The Talent Management Award is for learning executives who have developed a program that effectively integrates learning into broader talent management initiatives such as employee engagement, onboarding, succession planning, recruiting or performance management.
DIVISION 1: For companies with 10,000 employees or more
GOLD
Judith Almendra, Vice President, Human Capital, TTEC
TTEC faced a few challenges surrounding onboarding before Judith Almendra, vice president of human capital at TTEC, led a unified, cross-functional team to fix the problems and transform the onboarding process. Before the initiative, new employees were not receiving adequate equipment and system access on their first day, there was a lack of communication between new employees, the recruiter and the hiring manager when an employee accepted a job offer, and finally, there was a lack of consistent and effective new-hire orientation. The initiative, Onboarding: Creating a Wow Employee Experience, overhauled the existing, ineffective and frustrating employee onboarding process to create a unique, personalized and best-in-class onboarding experience for new global professional and enterprise services employees.
The initiative involved four simultaneous workstreams. The first workstream aimed to automate and standardize by simplifying and re-engineering the provisioning process and creating a streamlined, automated workflow model aligned to support requisitions by predefined user profiles for new employees. The second workstream aimed to connect and engage by creating a new employee, recruiter and manager communication journey map, which detailed new employees’ first-year journey. The third workstream was aimed at orientation. During this phase, they launched a “one-stop shop” on TTEC’s social platform, which included new-employee resources. The team also restructured and launched a new first-day orientation program, including an updated agenda, a CEO welcome video, a site tour, introductions, a one-on-one IT session for laptop setup and more. The fourth workstream focused on the new Year One program — a scalable and self-paced e-learning program distributed automatically during onboarding. Under Almendra’s initiative, the team exceeded their five goals for the program. They achieved an average onboarding eNPS score of plus-56; achieved a new employee onboarding overall evaluation score of 4.7 out of 5 after three months; improved the percentage of provisioning tasks completed on time from 42 percent to 92 percent; reduced provisioning work time by five hours per request; and achieved a 42 percent increase in users on the company’s social media platform.
SILVER
Natasa Prodanovic, Group Talent Director, Coca-Cola HBC AG
Three Fast Forward Programs designed under the guidance of Natasa Prodanovic, group talent director at Coca-Cola HBC AG, supported the company’s growth strategy by accelerating the development of the company’s top talents. The programs aimed to prepare top employees for the transition to the next organizational level by acquiring critical experiences, developing the right leadership mindset and building prioritized leadership skills through blended learning and exposure to senior management. The three programs included: Manage Self to Manage Others, Manage Others to Manage Managers, and Manage Managers to Manage Function. The architecture of the programs involves a mixed learning approach. Specifically, the programs are 70 percent experiential learning, 20 percent collaborative learning and 10 percent formal learning conducted internally through the company’s Leadership and Capability Center of Expertise and selected external partners. Prodanovic’s effort to redesign the fast-track programs, making them more outcome oriented and more focused on development initiatives and investments, resulted in positive improvements to the company’s talent development indicators. The programs doubled the promotability rate of Fast Forward participants.
BRONZE
Meredith Oakes, Global Head of Campus Strategy and Pipeline Development, BNY Mellon
BNY Mellon’s self-defined vision is to be an employer of choice for early career talent, building the company’s diverse pipeline of future leaders. Meredith Oakes, global head of campus strategy and pipeline development at BNY Mellon, helped develop a strategy to attract and develop early-career, high-potential talent. Through early relationship cultivation with university students, a rigorous summer analyst program, highly selective rotational leadership programs and creative talent engagement strategies, Oakes helped build a diverse, global pipeline of future company leaders. In 2018, BNY Mellon received more than 8,000 applications for positions offered through its Leadership Pathways programs. The program has a 15 percent applicant increase year over year.
DIVISION 2: For companies with less than 10,000 employees
GOLD
Jim Whiteford, Executive Director, Ally
Ally began with the slogan “Be an Ally for our customers” when the bank launched in 2009 after the Great Recession. Today, the company has a new slogan: Do It Right. According to the company, that means that all Ally employees do for others what they would expect themselves, with a collective desire to improve things and a genuine understanding of what really matters to the customer.
Under Executive Director Jim Whiteford, Ally Auto Finance executed an employee engagement initiative to integrate that brand slogan into company culture. The company captured innovative ideas and uncovered process inefficiencies by asking each employee for suggestions for improvement. To listen to the ideas and suggestions of more than 3,800 Ally Auto Finance employees across the country, 169 workshops were held at 11 job sites. Remote and offshore employee recommendations were captured virtually. In total, more than 3,300 employees (88 percent) participated, which led to more than 1,700 recommendations, many of which are currently being executed. In the collections department, for example, employees asked for a better coaching and feedback model to improve interaction with their team leads. In response, Ally made a significant financial investment in the CBS Management Operating System and 1,199 employees transitioned into this new working call model, which included a training effort to launch and additional departmental training going forward to maintain post-launch.
The initiative had two major positive results. First, employees learned how to infuse the brand slogan into their work, and feelings of pride and belonging to the company increased. Second, organization leaders demonstrated commitment to listening and acting, based on the collective voices of employees, and plan to continue the “Do It Right” initiative, with a new focus for 2018. In total, 98 action plans have been developed and are being executed throughout the company.
SILVER
Helen Rossiter, Senior Talent Development Specialist, West Marine
West Marine, the world’s largest retailer of everything needed for life on the water, believes the soul of adventure is in the willingness to face challenges. Knowing it had to change to thrive in a new retail environment, the company made a business decision to create a culture that supports continuous learning, growth and development. Helen Rossiter, senior talent development specialist at West Marine, led the senior team to the conclusion that individual development plans would help build a culture of personal development. The IDP process was eventually expanded to create supporting resources for the program, such as a district manager development program, badges, internal job postings, social collaboration groups to develop skills such as visual merchandising and more. In the short-term, associates are more engaged in their day-to-day development. Those on a path to development now have a clearer line of sight to achieve their personal and professional goals. In the long term, IDPs have been successful in the rebranding of West Marine as a company with a culture that supports the continuous learning and development of its employees.
BRONZE
Kathleen McCutcheon, Vice President, Human Resources, Tokio Marine HCC
Kathleen McCutcheon, vice president of human resources for Tokio Marine HCC, recognized the need to create a robust talent development function in the company. She knew building leadership development programs was critical to the continued growth and health of the organization, which had no leadership development programs or strategies in place. Her initiative, Leadership Excellence and Development, or LEaD for short, developed a comprehensive framework for leadership development programs where none previously existed. The program is used to develop and deliver development programs for employees from individual contributors to the C-suite. Two leadership development programs have been implemented and a third is in final development.
