Essay About High Flyer Program And Analysis Of The Program

Societe Lyonnais – Analysis of the Program’s Results
INTRODUCTION
Societe Lyonnais (SL) is a French Multi-national Company. Four years ago, the company set up a
“High flyer program” in order to develop the skills of its middle and senior managers at the
headquarters which is based in France. A one week generic Leadership program was set up
shortly before those managers moved abroad.
ANALYSIS OF THE PROGRAM’S RESULTS
After four years of running the program, the results have shown that it did not reach the
company’s expectations. In fact, 25% of SL’s expatriates returned home early due to
dissatisfaction. This score is much higher than the 10% average score of expatriates returning
prematurely in other companies1. In addition, over 35% of the expatriates who remained in post
were considered to be under-performing compared to management expectations of the Company;
30% of expatriates who completed their postings left the company within a year of returning to
France. Those score are also higher than the average scores which are 30% and 25 %
respectively2. As a result, the objective of reaching the revenues outside France to over 50%
within 2 years were not reached (it is currently only 30%).
ANALYSING THE POSSIBLE CAUSES
Different factors can explain the failures of the program.
a) Political Issue
Society Lyonnais has experienced political changes in its organization. The International Human
resources (HR) director who initiated the high flyer program and the 1 week Leadership Program
left the company shortly afterwards. The programs are now run by an interim HR director until
the global HR director will be appointed in May. The change in people who champion the
program has had negative effects on the program for several reasons. First, the interim director
when appointed to the position must take time to come in and to study all of HR‘s projects of the
company. The high flyer program might not prioritize the International HR director. Second, the
interim director might not have a good understanding about the company’s policies or the staff.