In 2007, Southco’s CEO designated Development as one of four major organizational priorities for the year. With a long history of responding to employee feedback, Southco wanted to turn around the seven-year continuous decline in employee engagement as demonstrated on their quarterly surveys. Despite the fact that all Southco employees had development goals, employees reported that they did not feel that the company supported development.

Working with CDT to identify areas of the strategy that needed support, a worldwide implementation of programs supporting employee initiative in career and development planning was offered, along with sophisticated follow-up tracking of results. The entire management population, including the Executive Team, underwent our strength-based development curriculum, Managing Development Planning™, customized to contain Southco-specific presentations. Southco trainers from the UK, Asia/Pacific and the USA were certified by CDT to deliver our one-day Career Challenge™ program.

Within two quarters of the initiative beginning, there were increases of 10-20% positive engagement responses on quarterly surveys. A US facility undergoing most stress from negative changes reported over 30% increase in employee engagement response.

As a result, this endeavor was a top Finalist for SHRM’s International Human Capital Award, 2008, in Strategic Leadership for the “Strengthening Our Development Culture” project.





CONNECT



















         (914) 234-3200