Introduction to UST
Founded in 1999 and headquartered in California, UST has grown to over 32 000 associates across 35+ countries, serving 160+ Global 1000 clients. The organisation’score values of humility, humanity, and integrity drive its mission of transforming lives through digital solutions, platforms, and product engineering. UST’s market approach focuses on select clients, providing them with undivided attention and tailored solutions.
Transformation Overview: From Project-Based to Practice-Based Management
In 2023, UST embarked on a significant transformation, shifting its focus from a project-based approach to a practice-based management strategy. This model ensures that employees remain assigned to their primary manager while contributing to projects led by different project managers. Practices are primarily organised around specific skill sets, allowing employees to leverage their expertise across various initiatives while maintaining strong connections within their core teams. This approach enhances collaboration, fosters skill development, and aligns talent more effectively with project needs.
This shift is more than just a structural change. It represents a fundamental mindset shift within the organisation. Moving from project-based to practice-based management means UST now assigns them based on practices that rather than assigning managers to oversee specific projects. This approach fosters long-term employee development by ensuring managers are invested in their teams’ continuous growth and success rather than just completing individual projects.
People Experience Transformation
At the heart of this transformation is UST’s commitment to recognising employees as valuable assets rather than just resources. Key aspects included:
- Practice-based management: UST transitioned to a practice-based model, where employees remain with their primary manager while working on projects led by different managers. This approach, supported by the integrated Workday system, ensures continuity in reporting lines and focuses on long-term employee development, with practices organised around specific skill sets.
- Increased investment in development: Emphasising development through new channels and integrated learning within the Workday system, fostering continuous growth and improvement.
- Enhanced engagement and loyalty: Utilising engagement tools, including Workday’s feedback features, to continuously measure and act on employee insights, thereby enhancing engagement and loyalty.
- A holistic view of employees: The integrated Workday system consolidates all employee-related data, providing a comprehensive view of each individual across their lifecycle, from learning and feedback to overall development.
Mindset Shift: From Project Managers to People Managers
The transformation required a significant shift in mindset—from managing projects to managing people. This shift involved embracing servant leadership and focusing on long-term employee success and well-being. Key initiatives included:
- Data-driven decision making: UST has implemented mechanisms to capture and utilise data for real-time insights and actions. With all hire-to-retire lifecycle data integrated in Workday, managers, HR, and employees can access comprehensive information to make informed workforce decisions.
- Rotation and succession planning: Rotating employees across assignments for long-term development and succession planning.
- Integrated team view: Providing an integrated view of teams with data on talent, learning, performance, and other metrics.
Overall Change Management and Success: The REST Approach
One of the critical success factors in UST’s transformation was its robust approach to change management. The company established the REST guiding principles (reduce Risk, enhance Experience, improve Speed, promote Transparency) and a structured governance framework. This ensured that UST’s transformation was managed efficiently and effectively.
Key change management strategies included:
- Strong programme management: Effective management of all programmeaspects was crucial. This included setting clear goals, defining roles, and establishing a roadmap for implementation.
- Active leadership commitment: Weekly engagement with HR, technology, and partner leaders ensured alignment and support from top management.
- Regular cadence: Frequent communication and coordination through daily standups, bi-weekly status check-ins, and weekly PMO reporting kept the project on track.
- Early team involvement: Involving many team leads from the planning stages ensured buy-in and readiness for change.
- Build in public: Leveraging a culture where mistakes were seen as learning opportunities fostered transparency and continuous improvement.
Communication and Workforce Engagement
Communicating change and creating excitement within the workforce was pivotal. UST implemented several strategies to ensure effective communication and engagement:
- Leadership messages: The company’s leadership team actively communicated messages throughout the rollout.
- Communication hub: To support the transition internal hub was created with messages, job aids, and contact details.
- Engaged volunteer network: UST extensively utilised its COLORS volunteer network for organisational initiatives.
- Change champions: Identifying and engaging change champions across geographies and business units facilitated smoother transitions and early adoption.
Technology Enablers
Technology played a critical role in enabling UST’s transformation. UST balanced standardisation with the best platforms, ensuring seamless integration into the broader environment. Extensive testing was enhanced through automation, and Microsoft Fabric was used to prepare data for analytics and AI, providing a scalable data strategy.
Impact and Future Outlook
The transformation led to significant qualitative and quantitative impacts:
- Employee engagement: High adoption rates and positive feedback on performance management and learning.
- HR operations: Reduction in requests to the HR operations team.
- People management: Shift in managers’ perception of employees as valuable assets.
- Candidate engagement: Increased candidate engagement scores post-RippleHire rollout.
UST anticipates continued improvements in employee engagement with additional AI use cases, integrated employee engagement tools, and improved talent planning.
Key Takeaways
UST’s successful transformation was driven by several key factors:
- Leadership commitment: Ensuring top management support and active involvement.
- Talent strategy and people experience vision: Aligning transformation goals with a clear vision for talent strategy.
- Platform and partner selection: Choosing the right technology and partners to support the transformation.
- Future-ready technology approach: Leveraging advanced technologies to enhance people processes.
- Active team engagement and change management: Engaging teams early, maintaining regular communication, and fostering a culture of transparency and continuous improvement.
- Strong programme management and governance: Establishing robust programme management and governance structures to guide the transformation.
Guidance for successful transformation
For organisations aiming to drive similar changes, it is essential to start by defining a clear vision aligned with strategic goals. This vision should be compelling and realistic, providing a sense of purpose and direction.
Active support and involvement from top management are crucial. Leaders need to be visible champions, making strategic decisions, providing necessary resources, and communicating the importance of the transformation to foster a sense of urgency and dedication.
Engaging employees early in the process builds buy-in and readiness for change. Involving employees in planning, soliciting their input, and addressing their concerns helps mitigate resistance. Regular, transparent communication keeps everyone informed and maintains momentum.
Choosing scalable and integrable technology solutions that align with business needs is another key factor. The technology should support immediate needs and future growth, ensuring a seamless user experience. Fostering a culture of continuous improvement is also important. Encourage a mindset where mistakes are viewed as opportunities for learning. Provide ongoing training, recognise innovative ideas, and create feedback mechanisms to support continuous improvement.
Table of Contents
- Introduction to UST
- Transformation Overview: From Project-Based to Practice-Based Management
- People Experience Transformation
- Mindset Shift: From Project Managers to People Managers
- Overall Change Management and Success: The REST Approach
- Communication and Workforce Engagement
- Technology Enablers
- Impact and Future Outlook
- Key Takeaways
- Guidance for successful transformation