The Problem
Minor International was doing well. As a multi-national conglomerate with their feet solidly planted in hospitality, restaurants and lifestyle brands distribution, they were generating comfortable returns.
The organization was planning for exponential growth, and they recognized that people were critical to their success. While HR was meeting internal expectations, the Chief People Officer saw that there were opportunities for the HR team to become more strategic, contribute more business value, and better leverage activities across businesses at a group level.
The Solution
In order to achieve the level of transformation Minor was targeting, it was clear that the traditional HR Academy framework would need to be expanded. Together, Minor and RBL created a custom development experience that involved HR leaders from all business units. Leveraging RBL’s existing HR curriculum content, Minor and RBL co-created 1-day modules that would be delivered once per month for a year.
Extending the time between sessions allowed HR professionals time to study books and articles and arrive to the trainings prepared with a point-of-view, questions and ideas regarding how principles could be applied within their organization. The resulting sessions were highly interactive with targeted discussion about how to apply key concepts to move the business and the function forward.
A critical part of the program focused on creating an “outside-in” perspective. To that end, Minor’s leaders and RBL decided to incorporate exposure to different business functions as well as external partners Minor used (other consultants, etc.). This broad business and external exposure helped build more robust understanding of the overall business and of external best practices.
A key component of the program was project work that required cross business teams to apply their learnings in a real business environment. Some projects that the teams worked on included the creation of the group’s employee value proposition, specifying and selecting a new core HR system, and the development of the group’s leadership competencies.
The Outcome
As a result of the year-long program, there was a significant shift in individual HR capability to be more strategic and effective business partners, and in the HR organization’s ability to focus on initiatives that would have the biggest impact on the business.
Individual HR Capabilities Increased: Business leaders noticed and appreciated the shift in perspective from HR leaders in the program. One leader commented that he noticed that interactions with HR across the organization was much more business focused and more strategic.
HR Organization Focused on Business Impact: Minor’s leaders clearly saw that HR was contributing to solving big picture business problems vs implementing HR programs as they had in the past. The work from the projects became the foundation of HR’s key priorities for the following year which was aptly name HR’s “Super Six” initiatives.
Finally, Minor saw increased collaboration across business units as HR leaders continued to work together, and with the business and external groups supporting the business, to understand and solve the people challenges that impact the business.