Assessment Systems partnered with one of the leading and most prestigious company groups in information and communication technologies to design and implement a future talent development program. Our client ran talent development programs in the past, but this time they needed an approach to correspond with new strategical objectives of the future.

Objectives of the talent program

A project was devoted to developing the future leaders who will drive the organization’s strategy with agility through the ever-changing market conditions. As a secondary aim, our client wanted to strengthen horizontal cooperation within the group of companies in order to eliminate silos and grow the integrity amongst departments.

1. Discover the best candidates for driving the company’s new strategy
2. Build the leadership capabilities of these talents to identify and drive strategically important projects
3. Strengthen the integrity and vision within the whole company group

The solution

Assessment Systems created a methodology with the involvement of the key stakeholders to design the leadership development journey for the top talents. The essence was to find the best combination of assessment and development methods to meet the high-level objectives of the client.

The future talent concept had the following modules:

1. The architecture of the required competencies
2. Assessing the competencies through 2 dimensions
3. Activating the talents for their development journey
4. Accelerate their development and skills

In the first phase, our consultants in close cooperation with the HR department developed a competency model based on the client’s corporate values and job profiles for managerial positions. The architecture of the model was based on the agile leader model as the agile approach of the emerging leaders was one of the key priorities of the talent program. The final competency model for the assessment of the talents was derived from a focus group consisting of business unit leaders and members of the HR team.

Before the Assessment phase, our consultants mapped the customized competencies to Hogan scales. Hogan assessments are valid and proven tools for evaluating the future potential and fit of employees. Leaders and managers including Division Heads identified their first-level successors who will participate in the talent program and will form the future of the organization. 75 candidates have been identified and proceeded to the assessment phase.

Candidates have been assessed along with a 2-dimensional model which focused on:

1. Their hard skills and achievements
2. Their competency results and motivation

For the assessment, talents filled in experience questionnaires wrote motivational essays, and completed the Hogan assessments. Based on the results of the assessments the top 25 talents have been selected to start their leadership development journey. The decisive criterion was the best match to the pre-defined competency model. The secondary criterion was to select candidates from each division to the development phase. This criterion was important to match the objective of eliminating the internal silos since the talents will work together on strategic projects in the future.

Every candidate went through an individual feedback session to learn about their developmental areas and gain self-awareness. The top 25 candidates received a detailed development session and vision about their future role in the company, discovered their main strengths, and gained insights into the usage of their potential. The phase helped the talents to activate themselves and get ready for their growth into the new role.

The top 25 talents started their development with a series of training focusing on strategic visioning, goal and objective setting, and strategy development to apply this knowledge further in their fields.

Results

The newly customized competency model discovered the capabilities our client needed to actively drive the organization to the future. The talent program increased all candidates’ self-awareness and shed light on their strengths and developmental areas.

After the first series of training, the top 25 talents identified individually 45 areas that can drive the company in the next 3-6 years. During a strategic workshop session, they discussed and aligned on selecting the 4 key areas together. The fact that future talents from various divisions defined the key focus areas together will support the organization in eliminating the silos, empowering closer horizontal cooperation.