Case $1$: Career Development Program to Reduce Turnover

Wood & Shine beliefs that turnover is a human resource manager$$s worst enemy, otherwise it certainly

would make the top ten lists. And it$$s particularly painful when turnover involves executives recruited or

promoted with high hopes for success. Newnan$-$based Wood & Shine found that $30$ percent of the

executives they recruited from outside and $23$ percent of the executives who had been promoted from

within the organization left the company after two years in their new position. After three years, up to half

of all newly executives had left the company. Clearly career development was not meeting the

expectations of the newly hired or promoted.

Wood & Shine faced an uphill battle when replacing baby boom era executives who were

approaching retirement. Wood & Shine, a consumer products company with over $23,000$ employees

worldwide, estimates that more than $90$ percent of U$.$S$.$ households have at least one of their Furniture,

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Bedding, D$$cor & Accessories, Rugs, Lighting or Toy products. As the company planned to meet their

goal of worldwide growth, they knew they needed young, upwardly mobile senior managers who had the

ability to think globally.

Their solution was to create a program to develop current employees for leadership positions rather than

follow the trend of expensive executive recruitment that was often followed by a high failure rate. The

program, called $$Develop Keystone,$$ is limited to twelve participants at a time and includes four weeks of

classroom instruction, on$-$the$-$job projects, readings, and activities spread out over the course of one year.

The content of the Develop Keystone program includes four modules: creating followership, leading

global change, coaching employees, and developing $$next generation$$ leaders. Participants are also paired

with experienced executives within the organization who serve as personal coaches. These coaches help

the participants apply concepts learned in the Develop Keystone program to their jobs. To build the

Develop Keystone participant$$s knowledge of the differences between U$.$S$.$ and foreign markets, they are

sent to another country, most recently France, to better understands cultural differences, how they affect

consumer preferences, and how particular products, such as baby strollers, are used.

Retention has increased dramatically, with $80$ percent of the participants in the first four groups who

completed the program staying with the company. The number of executive vacancies filled internally

increased from $58$ percent in $2006$ to $90$ percent in $2010.$ Develop Keystone graduate Stephen Clark is one

of many that rave about the program$$s benefits. Clark was promoted from Vice President, Sales, at

Calphalon to General Manager, North America, for Children$$s Products after completing Develop

Keystone. Clark states, $$The fact that the company was going to spend that much time and energy to help

develop me as a leader was inspiring.$$ Richard Simon, Director of Global Learning and Development is

happy with the results, too.

Simon says, $$We$$ve seen some pretty amazing results from our work $...$ We$$ve promoted leaders into

new positions and we$$ve increased the commitment internally to leadership development.$2.$ How does the $$Develop Keystone$$ program proved as a valuable decision for the organization in

addition to reducing turnover? What value does Develop Keystone provide for the individual in

terms of career development?