Case Studies
Executive Coaching
Situation:
Our client, a leader in the communications and content space, engaged the firm to assist a key senior leader with a mid-career transition. While historically a star performer, this leader’s performance had declined in the new role. The organization needed this individual to deliver strong results with their new team for the division to be successful.
Process:
We met with the VP HR and the leader’s manager to understand the needs of the organization along with the individual’s performance strengths and areas of development. We then assessed the leader with the Hogan and a 360º assessment with Emotional Quotient. From these assessments, focusing on evident strengths, we charted a course to improve individual and team performance. The interventions included biweekly coaching, reviewing business strategy and discussing ways to gain collaboration from peers with clear alignment within the team.
Results:
Our efforts resulted in the leader rapidly improving individual performance and advancing team performance beyond executive leadership’s expectations. The leader was better able to collaborate with peers, lead a diverse team more effectively and communicate desired results in a manner that enabled the team to take action. The leader and their team successfully delivered needed results for the division, solidifying a high-performance position within the organization.
New Leader Transition Coach
Situation:
A senior HR leader was promoted from within the company.
Process:
- We worked with our client’s HR and Operational leadership teams to identify focus areas and ensure successful onboarding. We performed a Hogan assessment to understand day-to-day operations and stress behaviors and uncover strengths to emphasize in business performance plans.
- We facilitated weekly face-to-face coaching meetings to identify improvement areas and foster practical, real-time strategies.
- We provided review and input to create an HR strategy and organizational design to ensure a seamless department deployment.
Results:
The HR leader enjoyed a successful transition, as measured by the rapid adoption of a new HR structure that increased both the resolution of employee relations issues and the speed at which the organization adopted change.
Leadership Development / Sales Team Coaching
Situation:
B+B helped a partner develop and execute a two-day sales leadership summit and coached five sales leaders for two months following the event.
Process:
- We worked with our partner’s VP of Sales to determine focus areas and ensure that company leaders understood how to manage through others and coach their teams for increased sales execution against changing business environments.
- We conducted weekly meetings with sales leaders to discuss new strategies for overcoming business and sales performance challenges.
Results:
Our efforts inspired our partner’s top sales month of the year and garnered recognition from partner executives for our impactful contributions.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategy Development
Situation:
Despite garnering external accolades for its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, a client in the quick-service restaurant (QSR) space struggled to translate these initiatives into better internal collaboration and acceptance of the advantages of corporate diversity. Our partner aimed to engage its entire workforce and drive retention and customer satisfaction through its renewed inclusion and diversity efforts.
Process:
- We interviewed key constituents and the senior leadership team to gauge key diversity issues from various perspectives.
- From these interviews, we developed and presented recommendations for a diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy that focused not just on expanding the talent pool, but also on translating this range of skills and abilities into business success.
Results:
Working together, B+B and our client developed a successfully adopted diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy that included the company’s first Diversity Steering Committee Charter.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion — Thinking and Working Session
Situation:
Our pharmaceutical client wanted to achieve meaningful diversity, equity, and inclusion impact after the murder of George Floyd. But the organization’s leaders were unsure how to translate social justice motives into a movement that would enable more thoughtful and effective colleague collaborations focused on achieving business goals.
Process:
We worked with the CEO and CHRO to understand what impact social unrest had on the company and its employees and what steps were taken to date. Once we understood the organization had not had meaningful internal discussions about diversity, equity, and inclusion, we crafted an approach to educate and begin planning for the effort with a small but committed group of employees. Starting with this group of individual contributors and leaders, we workshopped a collective understanding of diversity and its value in improving collaboration, innovation, and ability of team members to achieve business results. Our goal was to transform organizational feelings of injustice and social inequity into a sustainable effort that would help each individual recognize the benefits of a unified yet diverse culture with common purpose and goals.
Results:
Our efforts resulted in a company-wide diversity, equity, and inclusion definition, expansion of corporate values, and a balanced action plan that included: efforts to recruit demographically and behaviorally diverse people, training modules that encouraged employees to work together more effectively, coaching opportunities for people managers to lead diverse groups more effectively and community efforts to support the business and its diversity mission. We also outlined a process for the HR team to evaluate current policies and procedures to support their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Online Training
Situation:
Our client engaged the firm to assist with online diversity, equity, and inclusion training that would enable leaders to effectively work with colleagues and team members of varied cultures and backgrounds.
Process:
- We worked with Senior Operational and HR leadership to determine the areas of focus for the training and to ensure that goals were tied to business objectives.
- Our team conducted trainings for 150 leaders across the country that enabled higher self-awareness and the ability to facilitate a respectful collaborative dynamic to ensure team success.
Results:
Our efforts resulted in measurably positive changes in management perception, as noted in the organization’s employee engagement survey feedback.
In-Person Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Workshop
Situation:
Our client engaged the firm to assist with the development of a one-day, in-person diversity, equity, and inclusion coaching session for leaders and frontline employees to increase their understanding of DEI and its positive impact on business effectiveness.
