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Reignite Business Performance for Competitive Edge – From Vision to Reality: Training
3 February 2011:
Welcome to part two of our four-part series of articles based on the Executive Briefing entitled ‘Reignite Business Performance for Competitive Edge – From Vision to Reality’. The articles in this series encapsulate perspectives and advice offered by CorporateLeaders and Raytheon Professional Services, keynote speaker Blandine Kouyaté, Head of HR EMEA, Yahoo! and invited guests of the briefing.
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Training
According to Raytheon Professional Services Director of Sales and Marketing Europe, Paul Swinscoe, one of the biggest mistakes a company can make is to deploy a corporate strategy without taking into account how human capital, information capital and organizational capital will need to be shaped in order to support business objectives.
“All of these things need to be carefully considered as you implement a strategic plan,” stresses Swinscoe. “In the case of training, you need to be asking, ‘Do we have a training strategy?’ ‘What do I need my people to be doing?’ ‘How can I grow my human capital knowledge? And how do I assess and measure it?’”
The Yahoo! Case
Blandine Kouyaté, Head of HR EMEA*
With an ambition to grow advertising revenue by being “the centre of the online lives of its users”, Yahoo! is currently rolling out a three-year professional strategy for employees. To ensure that team members are aligned – no matter where they are globally – the company has implemented a series of workshops called Leading Yahoo! into the Future. The aim of the programme is to provide the tools and resources to help clarify professional goals and determine how individual goals can be aligned with the company’s overall strategic aims.
To date over 1500 Yahoo! managers across the globe have participated in these workshops. According to Blandine Kouyaté, Head of HR EMEA, the intent is to have the programme filter down through all layers of the company to make certain that everyone at every level receives the same messages and have the opportunity, tools and support to align themselves with the company’s strategic objectives.
“Our most important resource is our people. That’s why it’s essential that we focus on building leadership capabilities to get ready to execute.” Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz
*Blandine Kouyaté joined Yahoo! in 2002 as HR Manager, France, and then gained responsibility for the HR department in Southern Europe in 2006. Throughout that period, she focussed on integrating several businesses with significant employee populations, while implementing a scalable HR function and supporting cultural transformation within the region.
In 2008, Kouyaté partnered with the VP Sales Europe as an HR Director. In this role, she drove HR strategies aligned with both the business needs and talent aspirations of the unit. In 2010, her scope was extended to support additional regional units (Partnerships, Audience and Marketplaces).
Since June 2010, Kouyaté has been acting as the interim Head of HR for Yahoo! in charge of the EMEA HR function, including 25 direct team members who support a population of over 1700 employees based in 19 countries.
