HUMAN CAPITAL CONSULTING

Revenue, EBITDA, EPS, OP…these are some of the metrics that are used to measure a company’s success. And while a company’s share price, debt cost, and executive’s careers can live or die based on these metrics, the often-overlooked reality is that companies don’t actually achieve any of those things, because a “company” is nothing more than legal paperwork. Revenue, profitability, sales, however one may measure a company’s success is a result; the result of the sum-total of the knowledge, skills and approach of the people who work for a company, and the effectiveness with which those people are managed, coached, and led (all with their own sets of knowledge, skills and approaches) by their managers.

This is what we mean when we talk about Human Capital. There is no static environment in business where there is no result. Much like a factory will either receive investment and upgrades that allow it to operate more efficiently, produce more, and do so at lower total cost; or that factory will lack investment, fall behind in maintenance and try to compete while utilizing old technology and ultimately produce less at higher cost and become uncompetitive; the same is true of a company’s talent. Particularly in the post-COVID environment we all find ourselves in, where so many companies are forced to do more with less, those companies who invest in their people to continue to increase their knowledge and hone their skills, as well as invest in their managers and leaders to ensure that those Human Capital investments are maximized by continuously developing those skills in their people will be the companies who end up getting the best results.

Lowry Rhoads Associates brings decades of corporate and consulting Leadership, Talent, and Organizational Development problem solving experience, along with an extensive network of corporate leaders and academic experts to our Human Capital Consulting clients. We partner with our clients to custom tailor the right solution for their needs, and deliver them in such a way as to be successful in their culture to develop strong leaders and build talent to be able to perform at their highest possible capacity.

To learn more about our Human Capital Consulting capabilities, please contact Jonathan Rhoads.

SELECTED HUMAN CAPITAL EXPERIENCE EXAMPLES

U.S. Onshore Drilling Contractor – Executive Succession Planning

The Challenge: With an entire leadership team within 10 years of retirement, our client had a critical need to put in place a process to ensure a pipeline of the next generation of executives to meet the future demands of the business.

Solution: Working with our client, we:

Developed a process and criteria for identifying and selecting qualified successors
Developed action plans to properly prepare a sufficient number of successors
- Including Development Plans for existing talent, as well as executive search engagements where in-house gaps existed
Established a criterion for excellence, considering both near- and long-term needs of the business
Worked with Leadership, Operations and HR organizations to ensure that the new succession management process did not take place in isolation, but became the foundation of a larger integrated talent management strategy to drive business outcomes

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) – HR Organization Audit

The Challenge: Two years after 9/11, the FBI remained well short of its new Special Agent recruiting goals as they underwent their transformation to a significantly increased focus on global terrorism.

Solution: We began by performing an audit of the current state of the HR function, while working with all FBI functions to determine the vision and structure for the future state of the HR function to allow it to be an innovative and solution-oriented partner in giving the FBI competitive advantage. As well as tactically, determine the systems and processes that would enable the organization to attract and retain the staff and skills needed to successfully carry out the mission of the FBI.

The HR Audit broke down the function into 5 key areas:

Organizational/Strategic
Reward Systems
Benefits
Employee Engagement/Development
Staffing

Our project included our findings and assessments of the current state of the HR organization, suggested pathways forward to the future state, as well as recommendations for tools, training, and processes to make the new vision a reality.

Fortune 200 Global Oilfield Services Company – Building a Sales Coaching Culture

The Challenge: A spree of global acquisitions led to several challenges for the organization’s sales forces, included among them:

Integrating the newly acquired sales leadership and talent into the parent culture while identifying those parts of the acquired companies’ cultures and practices that should remain
Managing the change of the product-oriented sales forces of the acquired companies into comprehensive solution-oriented sales forces
Upskilling the sales talent of acquired companies to organically create value
Ensuring a strong, global pipeline of sales leadership talent to create succession options to allow for successful execution of growth plans

Solution: With such rapid growth around the world, the only meaningful, timely solution was to implement a top-down viral approach to train Sales Executives as Coaches, who could effectively coach Sales Directors as Coaches, to coach Sales Managers as Coaches who could develop their sales talent. This approach not only provided a rapid execution of the strategy around the world, but also facilitated buy-in across all levels to build a true-coaching culture. As bad coaching is worse than no coaching at all, a Corporate-based group with expertise in coaching and coaching training was established to lead the tactical execution of the strategy. By housing this group in the Corporate Sales organization as opposed to the HR or OD department, it further led to the acceptance of a culture of talent development as a critical sales activity leading to increased revenue.

Nonprofit Organizations – Executive Compensation

The Challenge: Just like any for-profit organization, nonprofits need to ensure that they can attract, retain, and properly reward their leadership talent to ensure the organizations mission is served. Nonprofit organizations have the added challenge, particularly in times of growth, of not having retention and reward tools such as commissions, equity grants, and related perks at their disposal.

Solution: We help our clients design Executive Compensation structures that allow for the attraction of strong leadership talent and providing mechanisms to ensure compensation grows appropriately in-line with the growth of the organization, while ensuring no ethical issues arise via commission-oriented or similar programs. Further, these structures are designed based on thorough understanding of market data, leveraging both our Executive Search market knowledge and our compensation expertise to ensure that all compensation programs are easily justifiable to Board Members, Foundations, and any other interested parties. Inherent in these programs are tying pay to the organization’s Strategic Plan, and tools and help with performance reviews and compensation related to those objectives is an included part of the service.

Large Firm Experience / Boutique Firm Focus

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