This client, one of India’s leading rubber manufacturers, had articulated its 5-year business aspiration and was investing in enhancing its manufacturing capacity to meet its business aspirations. The CEO had also realized that to manage a larger scale business, it would be important to enhance the capability of the people, starting with the leadership team.
The company was using a behavioural competency framework and an individual development planning process to build team capability. However, both were designed 10 years ago when the organization for much smaller. Since then, this organization had grown significantly and had acquired a company which had expanded its geographical footprint and employee base. This prompted the review and re-design of its people development processes.
Our Approach and Solution
Considering the organization already had a competency framework and an individual development planning (IDP) process, the first step was do insighting on the experience of existing processes. This was done through a bespoke survey, which was administered online to employees across locations and functions. The insights from the survey highlighted the need to re-orient and strengthen the IDP process for employees to experience development.
The next step was to update the Competency Framework based on the new business requirements and Responsibility levels (which were updated before starting this work) to enable people to be groomed for roles at higher Responsibility levels. A BARS-based behavioral competency framework was co-created with the Leadership team using the ToP™ Consensus Workshop Method. The IDP process was also re-designed to include competency assessment, feedback from different feedback sources, development planning anchored on the blended learning approach and supervisor’s recommendation for career development of the employees in own team.
To equip employees to use the new competency framework and IDP process, applied capability building was done at the following 2 levels
- All eligible employees were trained on the new competency framework and the IDP process using a blended learning approach which involved immersive experiences and small group practices.
- Leader capability building to do competency assessment and conduct meaningful development conversations was done through workshops at the mid and senior management levels. Leaders were trained on tools and processes to conduct meaningful development conversations which they practiced doing small group exercises. The workshops closed with discussing how the leaders will apply this capability learnt in the workshops in their role.
The Results
The organization is now using the new competency framework and IDP process. Training & development needs are identified and actioned through this new process. Career development conversations are anchored through this process. And the organization is now working towards using the outputs of this process to conduct Talent Review discussions to make career decisions about employees.