How Companies Develop Young Leaders

Statistics predicts that 75% of the workforce will be made up of hyper-connected and tech savvy millennials by 2030. With these hard to ignore figures, companies are increasingly focusing on means to grow young leaders as part of their employee training and development plans. Specifically, developing first-time or junior managers to become great leaders is important to ensure firm performance. Young leaders prioritise the need to be engaged, mentored, and to be exposed to developmental opportunities. One-on-one learning experiences and direct feedback channels are also preferred. Here are some examples of companies striving to develop a young talent pool.

 

NEC Asia Pacific

This Singapore-based company is the regional headquarter of NEC Corporation. The company launched a NEC Talent Development Programme (TDP) in partnership with the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) with an aim to build a future talent pipeline. Young talents are provided with mentorship, job rotation opportunities, and also accelerated career paths as part of the company’s succession planning.

 

American Express

A forward-looking company, American Express sought to tap on the minds of its young leaders. In 2016, the company directed their attention to the young vice presidents who had graduated from their six-month long Accelerated Learning Development (ALD) program. The top 75 performers in that programme, made mainly out of talents fresh out of business school, were brought together for a three-day brainstorming and problem solving known as the ALD Revenue Growth Challenge event. The first event saw five ideas being purchased by business leaders on the spot.

 

Johnson & Johnson

The company designed a four to five month long Talent Acceleration Process (TAP) in 2012 to fast-track early to mid career employees to senior leadership positions. Team members gather from various countries, career paths, and business lines to work on various projects with the help of coaches and mentors. This form of analogous learning allows the young leaders to expand their perspectives through such seemingly unrelated experiences as well as build their social network. Participants were promoted at a rate 30% higher than their peer population, with a retention rate of about 80%.

 

Eagle’s flight

Recognising that young leaders tend to focus on the ‘why’ behind what is being taught, the company tweaked their leadership training accordingly to stay relevant and effective. As opposed to laying down information through lectures previously, principle-based training is used instead. Special care is taken to allow room for self-discovery and an understanding of on-the-job practices.

 

Facebook

Facebook’s Learning & Development team is well known for its development programmes. Their Engage Coaching Programme, for instance, facilitates the exchange of information between new managers and executive coaches through a one-on-one session focusing on effective people management skills. This provides young leaders with an opportunity to hone their skills in an in-depth manner. Facebook’s FLiP programme (Facebook Leadership in Practice) delves into leadership best practices, team-building while supplementing them with case studies. In addition, coaching circle exercises allow the participants to receive a set of holistic comments from peers and executives. Facebook also provides $4,000 in “Baby Cash” to employees with a newborn, which establishes a good indication of how family friendly the company can be. This can attract young leaders wo are likely to start their own family.

 

Upwork

Upwork has an interesting dual-track system, one for individual contributors to further hone their skills and another for managers. This system was first introduced due to their recognition that some employees prefer to be at the top of their field instead of managing others. The flexibility in career progression allows employees to move between tracks around the company with no pressure to their career, hence allowing potential young managers to grow holistically. By providing options, better retention is also achieved.

 

Ernst & Young

Ernst & Young (EY) understands that up to 70% of personal and professional development stems from every day experiences. As such, employees can move within the organisation across service lines and geographical boundaries in addition to sharing expertise with others in the community. In addition, the six week long EY Vantage Program connects future EY leaders with market leaders to accelerate inclusive growth and create jobs. Top-performing managers and senior managers work alongside selected high-impact entrepreneurs from the Endeavor Global and EY’s Accelerating Entrepreneurs program to address their businesses’ biggest obstacles to growth, at no fee. This programme appeals to young leaders who want to work in a fast-paced and often creative environment to push and challenge themselves.

 

Paycor

The company partnered with Miami University’s Farmer School of Business on a leadership development program to groom their young leaders. Paycor-specific training is developed and offered to participants, and teams have to work on a Paycor business challenge together. The programme ends with a presentation of solutions to the Paycor committee. This integration allows participants to learn relevant leadership skills, as well as apply their knowledge in a real strategic problem faced by the company.

 

Yelp

The company hires and trains hundreds of young account executives through valuable learning programmes each year. To ensure talent retention, Yelp emphasises on a positive culture as well as meaningful advancement opportunities. Yelp executives also actively mentor young employees and highlight the importance of employee development to managers.

 

Deloitte

With a vision to develop purpose-driven leaders who are committed to create meaningful impact, Deloitte focused on building outstanding career experiences, as well as an inclusive collaborative culture. They also helped students pursue a business career through hackathon events. In 2015, the Deloitte University enabled 65, 000 Deloitte professionals to gain new skills.

 

Conclusion

Young mangers need to be trained to lead, and be trusted with a certain degree of freedom to act. Developing them need not be expensive and time-consuming. Affordable and effective alternatives include in-house mentorship through informal meet ups, having coaching circles, as well as peer-to-peer learning off the ground. There are various online resources such as Coursera, Lynda.com and Udacity available with affordable B2B subscriptions. Measure the young talents’ job satisfaction levels and solicit feedback before acting on it.

(By Vanessa Ng)

Related Articles
- Which Careers Will Make You The Most Money in Singapore Now?
- Making a Career Switch at 30
- Why some of the world’s elected leaders continue to fail their people