Construction Industry
Nurturing Diverse Talent
Opportunity
A management-owned firm and following a culture transformation programme we delivered, we started to look at the succession plan for the board who had been in situ for over 30 years.
The board was all male except for the HR Director and the board were keen that their successors should be a significantly more diverse group. One of the firm’s main areas of practice is in defence, which meant that there had been progression of a very specific style of leader who engaged well with military clients.
The solution
Sheridan designed a process which would allow those who wanted to progress on to the board to apply for a programme which would select and appoint the leadership team in waiting. At this stage the board had in mind who they thought the successful candidates might be.
We designed a two-day, residential assessment boot-camp. The boot-camp was designed with a range of diverse activities which would challenge and allow all candidates the opportunity to showcase their talents.
This meant largely moving away from activities that would allow extroverted male candidates (who mirrored the current board) to dominate.
Following this we recommended a diverse team which didn’t include any of those previously considered as ‘golden stars’. The group was a split evenly between male and female, a range of different personalities, from a range of areas in the business such as IT, landscape architecture and interior design.
Impact
With this team in place, the firm has grown exponentially and has expanded into architecture areas which consider things such as wellbeing and sustainability