The Client
One of the global big four auditing firms, with offices in each of the 50 US states, the client is consistently listed on many rankings as a great employer, including the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For, LearningElite Top Ten, Working Mother Best Companies to Work For, and Military Times Best for Vets Employers.
Need / Challenge
The Client engaged Clarity to develop training to help employees move from an entry level Associate position to the next ranking Senior Associate position. Associates focus heavily toward data gathering and analysis, while Senior Associates focus more on the client’s customers. Specifically, newly promoted employees needed to learn both customer facing and personal career growth skills:
- Becoming a trusted advisor to the customer
- Creating strong first impressions
- Turning the data analytics into strategic recommendations for the customer
- Team building and leadership
- Personal branding and social media
- Cultivating relationships with mentors
- Self-awareness
Clarity’s Client did not want a lecture course—the students were already experienced with gathering and analyzing data—but wanted an active learning course with student participation in social and team building activities.
Solution: What Clarity Did
Clarity’s Consultant is an executive officer of an Army Reserve medical battalion, with strong leadership skills, vast experience developing human capital, and designing leadership programs. Her past clients include financial institutions, accounting consulting firms, government agencies, non-profits, academic institutions, and retail companies.
Working with a senior executive in the Client’s business, Clarity’s Consultant began by interviewing current Senior Associates to learn what they wish they had known when taking the position, especially in terms of their career development. From this starting point, she devised a course with social team-building exercises and typical customer scenarios.
The social exercises developed and reinforced the interpersonal skills necessary to working collaboratively on the customer scenarios during the week-long course. To make the customer scenarios realistic and thorough, extensive course collaterals were required:
- A course website was created for media assets and supporting collaterals
- Extensive video segments were created
Results: The Outcomes
The initial pilot program met with great success. Students really enjoyed the ice-breaker activities, which helped them get to know one another. Said the Client: ”Some of our participants told us that was the best training they’ve attended so far in [our company]! Overall, they really enjoyed the course. Your great design and hard work really paid off last week. I just want to say ‘Thank You’ for that!”
Quotes
“Thanks so much for all of your work to take us through to the pilot last week! I have to say that it was a huge success!”
“Some of our participants told us that was the best training they’ve attended so far in [the company]!”
“There are a couple of areas that our participants wanted more information on – e.g. financial management, risk management, work papers, etc. – but overall they really enjoyed the course.”
“Some participants also said the K-Race was great to help them know each other and that energy carried through to the entire week.”