PepsiCo Global Business Services: 2023 BEST Award Winner, #19
Despite starting operations in 2019, PepsiCo Global Business Services has made significant strides in talent development. With operations spread across six countries, the organization needed a set of holistic talent practices to grow quickly. From the beginning, the TD team has operated with a two- to three-year view, which has helped the organization grow to more than 5,000 full-time employees.
"Talent development has ensured that we are able to scale critical capabilities as we rapidly grow our business proposition," explains HR Director Danny Bouckley. "The partnership has ensured we are able to create successors and leaders across geographies. They have been valued as a thought and change partner that is agile in their solutions."
In the past year, PepsiCo GBS has introduced data reporting and visualization learning solutions, which includes 20 hours of instructor-led sessions, a recommended 10-hour e-learning journey, and doubt clarification with subject matter experts. The TD team's budget covers the approximate $80 cost per employee. It has directly helped the business line grow by more than 400 full-time employees in the past year.
PepsiCo GBS also created capability academies based on an organizational health survey showing the need to develop capabilities at scale and retain employees through learning opportunities. The capability-building programs support functional, technical, professional, and leadership learning requirements.
The Your Tomorrow Leadership Program, a progressive leader-led learning journey, is based on mentoring and exposure opportunities. PepsiCo GBS implemented the initiative because of the need to develop leaders internally after hiring more than 95 percent of its workforce from the job market. Hiring first-line managers and leaders externally wasn't sustainable; thus, the Your Tomorrow Leadership Program was born.
The initiative helped PepsiCo GBS promote 30 percent of its employee base, creating its own internal leadership pipeline. "Additionally, talent flow between PepsiCo GBS and PepsiCo is growing," says Jesper Peterson, senior vice president of HR. "In addition to upskilling leadership, professional, and digital skills, we also offer GBS Skills Advance Certification programs and mentoring support to our associates through the GUIDE Mentorship Program."
Building that leadership footprint required the TD team to think outside the box. The team adopted a balanced TD approach that combines traditional learning and modern mentoring. The Your Tomorrow Learning solution fulfilled the former, which follows a laddered approach with bespoke learning journeys designed for each career level. The program has had 615 participants.
GUIDE, which enables senior leadership to mentor program participants, fulfills the latter part of the approach. The successful pilot covered more than 50 hours of mentorship. The program enables participants to access a mentoring application in which they can choose mentors based on the mentor profile, making it a learner-enabled platform. The company plans to further scale the program.
"Our ability to contextualize, scale, curate, and deploy relevant talent development solutions across multiple cultures and functions has been exceptional," says Siddharth Sharma, executive manager. "The way we are able to work with leaders, stakeholders, and employees as an agile solution partner rather than a separate department has been our biggest win."
View the entire list of 2023 BEST Award winners.