Clients

American Standard Companies

Piscataway, NJ | 60,000 employees

Note: A detailed case study white paper for American Standard ("It's All About the People: Developing and Measuring Talent at American Standard") is available for free download on our White Papers page.

The Need

American Standard Companies A 122-year old manufacturer of brand name products in air conditioning systems, bathroom fixtures, vehicle control systems, and more, American Standard is in the process of transforming itself into a world-class organization in which operational excellence is the norm, customer service is superior, and financial objectives are consistently met. CEO Fred Poses and Senior VP for Human Resources Larry Costello are seeking to ensure that their investments in the development and management of people will become a strategic source of competitive advantage for American Standard as it modernizes and globalizes.

In their views, American Standard's future success hinges on the people it employs and the extent to which there are sufficient and effective systems in place for developing and managing them. World-class systems in these areas are necessary to achieve the world-class goals for the organization. In order to have a rigorous basis for managing and optimizing their human capital investment strategy, American Standard implemented the HCC Scorecard (now McBassi People Index®) three times - first in 2002 to get baseline measures, again in 2003, and a third time in 2005 on global basis.

HCC Scorecard Findings

In both 2002 and 2003, the HCC Scorecard revealed wide disparities across business units and plant locations in the maturity and the quality in the systems and methods used for managing and developing people. In many cases, these findings confirmed management's understanding of its strengths and weaknesses. In a number of other cases, however, the Scorecard's findings identified areas where problems were more serious than had been previously understood, and pointed to potential production and union problems that were likely to emerge in the future.

Importantly, the changes in the HCC scores between 2002 and 2003 at the plant level predicted subsequent changes in safety rates across plants. In particular, improvements in the HCC measurement of Learning Effectiveness turned out to be an especially important determinant of subsequent improvements in safety rates. In addition, the 2003 and 2005 HCC scores proved to be important predictors of subsequent variations in sales productivity across offices.

The Results

In 2002, the Senior VP for Human Resources used the specific information from the HCC Scorecard to intervene proactively within business units and within specific plants in an effort to begin systematically addressing deficiencies and neutralizing problems before they reached the boiling point. In 2003, the findings linking the HCC scores to changes in safety and sales productivity were used to reprioritize budgets, allocating resources to those initiatives that will have the greatest impact. By 2005, when the HCC Scorecard system was implemented on a global basis, it had become an integral part of HR planning, and leadership development and succession planning system. It has become woven into the fabric of how American Standard manages its people and results.

Larry Costello, Senior VP for Human Resources, concluded, "For the past four years, American Standard has been creating a much more strategic process for investing in the development and management of our people. The missing piece for us was a way to link our investments to bottom line results. McBassi's measurement methodologies created that link, helping us to develop a clear roadmap for improving business results. Equally important is our improved capacity to persuade managers to make the necessary investments by providing them with compelling evidence on the bottom line impact that results from improved development and management of their people."

Clients

American Standard Companies

The Need

HCC Scorecard Findings

The Results

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