Leadership Competency Development and Succession Planning

A newly acquired, entrepreneurial division of a global financial service company that specializes in developing emerging countries had existing operations on three continents. As part of the acquisition negotiation, the existing senior team would remain in place for a period of up to two years and then leave the organization. The CEO had led the organization for twenty years. Senior managers tended to be independent entrepreneurs. Organization-wide leadership competence and succession planning had never been identified, developed, or executed. Since the organization experienced losses during the prior decade, the organization also recognized the need for a change in strategy. The HRC was brought in for a three year project to build the leadership capability needed to launch them into a premiere banking organization in the countries in which they were focused. This work included facilitation of the development of a new strategy, development of a leadership competency model that would be valid for the diverse cultures involved, identification of talent and experience levels within all leaders, development of global leadership competence, and creation of a succession plan to transition the entire executive team out of the organization while elevating managers on three levels into their next tier of leadership.

The HRC successfully completed the project within the three years, working across all three continents, and with a diverse group who initially saw themselves as individuals rather than a team. We first developed a deep understanding of their structure, existing strategy, processes, culture, skills, and individual styles, as well as assessed the group's long-term commitment to this substantial initiative and its process. In leadership development, we utilized an inclusive process to create an effective competency model that was successfully validated by the individual leaders, and created a curricula and methodology that would leverage action-learning techniques to the greatest degree possible to maintain focus on actual business issues and outcomes. We identified organizational roles and skills needed to achieve core competencies, assessed the leadership potential of current and future leaders against the roles and needed skills. We additionally identified pools of leadership talent for development and began exposing them to leadership roles. Through a mentorship program we developed, we were successful in transferring deep market and business knowledge by the existing leaders to their respective replacements.

IT Career Pathing - Financial Services Fortune 20

The HRC was asked by a division of a Fortune 20 to develop a career-pathing and workforce allocation system for their information technology and quality assurance groups. The organization was shifting its culture from technology-driven, to customer-driven, and the organization also was planning and conducting a complete conversion of its business process from one technology platform to another.

The HRC began by facilitating the development of a competency framework for the group with a group of managerial and technical subject matter experts from the firm. The resultant competency framework included a set of clearly articulated measures of proficiency on three levels, for each competency. Subsequently, The HRC's consultants assessed the competencies necessary for an individual to succeed in various leadership and technical roles within the IT and QA groups. A career-pathing system was developed for employees to clearly understand role requirements and a developmental focus to be successful in different roles within the QA and IT groups. The system is working well in a rapidly evolving culture and the organization also recognized the value of this work for recruitment and employee development applications.

From Diversity Disaster to Appreciation

The Human Resource Consortium was one of six nationally selected firms to conduct legislated diversity training for 75 agencies employing 60,000 employees in the State of Connecticut. We were selected by an agency with 1800 employees for our high level of expertise and our orientation toward thorough customization. This agency previously had conducted diversity training, but unfortunately, the results had been disastrous - creating greater animosity and divisiveness in the organization. The anger remained a strong memory. Additionally, the agency was going through significant change led by their new Commissioner. Mandated diversity training was far from being in the minds and hearts of managers and staff; however, it had to be done as required by law. The challenge to The HRC was to develop a highly customized program that would mirror the mandated curricula, help participants get past their memory and feelings about the former program, and create a new level of understanding and commitment to diversity and inclusion. And, we were to utilize a Train-the-Trainer methodology to do so.

In the initial phase of customization, The HRC conducted a survey with all employees and a number of focus groups to understand the scope, depth and prevalence of issues within the agency. It was quickly apparent that this initiative was an organizational hot potato. Employees saw our customization process as an opportunity to raise serious, non-diversity related issues to management. And, we realized that before we could move these individuals down a path toward diversity and inclusion, they would need to know that they had been heard.

The HRC team created and conducted the Train-the-Trainer class for eighteen managers and professionals - some with training experience, many without. Due to the high level of sensitivity about this topic, we worked with staff who had experienced the former program to help them create a program with which they could feel confident and champion. The T3 was completed and the trainers were ready to partner with our consultants to conduct parts of the manager training.

The manager/supervisor program we developed helped managers to better understand their organizational dynamics and the critical business case for diversity for their agency. Once we had agreement upon the business case, with the mid-level managers we carefully facilitated strategies and action planning to effect a diverse and inclusive organization. We opened a dialogue about the role that managers should play in the organization and how they could effect high performance and higher morale. Through these sessions with managers, we enhanced their camaraderie, provided a compass to improve their organization, and met the mandated criteria. Simultaneously, the agency's trainers began conducting modules of the program they would conduct on their own with employees, within the Manager Sessions which were co-facilitated by The HRC's experts. This provided the agency's trainers with added support, practice, and feedback. Employee sessions then rolled out with teams of agency trainers.

Follow-up with our client during the course of the following year continued to be positive. The trainers had become champions of diversity within the organization, the managers understood and were exhibiting behaviors of inclusion, morale was continuing to improve, diversity now had a positive connotation within the organization, and leaders were working to resolve critical issues with mid-managers and labor.

Innovation in Diversity Education Design

A rapidly growing captive insurance company that leads its market, has a long-standing history of educating the staff of its nationwide insureds to lower risk and assist its clients to lower premiums. They are successful in doing so through their own educational subsidiary that has its own broadcast studio and satellite transmission capability. The HRC has been retained by them for over five years to conduct numerous programs on human resource management, including recruitment practices, sexual harassment, anger and violence, supervisory series, and leadership series certificate programs. Their Program Director consulted The HRC about substantial issues their clients were facing in diversity and conflict management and asked what could be done through satellite broadcast training that would help their clients.

The HRC designed a four-module certificate program with final exam for managers and supervisors. To effect behavioral change, the challenge was to build interaction, dialogue, and practice into a program where the media limited two-way communication. Managers learned basics in diversity, the importance of diversity within their industry, how to operationalize and model behaviors that value and leverage diversity and inclusion in their role as a manager, and how to effect appreciative conflict - leveraging conflict (a natural outcome of diversity) into a productive force. With The HRC' s vast expertise in diversity and experience in this particular media, we were able to construct a meaningful program that received numerous requests for a repeat series.