Situation Spotlight – Agricultural Sector
Challenge: North America’s leading and most respected fresh produce distributor had decided upon a growth strategy dependent upon new business acquisitions. Senior Management realized that they did not have the infrastructure of key homegrown talent needed to fill senior roles and ensure a successful roll-out of this strategy.
Solution: Top Talent Edge designed and implemented a custom executive development program to increase the pool size of qualified candidates for future executive positions.
Our custom program included: Creating a customized framework that identified and clarified the attributes and behaviors of the most effective executives at this company
Targeting the high- potential candidates that would be a part of this program
Creating a customized 360 degree assessment and individual report to help high-potential candidates identify areas of strength and opportunity
Delivering personalized coaching sessions for each participant to: review their report, develop clear and measureable developmental goals and identify actions for consistently improving their effectiveness
Identifying common areas of opportunity that the group collectively needed to improve upon and delivering team training that increased the ROE (return on effort) of participants
Establishing mentor relationships between program participants and internal senior leaders
Creating and facilitating a virtual university that included tele-seminars and online discussions to provide real-time application and deeper integration of content
Providing a year end “commencement” experience to reinforce the concepts and development that had taken place over the year and creating ongoing momentum by challenging the leaders to integrate this leadership improvement process into corporate culture by developing leaders within their subordinate teams
Results This program surpassed company expectations – dramatically increasing the pool of qualified key role candidates enabling the company to be more than adequately prepared to acquire additional business units. Additionally, employees are reporting a significant improvement in the quality of their leadership experience.
In addition to meeting and exceeding the initial project objectives, Top Talent Edge was able to go beyond the development of future executive talent pools of individuals to actually develop future executive teams. This was accomplished through the facilitation of relationships both vertically and horizontally – increasing the natural mentoring and education that participants gained from direct access to senior leadership. Additionally, communication channels were established to foster the sharing of best practices with their peers to develop solutions to improve the business on the whole…not just their own individual areas.
Situation Spotlight – Financial Services Sector
Challenge: One of Canada’s leading financial consulting firms recognized the rising cost of losing their high-potential women. They were looking for an innovative approach to solve this problem.
Solution: Top Talent Edge created a system to help them retain and advance more women through senior ranks and into the partnership and leadership positions. This customized group coaching program was tailored to mid-career manager level and up women who were managing a career and a family concurrently to increase their success in both their personal and professional lives. It was equally important to work with the organization to create a culture where these increases in both personal and professional success would be supported and rewarded.
This mentoring and leadership development program included: Identifying the high-potential candidates that would be part of this program
Creating a customized work-life balance assessment for all participants to help them identify their strengths and weakness areas
Delivering a two-day learning experience for groups of women from each major office from coast-to-coast to maximize the ROE (return on effort) of each participant
Incorporating a combination of group learning, shared best practices and facilitated dialogue to provide the organization with valuable feedback for enacting cultural and operational changes to support their goals
Involving the office leadership teams in introducing the program and to joining the women during the dialogue and debriefing time to help increase and demonstrate their leadership and support
Establishing informal mentoring relationships between program participants and internal senior leaders
Encouraging the establishment of informal alumni support teams in each city following the program delivery
Results: A highly successful program that is now in its fifth year of ongoing implementation with over 450 graduates – improved female engagement and job performance, increased number of women accepting leadership roles, decreased turnover costs by increasing the percentage of women returning from maternity leave and decreasing the numbers of women leaving the firm due to burnout or to work in competing firms. Additionally, this program created cultural changes by establishing new communities of support and informal mentoring within the firm.
Feedback mechanisms were also integrated into the program, resulting in valuable ongoing input from participants that directly impact and improve the inclusiveness of the organization’s culture.
The CEO has endorsed this program as indispensible to increasing women’s leadership within the organization.
Situation Spotlight – Hospitality Sector
Challenge A large hotel company sought help in improving the number of booked room nights originating in its reservation center.
Solution Top Talent Edge designed a custom program to equip and empower reservation agents to become more proactive in selling.
Our custom solution included the following: Helping the executive team define what the ideal interaction between the customers and the reservation agent would include – in terms of both the focus of the communication and the outcomes to be delivered
Assisting the team in developing a specific profile that defined the attributes and competencies a Reservation Sales Agent would need to successfully deliver upon the executive team’s expectations
Partnering with internal Human Resources leaders to reframe the “talent team” strategies such as modifying the compensation structure to incentive-based pay to properly support the desired outcome
Working with the team to develop an implementation roadmap that included detailed change management and training to move them from their current status to the achievement of their new performance goals
Results Sales for booked room nights dramatically improved while also improving the guest satisfaction quotient. Additional benefits included creating a culture of high performance and motivation for those working in the reservations unit. The improved culture and results-based compensation made this unit one of the highest rated in the organization for employee satisfaction and engagement.