Process:
- We evaluated business needs and past approach success/challenges with the VP of Learning and Development, VP of Diversity and Inclusion, and operational leaders.
- We developed a prototype training module, that was then workshopped with a group of participants. The testing group assisted with refining the approach and the teaching methods.
- The training module was implemented with more than 5,000 participants.
Results:
With the coaching session as the kick-off program, B + B contributed to laying the groundwork for a sustainable effort focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. All training participants gained an understanding of DEI practices as essential to organizational success, rather than being relegated to a “right thing to do” initiative.
Performance Management System
Situation:
We were engaged by a client to develop a performance management system that would tie performance to merit increases and deliver behavioral outcomes aligned with company goals and values. The organization had a history of giving merit increases in an uneven manner that led to confusion about desired behavior and performance expectations.
Process:
After the CHRO and key business leaders partnered with us to uncover the needs of the organization, we created a system that enabled each area of the business to align performance to the business, cascade responsibilities, deliver expected business outcomes and model company values to each team member.
Results:
Through the successful introduction and sustained messaging about the new performance management system, each employee clearly understood how their individual performance and behaviors impacted their area and overall goals of the organization. Our efforts enabled the business and HR to effectively manage performance and the performance management budget while enforcing cultural values and performance expectations in clear ways that showed employees transparency and objectivity in rewarding success.
HR Business Partner Training
Situation:
Our client engaged the firm to assist with the transition to an HR Business Partner model. Each HR Business Partner was new to the role and needed to evolve from tactical execution to strategic collaborator, helping to guide and lead the business to make better decisions regarding employees.
Process:
Following a discovery session with the VP of Human Resources to understand core business needs and the changing role of HR role, we developed a one-day session that helped participants understand how to leverage strategic relationships with business leaders to achieve business objectives. Topics covered included how to earn a seat at the table, how to remain objective to deliver effective insights with business impact and how to influence decisions that would better serve the business.
Results:
Our efforts resulted in a successful transition to the HR Business Partner model as evidenced by feedback from business leaders who were surveyed about the value of HR Business Partner contributions in employee recruitment and retention, leadership development and team alignment.
HR Restructure
Situation:
B+B oversaw an HR and business realignment for a leader in the convention, sporting and events industry, including an in-depth review of HR operations, assessment of current staff and job functions, and definition of its new HR Leader position.
Process:
- We interviewed executives, business line leadership and HR employees to understand the needs of and opportunities for the company’s HR department.
- From these interviews, we developed and presented recommendations to our partner’s leadership team for approval.
Results:
Our partner’s executive leadership team and board members approved the new HR structure and job descriptions. We then conducted a successful search for a qualified candidate to fill the HR Leader role. Since this assignment, our partner has improved its organizational efficiency by successfully aligning its HR functions with its overall business objectives, all while continuing to attract renowned sporting events, conferences and concerts.
RPO Business Integration
Situation:
An automotive client engaged B+B to assist with the integration of a Recruitment Process Outsourcing solution across 58 U.S. locations.
Process:
- We worked with our partner’s HR leadership team to understand corporate and local office needs and hiring trends.
- We created weekly recruiting dashboards and held calls with local offices to discuss recruiting challenges and successes.
- We also developed a workforce planning worksheet to assist locations with identifying staffing needs and proactively closing gaps.
Results:
Our collaborative efforts produced a higher volume of credible candidates for desired roles than our partner recruited in the previous year.
Financial Services Recruiting
Situation:
A financial services company engaged the firm to assist with the recruitment of corporate banking professionals in 7 major U.S. cities.
Process:
- We worked with HR leadership and banking executives to understand the needs of the various locations and the requirements for the roles. Key requirement: professionals that came from large corporate banks with a book of business.
- We identified candidates from research and from relationships within the bank. Once interviewed we worked with banking leadership to gain approval of offers.
Results:
All offers made were accepted by the preferred candidates. In their new roles, these candidates produced business for the bank ahead of revenue forecasts.
Vice President Public Relations Search (Diversity)
Situation:
A major entertainment attraction client required candidates for the top communications job — Vice President of Public Relations. Filling the position was critical for the company as this person was central to upcoming product launches and international branding efforts. The client made a specific request for a diverse slate of candidates as the leadership team needed to be more representative of their workforce. Additionally, the company wanted to be better positioned to penetrate diverse markets.
The challenge was that the communications field is nearly 90 percent non-minority professionals (according to the U.S. Labor Bureau). The client had worked with other firms but was unable to find quality candidates suitable for this executive-level role.
Process:
- We expanded our typical search pool by developing a network within minority-based social groups and associations across the country. This effort gave our team exposure to top executive talent that might not be easily accessed through traditional channels.
- We contacted and interviewed more than 100 candidates for this search to thoroughly screen the candidates for skill, culture and leadership fit.
Results:
The strategic search resulted in our team finding highly-qualified, diverse candidates through non-traditional sources that we presented to the client. Feedback from both the candidate hired and the client demonstrated that they both considered the placement highly successful.
