What is top talent and how is that identified?

As a part of our talent acquisition engagements, we ask our clients how they define “top talent” and how they would assess those traits in the interview process.  Reflecting on the insightful comments we hear every day, we thought there would be great value in a new blog in which senior executives/thought leaders share their “Take on Talent.”

This is the thirteenth in a series of blogs/interviews with senior executives who are thought leaders in the areas of Talent Acquisition, Career Development and Leadership who will share their perspectives on this ever present question.

 

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Steve Rudderham, Vice President, Global Business Services,  Kellogg Company

Steve Rudderham join Kellogg in 2016 as Vice President, Global Business Services. In this role, he is responsible for leading the current operations within GBS, continuous improvement, and global expansion. As well as the day to day operations, Steve is responsible for understanding industry trends, bench-marking against peer companies, and developing programs and projects that drive significant improvements in cost, process quality, and service delivery for multiple functions and global markets. He is also required to identify and leverage best practices, and standardize processes, policies, and practices to deliver significant improvements and savings in line with committed business cases and budgets.

He has 20 years of global experience across Business Process Outsourcing, Insurance and Lighting. He also has a broad operational background having led teams on the ground in the United States, Europe, Latin America, and India. Continue reading

How to retain employees through ‘servant’ leadership

zeynepBy Zeynep Ilgaz

The term “servant leadership” was coined nearly 50 years ago in an essay written by Robert K. Greenleaf; and since then, the business world has slowly but surely embraced this concept of empathy in leadership.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen top-notch companies like Zappos, Whole Foods and the Container Store publicly proclaim their affinity for this philosophy. And, in late 2016, Starbucks joined the ranks when it called its brand-new CEO a “true servant leader,” explaining that he embodies characteristics the company wants to see in all its leaders.

Servant leadership certainly seems to be growing in popularity, but it also continues to be quite misunderstood.

So, what exactly is servant leadership?
Some people see the word “servant” and mistakenly assume that servant leaders are slaves to their employees, pushovers who say “yes” to everything and are willing to sacrifice the company’s well-being to give employees what they want.

In reality, though, servant leaders are very much in charge of their companies; they just aren’t authoritarians who boss everyone around. Instead, they’re great listeners who are humble and empathetic — but still successfully balance organizational growth with these feel-good attributes. Continue reading

Cloud Enterprise Architect – Managing Director

iStock_000016080662LargeOur client is looking for high-caliber technologists who will develop professional services, managed services and outsourcing solutions within the customer’s requirements. Responsibilities include, among others, supporting sales teams in solution development, managing an internal matrix team to scope and price solutions, leading customers through the design process by leveraging a wide range of services.  Working directly with Internal  Domain Architects, Partner Architects, Client Architects, and Accenture project teams to design a robust solution that exceeds Client expectations. The ideal candidate will have development experience in scoping, shaping, modeling Infrastructure Services architectures, across consulting, managed and outsourcing in customer-facing roles.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Serves as Cloud Solution architect across multi domain and Technologies tower for Professional Services and Outsourcing across: DC/Cloud, Network, Security, Service Management and Workplace Solutions
  • Understands the broader business strategy and defines a Cloud architecture to support the business strategy and lead the end-to-end solution development
  • Partners with solution architects to assess solution alignment to the overall architectural blueprint and drive proposal writing, solution direction, pricing and costing
  • Helps define the performance goals and metrics for the proposed solution.
  • Reviews solution blueprints and project scope to ensure that the needs of the business are being met.
  • Understand the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for the solution
  • Understands the broader business strategy and defines a Cloud architecture to support the business strategy
  • Reviews solution scope and cost models to ensure that the needs of the Client and Accenture business requirements.
  • Owns Solution Development as liaison between Sales and Delivery teams. Serve as technical liaison between Sales team, Clients, Delivery & support teams up to and including Contract negotiations
  • Collaborate with sales team to formulate / execute a sales strategy to exceed revenue objectives

Continue reading

Account Leader-Hospitality Industry

banner_client_testimonialsThe Account Lead is responsible for bringing the latest innovation and  offerings to our clients.  Responsible for building a trusted client advisor relationship with the client, client account leadership; understanding client needs and expectations.  They bring extensive experience in account growth, profit & loss and exceptional client relationship management experience.  The role is responsible for driving profitable sales growth, expanding the footprint, ensuring profitable delivery and influencing the client strategy to help drive high performance on the account.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Work in partnership with Delivery to deliver on the contract and exceed client and Accenture expectations for Sales, Revenue and Profitability targets.
  • Drive growth on the account by presenting offerings, innovation and thought leadership to the client and pulling in deep experts when needed.
  • Lead the account and support functions.
  • Involved in setting strategic direction to establish near term goals for the Account.
  • Secure referenceable client credentials that represent innovation and automation delivered.

Continue reading

Great Teams Are About Personalities, Not Just Skills

by Dave Winsborough and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

At the start of 2016 Google announced that it had discovered the secret ingredients for the perfect team. After years of analyzing interviews and data from more than 100 teams, it found that the drivers of effective team performance are the group’s average level of emotional intelligence and a high degree of communication between members. Google’s recipe of being nice and joining in makes perfect sense (and is hardly counter intuitive).

Perhaps more surprising, Google’s research implies that the kinds of people in the team are not so relevant. While that may be true at Google, a company where people are preselected on the basis of their personality (or “Googliness”), this finding is inconsistent with the wider scientific evidence, which indicates quite clearly that individuals’ personalities play a significant role in determining team performance. In particular, personality affects:

  • What role you have within the team
  • How you interact with the rest of the team
  • Whether your values (core beliefs) align with the team’s

Continue reading