Chicago — Feb. 5
Pearson Performance Solutions (Pearson PS), a provider of strategic workforce solutions, has expanded its relationship with Ace Hardware Corp. by providing a talent development program to meet a business imperative.
The program was designed to help Ace in the evolution of its field organization — the needs of several key positions had changed, and the nearly 300 people occupying those positions needed help in identifying their developmental needs.
Pearson’s holistic approach included a job analysis survey, talent management assessment battery, performance rating survey and learning analysis.
Outputs included objective assessments of skills and potential of this strategically valuable audience, group development plans (GDPs) to define key, audiencewide development interventions and individual development plans (IDPs) to provide targeted development opportunities to close skill gaps and improve individual and organizational succession readiness.
Ace views this initiative as key to optimizing employees’ skills, said Ken Nichols, vice president of retail operations.
“While technology and process are important, we realized early on that those individuals who harness the technology and processes were critical to our supply chain’s success,” Nichols said. “Pearson gave us a solution that not only assessed our target audience but gave us a blueprint for workforce planning decisions, identified key developmental areas and ensured that everything was tied back to our business objectives.”
The program, supported by a robust technology platform, was rolled out in its entirety in less than eight weeks. It was sponsored at the senior management level, and it had stakeholder participation from retail operations, sales, organizational development and human resources.
“As the No. 1 hardware cooperative in the U.S., Ace Hardware exemplifies distribution excellence,” said David Fabianski, Pearson Performance Solutions president. “We take pride in being selected to help Ace with their human capital development efforts.
“Ace places a significant value on talent management, and their industry leadership is a testament to their emphasis on sound human capital decisions.”
