:

• With the replacement of low performers with high performers, an estimated enhanced profit of £2m per annum.
• Increase in staff turnover from 2% to 13% enabling room for promotability.
• The promotion of the Sales Director to the Sales Director for the network – all high street banks.

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Case Studies: Finance

We helped them with:

• High potential competency development
• Selection methodology
• Training in selection and assessment
• Training in competency interviewing

The Brief:

Support to identify the high potential competencies and create a set of assessment tools for the recruitment of international card customer services consultants in 17 Countries. Therefore the tools needed to be culturally sensitive and accessible across the globe.

The Solution:

Our talent team identified the competencies as well as the critical behaviours for success and designed a series of customer facing role play exercises. These exercises are being used globally to select, develop and retain the best customer services talent possible. We also trained a large group of managers globally in the skills of:

• Assessment
• Competency interviewing
• Level A test administration
• Giving feedback.

The training was conducted across Europe, Asia and Australasia.

The Outcome:

The ROI of the project was a 45% reduction in turnover and a 37% increase in sales over a 3 year period.

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Case Study: On-line Global Major

We helped them with:

• Identify employee engagement drivers
• Engagement survey design
• Engagement survey system
• Action planning to increase engagement

The Brief:

In 2009, our client invited us to investigate and report on their level of employee engagement internationally. As well as concern for the perceived engagement of staff, this was an opportunity to benchmark the business and provide strategic engagement data.

The Solution:

Using Occupational Psychologists, to identify the 10 critical drivers of employee engagement, we conducted:

• focus groups,
• senior level interviews, and
• remote worker interviews

They were then validated against the top four models of engagement including CIPD’s. A total of 525 employees were invited to complete the online 60 item Employee Engagement survey over a 2 week period.

The Outcome:

The results found that 69% of the work force are engaged and committed to the organisation. It has been shown that high performing companies tend to have engagement levels of 74% or more. We are now working with the client to devise action plans for driving the engagement level to 80% well beyond the 74% high performing companies benchmark.

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Case Study: Electrical retailer

We helped them with:

• Identifying high potential competencies
• 360º assessment design
• High potential assessment process
• High potential development
• High potential coaching
• Training in assessment, development planning and coaching

The Brief:

Our client wanted to identify and develop its internal talent and lock them into the business. They were aware of an unacceptable turnover of this key group of staff.

The Solution:

We helped a National Electrical Retailer to design and implement a high potential development and coaching programme for their top 20 high potential employees for 4 consecutive years. This included:

• Identifying their high potential competencies and
• Designing an assessment and development event.
• Up-skill internal managers in the skills of behavioural assessment, development planning and coaching

Participants were selected for the event on the basis of: self nomination, manager referral and their 360 degree feedback results. Those who were successful at the event were chosen for development and coaching over an 18 month period. This process has been running for 4 years and we have found that it is successful in differentiating between high performers and high potentials.

The Outcome:

The ROI of the project was a 60% lower level of turnover in this population than the broader management population and over 80% successfully completed the18 month development programme.

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Case Study: NHS Trust

We helped them with:

• Core competency development
• Assessment centre design
• Development centre design
• Coaching

The Brief:

In 2009, we designed and delivered an assessment and development centre and coaching follow-up for one of the NHS Trusts. The Trust was driving towards Foundation Trust status and as part that process needed to assess the current capabilities of Directorate Managers and start an accelerated development process for them, focusing on the Trust’s eight core competencies for senior managers.

The Solution:

The assessment and development centre itself consisted of:

• Two structured interviews,
• Role-plays,
• Presentation and
• Meeting simulation exercises, and
• A business strategy paper followed by an
• Individual feedback session.
• Personality and emotional intelligence psychometrics.

This information was then compiled into individual reports for the individuals and their line managers, to be used for future development.

To embed the development in the participants, each participant had follow up coaching focused on their individual development needs. To ensure continuity and trust were maintained, this was with one of the consultants they had worked with at the centre.

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Case Study: Global Engineering Manufacturer

We helped them with:

• HR system needs analysis
• Climate survey design
• Staff survey system design across cultural boundaries
• Cultural sensitivity thresholds based on country of use
• Bespoke survey system – for other questionnaires that could be run locally
• Aggregated global data design and delivery
• Organisational action planning

The Brief:

Our client was using a manual process for gathering climate data across over 60 countries with the consequent issues of the mistrust that a paper-based system causes as well as the high workload in interpreting data and working through averages by location, country, job type and job role. Using a third-party, it took approximately 3 months for the results to be returned in a usable format. We were asked to configure a system that would hit 13,000 staff in 22 languages and with massive and immediate reporting functionality. Our remit was to consult, specify, design and configure the full system in a 2-month period. In particular:

• Creating climate surveys based on multi-level clustered indicators.
• Ensuring population coverage whilst protecting anonymity with easy access and simplicity of use.
• A means for monitoring climate at every level of the business through line of sight.
• A means for filtering results data through line of sight.
• Data based on the clients precise question indicator needs and the clustering of those questions.
• A means for creating ownership for improvements for every manager within the business.
• A way of monitoring survey activity levels in every part of the business.
• To be available across over 62 countries in local native languages.
• To cater for non-PC users by integrating an OCR function.
• And, all of this to have multilingual capability of 22 languages!

The Solution:

Configured from our base climate survey code, we:

• Further developed the client’s thinking with a number of value-added functions to ensure managers had all the information required to action plan changes associated with culture change.
• Followed the clients precise question model with its associated multi-level clusters for reporting purposes. Data was therefore divided along 3 distinct axis
• Enabled anonymous inputs including for non-PC users where OCR and rapid input methods were applied.
• Created language files for the whole site with automated language selection based on browser settings and an override for nationals located outside their home country.
• Provided a results dashboard for every manager in the business cutting the data by line of sight through a strong results filter hierarchy and the ability to click-through on graphs to lower levels.
• Enable aligned (based on line of sight) action planning for ever manager in the business to undertake and ensure this is monitored based on line of sight (business hierarchy).
• Moreover, provide the tool to ensure that nominated staff world-wide could create or edit their own surveys to run localised ‘climate’ surveys.
• Provide the client with a simple means for administering the site themselves by changing tables, questions, and any other pivotal data segmentation requirements.

The Outcome:

The benefits for are significant and include:

• Live data when it is most required that is displayed in a localised way and with the ability to cut the data along a many dimensions.
• Vast filtered reporting ability available to all managers.
• Different rights and privileges for users, managers, HR and administrators.
• Ability to assess activity levels (how many completed) down to the smallest groupings.
• A trusted system by users with little/no suspicion by users that the data will be used in other ways outside the survey.
• Accountability for action planning is with all managers and is monitored throughout the system.
• The ability to create unlimited surveys with no additional set-up costs for localised needs.
• 63% of all staff completing the survey world-wide in year 1 in 22 languages.
• New contracts for a global 360º survey as well as other team development and coaching consultancy work.