Development Assessment Centers Create Dynamic Results for Global Cement Giant—Holcim

Download PDF 

The Challenge

Holcim is a global cement and building materials company with operating companies in more than 70 countries on all continents. Due to fast growth, organizational leaders soon found that the company faced a shortage of plant and commercial managers—key leaders for their successful operations. To address the situation, Holcim asked long-time partner, PDI, to assist them in creating development assessment centers that would increase the quality and quantity of leaders in their succession pipeline.

Holcim, founded and based in Switzerland, grew exponentially by internal growth and acquisitions around the world—nearly doubling its number of employees from 47,000 in 2004 to more than 90,000 today. Because of the rapid growth, leaders in the organization found themselves unable to internally supply the demand for plant and commercial managers.

“We had clear succession planning in place, but it seemed candidates never moved up,” said Flooris van der Walt, Holcim’s VP of Global HR Business Processes, in an interview with PDI. “Managers would say a person would be ready in three to fi ve years, but it seemed that time frame never changed. We were also fi nding that local talent who were very experienced in their own country were not able to transfer successfully to regional locations.”

The Solution

Holcim turned to PDI for their expertise in executive assessment and development and for their ability to provide a cohesive global team of consultants based out of 30 offi ces worldwide. Holcim started with a strategic competency model in 1994.

PDI then worked with the company to build leadership competency models for fi rst-level leaders through the senior executive/CEO levels, tailoring Holcim’s new competencies to refl ect global competencies for leadership across the enterprise and create “anchors” for the competencies, which are fi ve levels that behaviors are measured by. This gave them a reference point and allowed local managers to start interpreting competencies by the same standards.

“It made a major difference,” reported Holcim executives.

In 2006, PDI worked with the organization on three pilot regional development assessment centers in Europe, Asia, and South America. Prior to this, individuals had been assessed by Holcim at the local level, however, the level of development options tended to be limited. PDI introduced regional development centers that consisted of fi ve PDI consultants and fi ve Holcim executives. Ten high-potential participants were chosen for evaluation during each two-day program. PDI consultants trained the Holcim executives in assessment evaluation and in delivering feedback. Immediately following the development center, the Holcim executives, with one PDI representative, would discuss each individual’s readiness to take on an expanded role and create a development plan for each individual to close the gaps.

Holcim reported that because the panel meeting was regional, individuals had many more development options available to them. The managers who attended the development centers to observe the process came out with a far better understanding of how to observe, understand, interpret competencies, and how to think about development.

The Results

To date, more than 200 managers have been assessed. The development centers are conducted annually and Holcim has extended the practice into their Mexico and Russian locations.
 
“It’s fairly uncommon for an organization of this size to devote as many resources to assessments as Holcim is, which speaks to their commitment to developing global leaders,” said Charlotte Gerstner, vice president and managing director of PDI’s Geneva offi ce and client manager for Holcim.

“We started from a business need—a shortage of plant and commercial managers. We realized we had to develop them internally. Because of this, we had tremendous support from our senior executives. And the participants in the development centers became so impressed that they ‘sold’ the idea throughout our company,” Holcim HR executives said.

Because of this process, Holcim has been able to move people up much quicker. Some of its leaders who were in the three- to fi ve-year span were able to advance within a year. Others have been able to move out of one function and into another. The organization is now able to confi dently identify and appropriately develop high potentials. They also report having moved people quicker in all regions.

Holcim’s HR executives say that participants have appreciated the process. “They report that it is a fair process and they like getting feedback immediately. An added advantage is that many of them have ended up being coached afterward by one of the executives on the panel, which they would not have had access to prior to these development centers.”

“It was important to Holcim that we were able to put together a truly global team who could provide the same level of service and consistency across the world,” Gerstner said. “In the beginning, the global account manager from PDI attended all regional development centers to ensure calibration and consistency. Today, even though the process is running smoothly, I attend as many development centers as possible. We’ve also made a point to have regularly scheduled calls to follow up on progress and I also send out a newsletter to each of Holcim’s regions so that they can stay current on what’s happening with the development centers,” Gerstner said.

“We have extended this to other functions at Holcim. This has proven to be a very good global program. We’ve seen the results in the people who have been advanced they are doing well. We’re seeing promotion decisions being based on assessment results. For example, we had a fairly inexperienced, young woman in Thailand who did well on her assessment and so she was appointed to a manager position. This probably would not have happened before. We are filling critical positions now and that’s what we wanted to happen,” van der Walt said.