How did Sanofi unleash the potential of its talents by collaborating with Authentic Talent and Hogan Assessments?
In this article, Marina Gridneva, Global Talent Partner at Sanofi, discusses the work we've done together and how it has impacted strategies for attracting, recruiting, and retaining talent at Sanofi.This article is a translation of the original English text that you can find here.
We are Sanofi, a global company innovating in the healthcare sector. We are pursuing the miracles of science to improve people's lives. Our team, present in over 100 countries, is dedicated to transforming the practice of medicine by working to make the impossible possible. We offer potentially revolutionary treatment options and life-saving vaccine protection to millions of people around the world, while placing sustainability and social responsibility at the heart of our ambitions.
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Hi, I'm Marina Gridneva, a Talent Management professional with extensive experience in strategic HR roles in the consulting, banking, and healthcare sectors.
With over 20 years of expertise, I am an accredited coach with certifications in Hogan Assessment and Hogan Advanced Interpreting.
As a Global Talent Partner at Sanofi, I lead strategic talent development initiatives that contribute to business success through innovative and creative problem solving.
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In 2023, we formed a partnership with Authentic Talent Consulting to integrate Hogan instruments into our global talent acceleration initiative, and it proved to be a total success.
We sought to strengthen the accountability of our talents for their development and career strategy. As a result, we have focused on development activities and have taken the partnership between talent and leaders to the next level.
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Attracting, recruiting, and retaining potential have been a clear business priority in recent decades, becoming even more critical today to gain a long-term competitive advantage.
Business requires a motivated pool of enterprise-wide leaders with a diversity of experiences, skills, and mindsets ready to outperform the competition and accelerate the pace of transformation. At Sanofi, we prioritize the advancement of our talent by connecting employee career aspirations, business needs, and Sanofi's growth ambition.
In a context where Sanofi needs the best leaders to outperform the competition now and in the future, we have launched an ambitious multi-year talent acceleration initiative aimed at strengthening the leadership pipeline by preparing high-potential talent for senior leadership roles.
Through a robust talent identification and succession planning process, Sanofi identified a diverse global pool of 85 high-potential talent with learning agility and an ambition for rapid growth.
In 2023, we embarked them on a multi-year journey to gain critical experiences, broaden their leadership mindset, and implement a career roadmap. This trip should result in strengthened leadership and allow its participants to occupy key roles across the company.
The first phase of the journey focused on increasing self-awareness, guiding talents to articulate their long-term career aspirations and the critical experiences to be gained. The objective was clear: participants should leave with a well-defined career and development plan. We asked ourselves what would be the best way to make our talents aware of their leadership profile, the work environment they aspire to create as leaders, and the types of roles in which they can succeed. We were therefore looking for a tool with high predictive validity, applicable to professional cases and adapted to a commercial context.
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Hogan Assessments is recognized as a high-value and highly valid tool used for leadership development and building successful teams. Hogan tools measure a person's reputation, identifying performance potential and suitability for an organization. It is subject to 100 validation studies every year and is available in 47 languages.
Without hesitation, the Hogan assessment was selected as the starting point for the talent accelerator's transformative journey.
Sanofi has partnered with Authentic Talent Consulting for Hogan evaluations and internal certification for several years. In addition to a report with an overview of strengths, values and challenges classic from Hogan Assessments, Authentic Talent Consulting developed a customized report providing an overview of leadership skills and behaviors according to the Sanofi Leadership Framework model.
Another advantage of partnering with ATC was that, during these years of cooperation, a database for evaluating managers at various levels at Sanofi was accumulated. ATC's access to industry data allowed for analysis and comparison of our data within the framework of an external standard.
The collaboration with Authentic Talent for the talent accelerator initiative was well planned and organized in a 6-month collaborative journey.
Initially, participants were introduced to Hogan as a leadership development tool and to its value for their growth and development. As a result, 85 talents completed the Hogan questionnaires and received personalized debriefings from accredited professionals. These debriefings helped them gain a thorough understanding of their assessment results and encouraged reflection on their individual development and career planning. The Hogan summary reports provided insight into their personal attributes and leadership preferences. Our aim was to ensure that participants understood their motivations that would guide their future career decisions, and to help them prioritize their Individual Development Plans in a strategic manner by understanding their leadership style.
Then, an analysis of the group was carried out by ATC to identify the collective assets and risks of the group participating in the talent accelerator and compare them to the populations of global leaders.
The comparison benchmarks included the overall Sanofi population, who had previously completed the Hogan evaluations, as well as middle managers and executives in the pharmaceutical sector.
By comparing the average talent group scores with three benchmarks, ATC was able to draw conclusions about the specific characteristics of the group and gain a better understanding of the abilities and differences of the talent group.
We identified both their strengths and areas for improvement through various skills and behaviors. The results of this analysis will provide valuable information for developing a tailored talent strategy.
Finally, we engaged talent accelerator participants, their direct managers, and development partners in informative webinars. The purpose of the “Unlock Your Potential with Hogan” webinars for talent was to reinforce the value of Hogan as a leadership development tool and to guide them on how to use the Hogan Assessment Summary Report for long-term career planning and the Leadership Framework report to build a stronger individual development plan. For direct managers and development partners, the dedicated empowerment module on Hogan Assessment Insights provided an overview of the strengths and areas for improvement of talent accelerator participants, based on the collective analysis of Strengths, Values and Risks. They appreciated the recommendations on how to support talent in their development using the Hogan assessment reports.
The webinars were conducted by Sanofi's global talent team in partnership with experts from ATC. These sessions welcomed over 300 leaders from Sanofi and significantly increased their awareness of the value of Hogan.
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Collaborating with Authentic Talent Consulting in implementing the Hogan Assessment Initiative was a structured and successful project. Several aspects of the collaboration were highly appreciated.
Hogan personalized debriefings provided individuals with a thorough understanding of their assessment results, empowering them to take charge of their own development. The population analysis conducted as part of the collaboration offered valuable insights that helped adapt the development strategy to align with populations of global leaders.
The empowerment sessions for Sanofi leaders further improved their understanding of Hogan and his application in supporting talent. This collaboration with Authentic Talent and the implementation of Hogan evaluations have fostered a new level of partnership between talents and leaders, with the aim of introducing the best employee experience.
In summary, the collaboration in the talent accelerator program followed a structured approach, which included personalized debriefings, participant analysis, and empowerment sessions for Sanofi leaders.
This approach involved diverse stakeholders and integrated Hogan as a valuable tool and made a significant contribution to the transformative talent development journey. The mid-term feedback survey indicated that Hogan consistently emerged as the most valuable development medium along the way.
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Overall, implementing Hogan in the talent accelerator program has produced positive results by empowering talent, strengthening their partnership with leaders, and serving as a catalyst to strengthen accountability for their development.
Going forward, we will continue to encourage participants to reflect on the results of their Hogan assessments, further unlocking their potential. We express our deepest gratitude to Sanofi's 21 in-house Hogan certified evaluators and Authentic Talent consultants for their commitment and collaboration. This collective effort has paved the way for a promising future with Hogan as a valuable tool in our talent development initiatives.
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Sanofi: Marina Gridneva, Global Talent Partner, www.linkedin.com/in/marinagridneva
Authentic Talent Consulting: Leandra RĂ–TTGER, Chief of Staff, leandra@authentictalent.fr
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