Company: Safelite AutoGlass, Columbus, OH
Company Description: Safelite AutoGlass®, founded in 1947, is the nation’s leading provider of vehicle glass repair and replacement services, providing mobile service to more than 95 percent of the U.S. population in all 50 states. The Columbus, Ohio-based company employs nearly 10,000 people across the United States and served 4.4 million customers last year. For more information, visit www.safelite.com.
Nomination Category: Human Resources Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Human Resources Executive of the Year

Nomination Title: Natalie Crede, Senior Vice President of People & Leadership Development

Tell the story about what this nominee achieved since January 1 2013 (up to 525 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

Safelite AutoGlass’s strategic plan is to become the natural choice for auto glass repair and replacement services by building a culture that is People Powered and Customer Driven (PPCD). Natalie Crede, SVP, People & Leadership Development, is responsible for leading Safelite’s cultural transformation and ensuring all 10,000 employees embrace the strategic plan.

First, Natalie helped develop and implement Safelite’s integrated talent management program – People Powered – to drive business performance by having an obsessive focus on having talented people who are inspired to deliver great results. It is defined with four cornerstones: Leadership, Focus, Talent, and Caring.

Under Natalie’s direction, PPCD was communicated to all employees through annual kick-off meetings where leaders shared the company’s vision and goals for the year. Leaders explained our philosophy that happy, talented people create happy, loyal customers who deliver profitable growth. We’ve brought this concept to life by sharing stories of people who’ve truly made a difference in our business by putting people first. We consistently communicate the relationship between our people and customers via internal newsletters and intranet.

Second, a cultural transformation requires great leaders. Natalie oversaw development of leadership development tools, including a series of custom-designed workshops known as People Powered Leadership Training. These group learning sessions with interactive activities promote discovery learning and share best practices among high-performing leaders. Roughly 1,000 leaders have participated in three separate learning mats to understand how to live out our vision.

To support leadership development, Natalie has also provided leaders Hay Group’s Styles & Climates training for four years. As a result, we’ve seen leaders progress from using primarily a Directive style toward more variety and balance in styles with Visionary and Coaching now becoming the primary styles. Leaders participate in this review every 18 months and every time, we see improvement.

Natalie helped align expected behaviors with rewards by creating our annual People Powered Leadership Award – a $10,000 prize awarded to one leader who has made the most leadership progress.

Since implementing Natalie’s integrated talent management program, our employee engagement scores have been above average for three of the four years. Best in class is considered to be 75% and we reached 78% in 2013. We also have completed studies to show that the return on sales aligns with employee engagement: the greater the engagement improvement since 2009, the higher the average return on sales.

Using data from employee engagement scores, we identify the 10 lowest-scoring markets and offer them additional support and training in implementing the People Powered culture. As a result, we see higher engagement – sustained over time. Additionally, breaking down the employee engagement data by location, we see more markets are above the industry best-in-class score today than when we first started.

During this time, the company has also increased customer service scores, sales & profit and has doubled its business!

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Provide a brief (up to 125 words) biography about the nominee:

Natalie Crede joined Safelite as director of learning and development in 2009. She has been instrumental in shaping Safelite’s culture, earning her a series of promotions. In 2011, she was promoted to VP, talent management. In 2012, she was promoted to SVP, human resources and leadership development, overseeing talent management, compensation and benefits, shared services, and HR business partner teams.

In 2013, the communications functions, including internal and external communications and corporate events, were added to her newly formed people and leadership development department. As the SVP of people and leadership development, she is responsible for leading and developing a people-focused culture through integrated people strategies and leadership development. Crede’s career prior to joining Safelite spans more than 20 years with national retail brands.

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