It’s the taking part that counts…

Amey is an organisation typified by a highly transient employee population. Scott Hobbs, head of talent and graduate development with Amey, describes how their trajectory for success was severely limited by not having the right people in the right places. The development of the Talent Tracker programme was vital for the business to gauge the capability of its people

At any given time, 70 per cent of Amey’s 8,500 staff have been brought in through a TUPE [Transfer of Undertaking (Protection of Employment) regulations] consultation process. This presents a huge pool of talented individuals who join the organisation without an Amey ‘history’.

A comprehensive audit of all people and management practices within the business in early 2006 revealed some key challenges that needed to be faced. When filling a vacancy, managers were likely to seek replacements externally 60 per cent of the time. The knock-on effect of this was an overburden on resourcing, expensive cost per hire and a demotivated workforce who felt that their aspirations could not be met through internal progression.  

Within Amey, an organisation specialising in outsourcing of sustainable business solutions, there were a high number of enthusiastic, talented individuals, but due to fragmented processes, the responsibility for their development was held at a local level within contracts or offices, where traditionally opportunities for progression were more limited. This meant there was no visibility of the organisation’s talent pipeline and no sense of whether talented individuals wanted to be retained within the organisation.
At the same time it was recognised that the external recruitment market was becoming more competitive and that Amey had to implement programmes to pro-actively tackle what was going on in its external environment.  

It meant moving from a standing start to setting up and populating a talent pipeline to give the organisation back control of the management of its people.

Change, change, change
In 2006, the issues associated with talent management came to the top of the corporate agenda and Gillian Duggan, Amey’s group HR director, together with the executive management team built a strategy based upon two key initiatives:

•   the graduate leadership programme; and

•  Talent Tracker, Amey’s talent management programme.

Growing the bench-strength of Amey’s leadership cadre in the long term was reliant on the introduction of the leadership graduate scheme. By selectively choosing a small number (15–20 per annum) of ‘high-potential’ graduates, Amey began to grow its own pool of leadership who, in years to come, would develop through the organisation.

But it was the immediacy and pragmatism of Talent Tracker that provided the key solution. Talent Tracker was formulated based on some very distinctive choices and was a departure from approaches taken by many programmes in similar organisations.

• Rather than focusing the programme on senior management, the reach was widened out to anyone in the organisation.

• The scheme marketed itself on the basis that if an individual believed he or she had potential that was being under-utilised within the organisation, there would be an opportunity to have the potential assessed and developed.

• It was completely aligned to changes that were being made within the culture with the introduction of new values to the organisation. Those individuals identified as having potential were those who could embody the Amey values in the behaviours they demonstrated.

Talent Tracker sought to understand an individual’s potential to move up to two grades above where he or she currently sat within the organisation. To categorise the talent pipeline, four levels were introduced: fast track, on-track, emerging talent and matched. Each level described the timescale within which an individual could expect to move upwards in their career

Launching Talent Tracker
Within eight weeks of the decision being made, Talent Tracker was launched in 2006. Applicants were drawn from all over the organisation – from caretakers to engineers and project managers to senior managers. The pace of execution worked on the basis of ‘ready, fire, aim’ with a number of the details of the implementation being resolved as the process evolved. Taking this approach accelerated the implementation and ultimately the business benefit that was derived as effective results were achieved early. It did not come without difficulties in terms of providing information to candidates about the outcome of the process.

Talent Tracker consists of a three stage process:

Stage 1: People in the organisation are invited to complete a competency-based application based on the company values. There was a sift to decide who to move forward in the process based on competency scores. Unsuccessful candidates are provided with a personalised feedback report explaining why they have not been successful and suggesting some areas for development. The hope is that, as they develop and work on the areas highlighted to them, they will reapply in the future.

Stage 2: Successful candidates are asked to undertake a 180-degree feedback process allowing their manager and colleagues to have an input into the discussion. It also allows the manager to comment on performance-related issues.

Stage 3: A number of assessment centres are held across the UK to assess all of the candidates who have been successful in the stage 1 sift. In recognition of the different levels of seniority that people operate at within the organisation, three separate levels of assessment centres are organised.  
Following the assessment centres, a calibration of the candidates takes place and candidates are categorised into relevant levels within the talent pipeline.

The process is very developmental in orientation, so each candidate who has attended an assessment centre receives a detailed feedback report as well as attending a three-way meeting with their line manager and a senior HR professional or business director to receive their feedback.  

Development
Newly identified fast tracks will be on the Talent Tracker programme for two years. During that time they will follow three spheres of development: new role opportunities and secondments; career development training; and exposure to networking opportunities. The programme provides the tools, techniques and contacts within the organisation, to support their career development on an ongoing basis.

Some choose to seek a mentor from within the business as part of this process. The programme supports them in advising who to choose and who might help the individual meet their developmental objectives. Managing this is undertaken in a light touch way, to allow fast tracks to take the initiative to drive the programme for themselves. In some cases, fast tracks within the scheme have been able to mentor other fast tracks.  

Focus is too often directed purely at the ‘fast track’ candidates in organisations. Amey’s priority was to ensure that all levels of the pipeline were addressed. In year one, the proposition was one of the weaker aspects of the process and the measurable results were below our expectations. In year two, the development proposition for the rest of the pipeline was re-evaluated. In addition to increasing the level of feedback and more targeted skills development programmes, the whole pipeline was supported in terms of career management.

Measurement
Key to the success of the programme and its organisational acceptance was the way in which it demonstrated the value it added through clear objectives and measurement.  Three key measures of success were identified at the outset:

• retention of people within the fast track population;

• percentage of fast tracks who found a new role within two years; and

• cost saving delivered to the business through the programme.

Talent management cannot be seen in isolation from the commerciality of business. Amey’s management team signed up to a solution that was appropriate for the business, but needed to ensure that it would deliver against hard business measures.

Retention
Our aim is to identify between 20 and 50 fast track candidates each year. Over the last two years, the programme has received over 700 applications, 360 applicants attended the centres and 60 were identified as fast track. Of those fast tracks 95 per cent have been retained within the business, which compares favourably to business average.
 
Role moves
Fast tracks are still expected to apply for roles alongside the other people in the organisation, but to date 70 per cent of our fast tracks have moved into larger or promotional roles. Moving across business divisions, into central corporate roles and even across into the Ferrovial Group, Amey’s Spanish parent company, has become a feature of the development moves taken by fast tracks.

Cost saving
Part of Talent Tracker’s instigation is to meet strategic and people-focused objectives, but has additionally made measured savings of £840k to the business, based on hiring and retention costs.

Challenges
The scheme, however, was not without its challenges. Initially, while the business need was recognised, opposition was registered against what could be seen as a potentially ‘elitist’ approach.

An ongoing challenge we also face is the geographical flexibility of the talent population. Given the spread of Amey across the UK, we seek to encourage career development alongside work-life balance. This is tackled on a case by case basis with each person’s individual circumstances being taken into account. We have supported people through a range of mechanisms – from relocation through to travel and changing job locations.

For Amey, talent management wasn’t a ‘nice to have’ programme or lip service to an HR trend, it was a necessity to support the growth of
the business. By taking a pragmatic, practical approach that encouraged all Amey employees to put themselves forward, a cadre of talented individuals have emerged who have helped the programme flourish and meet its objectives.

Moving forward, our next challenge is to more closely align the talent and
resourcing agendas to allow recruitment to be drawn from internal and external pools. Additionally we will target the model to address specific areas of need within the business. Being able to grow more business development and contract management managers from among a ‘hidden’ pool of people will ensure that Talent Tracker continues to make
a great contribution to business success.