Talent Management

Talent Management

We believe that developing great talent, aligned with our corporate vision, will create tremendous long-term success for our employees, customers, suppliers and shareholders. Our goal is clear: we are creating a talent-first organization through the global development of programs and people.

Ball has made significant progress in the past two years related to talent management. For example, we have pulled together a team of our people from around the world and engaged them in a discovery and action process to build robust talent management capabilities that are aligned with our Drive for 10 strategy. Our intent is to acquire, assess, develop and engage the best talent in the world to help us grow. And we are creating the right systems to support these efforts.

While many of our past human resources activities have been specific to geographic regions in which we operate and unique to the needs of each business, we now have begun the process of harmonizing our activities globally while recognizing regional differences. We are identifying and adopting best practices both inside and outside of Ball, developing consistent strategies, and then executing in the most practical way. This makes our businesses stronger in each region while also connecting our community of talent globally.

Customer Perspective

Stacey Valy Panayiotou
Vice President, Talent Development & Organization Effectiveness,
Coca-Cola Refreshments

Based on your experiences, what do you consider to be major challenges for Ball as we build our talent management capabilities in each of our businesses around the world?

In many organizations fighting the war for talent today, leaders are asking themselves a few critical questions that will position them for success in future:

• What is Ball Corporation’s leadership brand and how does that definition need to evolve? A clearly defined vision for future leaders will ensure that Ball is among the best in attracting, developing and retaining a diverse and high performing pool of talent.

• Is there a common understanding of the mix of skills and experiences future leaders must possess? The diverse makeup of today’s workforce will require Ball to think about this differently, as generational and other differences impact traditional career path approaches.

• Are the capabilities and competencies that have made Ball successful the same ones that will get you to where you want to go? Capabilities such as change leadership, innovation and execution are quickly becoming sources of competitive advantage. Successful organizations understand how to leverage their history, while considering how those capabilities need to grow, evolve or change – in order to win in the future.

 

Talent Acquisition

  • We have taken a global view toward our on-boarding programs in each of our businesses and are harmonizing an approach for getting new employees acclimated culturally and fully engaged more quickly.
  • We are developing a global employment brand for Ball that will support our goal to become an employer of choice in the regions where we operate.
  • We are developing consistent interviewing and assessment processes, aligned with Ball’s core values, to improve our quality of hiring metrics in all regions.

Talent Development

  • We have created a comprehensive framework for talent development, with consistent program offerings around the world.
  • We have globalized our leadership development programs, bringing together teams from Europe, Asia and the Americas.
  • We have created an emerging leader program with common evaluation criteria and assessment tools to identify and develop the next generation of Ball leaders around the world.
  • We are building a competency development guide to support our core set of Ball competencies globally.
  • We are refining our global total rewards philosophy to further facilitate talent development and mobility.

Talent/Organizational Planning

  • We have harmonized our performance management system, utilizing a single set of competencies, a single rating system and a single performance appraisal tool globally.
  • In 2012, we are deploying an integrated succession planning and talent review process across each of our businesses and major functions, in addition to a global talent review. This process identifies our critical roles and major talent risk areas, informs our employee development programs and helps define our talent acquisition needs.
  • We adopted a new global mobility policy and framework in 2012 to help us build a more diverse pool of leadership talent, with broader international experiences, to meet the challenges that lie ahead as we continue our global growth.
  • We are globalizing our diversity and inclusion efforts in a cohesive way and have begun a systematic process of leveraging diversity of individuals and teams to unleash ideas and innovation and drive growth at Ball.

 

Priority in Action

Since 2010, the Brazilian economy has experienced significant growth. As a consequence, competition for talent is intense. Latapack-Ball started operations at the Tres Rios plant in late 2009, added a second production line in mid-2010 and started the construction of a new plant in Alagoinhas in 2011. Attracting and retaining the right people has therefore become one of our most important tasks.

We developed multiple talent management programs in 2011. For example, 30 management employees were trained in the new “Continuous Leadership Development Program.” Each Latapack-Ball employee completed an average of 80 hours of training in 2011 – the best practice in Brazil is 62 hours. In Alagoinhas, the 133 new employees reached almost 80,000 total hours of training. We also hired five trainees who have the potential to grow into future leadership positions.

As a result of all our talent management efforts, Latapack-Ball was recognized as one of the best 150 Companies to Work For in Brazil. This allows us to attract and retain the best talent and contributed to the achievement of a voluntary turnover rate of less than 0.1 percent in 2011.