BAE Systems

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Creating a Strategic HR Organization


Business Challenge:

The merger of British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems created a more completely integrated systems business for the defense industry. In addition to the strategic and operational synergies that would occur through the merger, executives believed that they could also achieve extensive cost savings by creating shared services and eliminating redundant elements from the combined organization.  As they began work, it quickly became clear that to achieve their goals and develop the strategic, value-adding capabilities of HR population would also require investment in the development to shift HR professionals from highly effective practitioners to strategic professionals.

Solution:

The RBL Group was selected to design and deliver a developmental program for BAE Systems’ HR professionals.  The custom-designed six-month program focused on 63 senior HR professionals and used the following design features:
      • 360 assessment of top senior HR professionals, including interviews and
        individual feedback sessions
      • tailored pre-program exercises for HR participants to assess their current
        business strategy and environment
      • three classroom-based highly customized learning modules at regular
        intervals that focused on linking the business strategy with HR strategy
        and processes, driving organizational capabilities, and defining HR in the
        leadership role
      • two team-based projects focused on applying knowledge and skills
        learned during the learning modules to real-world problems  

Results:

• 120% increase in the influence of their HR professionals on business decisions and strategy
• 85% increase in providing innovative business solutions as well as substantive increases in understanding key performance indicators, providing good general HR advice and support and understanding the business and its needs
• Inspired ability and desire to discipline themselves to think, speak, and act more strategically
• Ability to more substantively contribute to their management teams
• Codified tacit knowledge about the role of HR into an explicit framework which made their knowledge valid, defensible, and useable
• Success of program in developing strategic HR capabilities led to cascading program content to target mid-level professionals and recent graduates