Seven Organizations Recognized for Next Practices in Human Capital

Seven leading organizations are recipients of i4cp's 2018 Next Practice Awards in recognition of their implementation of outstanding innovations and achievement in the advancement of people practices.

i4cp's Next Practice Awards celebrate and highlight leading-edge people practices and the organizations implementing them to positively impact the bottom-line. The winners will be honored on stage at the i4cp 2018 Conference: Next Practices Now (March 26 – 29) in Scottsdale, Arizona.

T-Mobile, Booz Allen Hamilton, Shell Global, Toyota Financial Services, TIAA, BAE Systems, and Land O’Lakes were recognized for excellence in HR initiatives ranging from career development to performance management overhauls.

Recent research by i4cp has found that effective learning and development techniques and workforce planning are two critical ways to both mitigate talent risk and have positive impact on market performance; many of the submissions by the award recipients centered on initiatives to improve the employee experience and alleviate talent risk.

• BAE Systems – one of the top defense contractors to the U.S. Department of Defense, BAE Systems needed an agile, strategic approach to leadership decision-making. It implemented a leadership development solution to transform business “lessons learned” to meaningful “lessons applied.” The program was so successful that it was soon expanded to senior management levels and additional departments.
• Booz Allen Hamilton – the global firm launched a performance management pilot to provide an avenue for high-quality, frequent, meaningful career conversations between employees and managers. The pilot was treated as an experiment, measuring engagement, retention, promotion, compliance, and cost-- Booz Allen saw improvements across the board.
• Land O’Lakes – the Fortune 200 company’s fastest-growing business, WinField United, was making huge investments in technology and projecting rapid growth, but HR’s strategic workforce planning confirmed a sizable skills shortage. Land O’Lakes solved the talent shortage with both conventional and creative solutions, expanded the visibility and opportunity for agriculture careers, and leveraged talent in agile teams, resulting in a 1,576% increase its number of interns and growth from $1 billion to $6 billion over ten years.
• Shell- After assessing that top quartile employee engagement could lead to a 20% reduction in accidents and 5% increase in financial performance, Shell identified an opportunity to drastically reduce the 18-month long leadership development programs it offers. Within eight months of launch, its overhauled program resulted in improved leader efficacy and team engagement.
• T-Mobile – after receiving feedback from employees that many were unsure about their next career opportunities, T-Mobile established an intensive “Career Success” campaign highlighted by a week-long online career event for all employees. Over 9,000 of the company’s employees attended the inaugural event alone, and it only cost the company $1.86 per attendee.
• TIAA– the Fortune 100 firm launched a business transformation focused on optimizing and transforming the way in which their financial services consultants service customers. The unit implemented a new learning platform to overcome previous challenges; the result of a pilot program was so strong—over $100,000 in savings—that a full implementation was immediately endorsed.
• Toyota Financial Services – in 2014, the company announced that to create greater efficiencies. it was moving its headquarters from Torrance, CA to Plano, TX to join its partner, Toyota Motor North America, at a single, shared, state-of-the-arts headquarters. The HR team faced many challenges over the 3.5-year transition, but were able to yield high satisfaction ratings and ultimately nearly 60% of team members made the decision to relocate.

The discovery of next practices—human capital tactics and/or strategies that are highly correlated with market performance, but that few companies are employing—is one of the Institute for Corporate Productivity’s (i4cp) primary focuses. To that end, i4cp looks to its network of member organizations to uncover world-class examples of next practices in action. The Next Practice Awards showcase the design, implementation, and measurement of innovative people practices that effectively address current business challenges.

The winners’ case studies are currently featured on the i4cp website (available publicly for a limited time), and those of other select applicants will be published starting in April.