Handling the change brought by rapid growth
How do you adapt to the inevitable staffing challenges posed when your company doubles in size after a merger?
Faced with this task, one of the world’s market leaders in renewable energy technology asked Mercuri Urval to provide solutions.
By the end of 2009, the company* had a 20 per cent share of its sector of the market. Today its strategy is to enhance its standing as a global player in an energy sector that is growing fast as the world seek alternatives to fossil fuels.
The company’s business practices are shaped by ingenuity, reliability, common sense and trustworthiness – the characteristic traits of the culture where the corporation’s HQ is located.
Building competence
Until 2004, the company’s prime focus with regard to recruitment was angled towards engineering skills and technical competence. However, after the merger with another sustainable energy company, it became evident to the company’s top management that, if it was to achieve the strong growth it was seeking, it needed to obtain a far clearer overview of the capabilities and resources of its employees. The company would need to focus more on the development and care of its human resources if it was to retain and attract the high calibre workforce it required.
Tailored tools for business development
Our client initially asked Mercuri Urval to map the capabilities of its top management in order to set up a leadership development programme. The personally tailored reports Mercuri Urval provided offered advice on how each leader could best develop further.
Kenneth Mølgaard-Pedersen, Vice President for International Projects at
Mercuri Urval, says:
- “Our findings proved so useful to our clients’ top management that they wanted us to assess the capabilities of all leaders, including directors and managers. They liked the way our assessment process provided useful knowledge on how to develop the company in the best way possible and they wanted to make sure this knowledge bank could be further developed across the company as a whole.”
As a result, Mercuri Urval set up designated assessment centres for the client, where all potential external and internal recruits are assessed to make sure they match the company’s needs before being hired or switching jobs.
In practical terms, the assessment centre is outsourced to Mercuri Urval, which is committed to supporting the company both worldwide and locally. A select group of Mercuri Urval’s senior consultants has been trained to meet the clients’ needs and requirements, and to provide both local knowledge and international best industry practice.
Promoting good leadership
By using the same tools in all the countries where it assists this client, Mercuri Urval is able to produce homogeneous assessment reports for employees. This is particularly useful when a the company’s employee is transferred from one country to another, since the new organisation can easily use an assessment report compiled elsewhere to understand the individual’s strengths and weaknesses and then provide the right sort of leadership.
Homogeneous assessment methods and reporting also enable Mercuri Urval to provide broader-based statistics on the client’s resources, enabling their management to build stronger and more complete internal teams.
A tangible return on investment
Today, our client continues to be an industry leader thanks to the skills, imagination and flexibility of the company’s workforce of more than 20,000 people.
Kenneth Mølgaard-Pedersen says collaboration with Mercuri Urval has reaped clear benefits for the company:
- “Our client’s return on its investment is well demonstrated by statistics showing that more than 90 per cent of people assessed for the client by Mercuri Urval perform as expected, or better, in their professional roles.”
*For confidentiality reasons, Mercuri Urval cannot reveal the client’s identity.
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