Danone Specialized Nutrition - for Innovation in Human Resources Management, Planning & Practice

Company: Danone Specialized Nutrition /Turkey-Istanbul
Entry Submitted By: Danone Nutricia
Company Description: Danone Nutricia is a Specialized Nutrition (FMCG & Pharma) Company which operates in Early Life Nutrition & Advanced Medical Nutrition areas. At SN, we strongly believe that the health of people and the planet are interconnected and our aim is to inspire healthier future for babies & patients, from birth to elderliness.
Nomination Category: Human Resources Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Award for Innovation in Human Resources Management, Planning & Practice - All Other Industries

Nomination Title: YOUNG GENERATION LEADERSHIP & DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

NUTRICIA LET IT’S “FUTURE” SHINE: YOUNG GENERATION LEADERSHIP & DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

Businesses around the world recognize the importance of Gen Y that constitute over a third of the workforce. However, organizations are finding themselves struggling to attract and retain younger employees that they will eventually need to continue their productivity and profitability.

Nutricia’s has a young population profile which has a high curiosity to learn, demanding for their development, self-oriented with a moderate engagement. Besides many actions of offering the best workplace for this new generation, as Nutricia Turkey, we focus more than ever on their development. We let them build up their own personal & professional growth, inviting them to be a part of the “Learning Organization” culture. Inspired by the concept of Peter Senge’s “5th Discipline” we initiated a comprehensive Young Generation Leadership Program that contributes to our HR strategy in many ways: retaining young talents, strengthening the future pipeline, boosting their leadership and investing to a more agile organization. In this essay, we’ll be honored to share with you, how we designed the program, what scope, content, steps it is consist of and the successful outcome it produced finally.

We defined our scope with several criteria, based upon the training’s content and necessities. The group’s seniority consists of specialists and assistants. We expect the participant to be born in 1992 and afterwards, have maximum 4 years of full-time job experience in their sector.

The program lasts one year and based on three main stages: Competency Analysis & Feedback, Training & Development, Learning through Experiences & Practicing. At the first stage, we provide the team a safe and professional zone to deeply discover their strengths and development areas. They are observed objectively by consultants during the strategy simulation & team activities. Then, they get involved to a 360-evaluation process according to Danone’s global leadership skills. They get feedbacks, based on the evaluation & team activity assessments results and integrate those into their Development Plan.

Secondly, they participate to unique learning and development programs. One of those is “Team Development Laboratories” where they learn collaborative project management principals & tools. They define development opportunities of the organization that would contribute to the business results. As project teams, each group gathered periodically in 6 months. At the end, they presented their proposals to the Management Committee.

During the integral project meeting process, they learn through practicing. They gain essential skills for their growth: holistic company view, entrepreneurial mind-set, cross-functional working, agile learning, complexity management and decision making. We continued to support them during this journey with additional L&D opportunities.

Finally, teams have successfully presented their proposals that will put Nutricia’s success over the top, which is detailed in supportive presentation.

Not only that they highly contributed to the organization with their innovative and strategic project ideas, but they also invest themselves and grow within the program:

Job Enrichments:
Since the beginning of the journey in 2019, 0 of the targeted population got job enrichments, %87 got promoted and % 13 got cross functional moves.

Performance Improvement:
%47 of the “young leaders” population increased their performance, %67 became “high performer”. 6 pts decreased on targeted population’s turnover rate.

Better company perception:
Since 2019 our young talent pipeline is more likely to think there are sufficient development opportunities, cross-functional projects, and investment with a structured L&D strategy in Nutricia Turkey, according to the survey.

Last but not least, within their never-ending learning journey, as the next step, they continue to grow this year within the “A New Leader” Program of Turkey’s Best University. Moreover, they will be in charge as mentors in the next group. Now, it’s new young Nutricia people’s turn to SHINE and we are looking forward to launch the 2021’s program!