Talent Programme
The challenge
Named one of ‘Britain’s Most Admired Companies’, Halma is a global group of independent businesses, who all have one thing in common: they are on a mission to do good in the world. From water safety to therapeutic solutions, genuine positive impact is at the heart of Halma, and this is reflected in its highly supportive and rewarding culture.
However, given that most of their businesses are SMEs, it became clear that there was a gap in readiness when moving talent to higher level roles. Most of their high potentials weren’t getting the level of experience, practice or exposure needed to make the jump from senior leader to board member.
It was clear that this was a gap in readiness, rather than talent. Halma was finding that the people who were ‘natural successors’ to senior roles, no matter how talented or bright, were simply not comfortable with the change. The challenge therefore was to create an opportunity for them to learn the skills, develop the confidence, and practise the broader strategic mindset needed for an organisation of this sort.
The brief
Halma saw this as their chance to create a centralised talent programme for high potentials across the organisation. They were ready to start seriously investing in their future leadership, and wanted a programme that would have genuine impact. That’s when we came in; we were brought in to close this gap in readiness.
They also wanted to answer the question: what does it mean to show up as a part of the Halma Group? Because of this, it was critical that we collaborated in our design for the programme, meaning that we had to place huge amounts of trust in each other’s expertise. We trusted them in knowing how their business would work best, and they trusted that we knew what we were doing when it came to equipping leaders.
The solution
The solution that we designed was a show of true collaboration. Delivered over 4 months, their high potentials now receive training through a series of modules that include: Ivy House leadership training; deep dives into specific skillsets; senior leader
roundtables; and business simulation. While the latter two components are owned by Halma, our coaches stayed in the room to help with embedding, and support in feedback. This means that there is an Ivy House ‘golden thread’ running through the entirety of the programme.
It was also incredibly important for Halma that the programme was high profile and exceptional quality they wanted to ensure that their people recognised the value that Halma saw in them. This meant that everything, from the content to the venue, had to be top
calibre, and that’s exactly what we delivered.
The impact
By the time the second cohort for this programme started running, over half of the first cohort had received a promotion. When asked how likely they would be to recommend the programme, 97% of the delegates gave a score of 10/10.
Amongst delegate feedback, we heard multiple times that the programme ‘clearly stands apart from normal training’, and that the ‘sense of community is fantastic’. This in particular is something we are immensely proud of – the level of active communication, group support, and bonding across the programme has been unparalleled. We like to think that this is due to the perfect meeting of Halma’s wonderfully supportive culture and our deeply personal approach.
We are currently planning two further cohorts for this year, and when asked what changes they may want to make, the response was simply: “Why change a winning formula?”.
