Bioss UK – A Bioss Affiliate Company – United Kingdom

Case Study

Designing and Delivering Development Centres using Bioss Tools

The Client

A leading global paints and coatings company and a major producer of specialty chemicals, that supplies industries and consumers worldwide with innovative products and sustainable technologies designed to meet the growing demands of our fast-changing planet.

The Challenge

Following the appointment of a new CEO, a key element of the new strategy was to evaluate the effectiveness and capability for change of the key functions to meet the planned challenges of the new organisational strategy.  The first function to undergo a complete review was the Human Resources Team and this led to the project described below.

The Work

  • Design, develop and agree on a Development Centre where over 100 HR Business Partners globally were to participate
  • Have multiple exercises to ensure that participants were viewed from a number of perspectives
  • Develop individual reports and feed back the key findings to participants
  • Identify the capability of the total group of HR Business Partners against the HR Business Partner Competency ratings to understand the current and future potential of the group over time, as well as the cultural indicators

To do this, Bioss UK set up a 1.5 day HR Business Partner Development Centre with eight candidates per centre.  The Development Centre included the following exercises, with initial feedback during the 1.5 days:

  • Modified Career Path Appreciation – a one-to-one appreciation with a Bioss practitioner to appreciate an individual’s capability to handle uncertainty, deal with increasing complexity and make decisions, as well as to ascertain how that capability would grow over time
  • Linked Personal Appreciation – a psychometric tool that includes team types, conflict handling, work and learning styles and personality, as well as managerial style
  • Working Relationships Appreciation – a questionnaire that analyses gaps between the individual’s responses and those of the immediate line manager, direct reports,  and peers
  • In-Box Exercise – to understand how the individual prioritises and performs key work tasks under time pressure
  • Presentation Exercise – to identify how the individual responds to a brief and the effectiveness of their communication to the audience
  • Functional Interview – a structured format conducted by an external HR professional to gain insights about the interviewee’s professionalism

After a review session of all the results, the assessors ranked each candidate against the HR Business competency model. This process also included Senior HR professionals from the client to learn more about the process.

Benefits to the Client

  • Aggregated data about collective strengths and development areas for the HR Business Partner Group was presented to the Senior HR Leaders to highlight the prevalent culture in the HR function and to draw attention to areas for action to meet the organisational strategy.
  • The mapping of the  current capability and potential of HR Business Partners provided detailed roadmaps for improved succession management in the organisation in the short, medium and long terms.
  • The comprehensive individual reports provided for each candidate, highlighting key strengths and development areas and supported by  telephone follow ups, were appreciated by all of the participants.

For more information, please contact Peter Taylor.