A world-class development program to boost sales performance. And sustain it.

Challenge

One of our prestigious clients, a Luxury Jewelry Retailer, needed to enhance the capabilities of its workforce in order to accelerate sales. A bespoke development program was designed and deployed across markets globally to identify employees’ potential and their capabilities, and target sales growth through people.

The objective behind the partnership between Luxury Jewelry Retailerand AK+Partners was to secure a high performing retail talent pool – for the present and into the future – through the Program. A central pillar of the Program was to determine employees’ readiness to step-up to more senior positions and identify development areas to stay competitive in the ever-evolving luxury retail market.

Close to 800 employees across 3 continents have taken part of the Program between 2016 and year-to-date 2018.

Assessment Criteria

26 Must-have Criteria Identified

Talent Pool

+850 Sales Forces Assessed

Global Coverage

16 Markets Covered

Solution

In collaboration with the Luxury Jewelry Retailer,AK+Partners designed the Program, which involved three key phases. First, there was a need to create a benchmark of the “ideal employee” for each position (or what success looks likein the position) which determined a set of must have competencies. Key stakeholders at the Luxury Jewelry Retailer contributed to the internal benchmark and AK+Partners provided external benchmarks based on their expertise and long-standing experience in the retail industry. Second, validated diagnostic tools – the Predictive Index Cognitive and Behavioral assessments, and CATIL®Talent Pooling survey – were used to assess each employee’s readiness and career potential, as well as their strengths and weaknesses to drive continuous improvement. Finally, the Luxury Jewelry Retailer’s human resources departments were trained and certified to use the selected appraisal tools so as to permit a powerful debriefing with each employee, and ensure a structured, highly objective and successful recruitment process for new hires. Individual development plans were designed to help employees understand how and in which areas to improve with linkage to the Luxury Jewelry Retailer’s mission to boost sales performance.

Assessed Sales Force 576 units
Promoted Talents Across the Globe 37 units
Personal Development Programs 88 units

Results

The Program helped determine the readiness of 586 employees or almost three quarters of the assessed population who were ready to assume higher ranking positions. For the remaining employees not yet promotion-ready, it defined the areas that required improvement to eventually drive their professional development forward.

Management feedback is very positive. People are their business. One executive remarked“It brings objectivity and measures in talent potential assessment, and supports targeted development investment”.

Concluding Remark

Building on the Program’s success, AK+Partners recommended the Luxury Jewelry Retailer to standardize and professionalize the recruitment process using the PI®and CATIL®suite of solutions on a Company-wide basis. The objective is to provide human resources across the Company with the right tools for selection and on-boarding of higher caliber talent.

Specific training programs were deployed to the identified talents focusing on areas which support performance in the job and shape future store managers.  

Following an initial pilot in four markets, the Luxury Jewelry Retailerdecided to open up the Program to 10 other markets in 2017 and 2018, and promote it as part of their annual Talent Review. The Program is ongoing and is being deployed across the world as a standard process for talent identification and development and extended to other job function and level.