Building a strong leadership pipeline through succession planning

Talogy was shortlisted as a finalist in the Best HR, L&D, OD Consultancy category at the CIPD Middle East People Awards.

Industry: Real estate and hospitality
HQ: Tabuk, Saudi Arabia
Employees: 5,100+
Solution: Leadership assessments for succession planning

Challenge

Red Sea Global (RSG) is a luxury hospitality developer, contributing to Saudi Arabia’s transformation agenda by designing, building and operating sustainable tourism destinations. Its vision is to become the world’s most responsible developer, by trailblazing new global standards for built environments to become enablers for social and ecological transformation. Aligned to Vision 2030 they are one of several giga-projects shaping the future of the Kingdom’s travel and tourism sector.

RSG has rapidly grown – beginning as a startup in 2018, to ranking second on LinkedIn’s 2023 annual best place to work in Saudi Arabia list. After a merge and acquisition, the company underwent complex role changes and organisational adjustments, which led to a succession planning initiative to safeguard their success and sustainability over the long term.

Aims of the succession planning initiative:

Ensure business continuity and achieve a sustainable business model for the future.
Evaluate the talent in the organisation.
Gain insight into the group leadership profile.
Identify individual areas of strength, development priorities and potential risks.
Engage, develop and retain key talent in the business.

With our expanding mandate, it is increasingly important that the Group safeguards its future by creating a strong pipeline of leadership talent. One of the reasons we enjoy the confidence of the Board is that they understand our current leaders will develop future leaders while also delivering on today’s priorities. This initiative is one of the most important investments we make in developing a sustainable business model for our Group.

John Pagano

Chief Executive Officer, Red Sea Global

Solution

Talogy and Red Sea Global partnered to design, develop and deliver the succession planning initiative. This effort focused on identifying top performers and potential leaders for targeted development to so they could advance in the organisation, move into top-level roles and ensure leadership continuity. Talogy and RSG combined a disciplined, data-driven process with a user-friendly, and people-centric approach to engage all stakeholders in the initiative.

The project comprised of four key stages over 12 months in 2023:

Identify and define critical roles.
Talogy conducted an initial design review including the updated organisation structure, competency framework, critical role profiles and talent cards, and psychometric mapping. Relevant business simulations were selected to be used during the development centre, and a career aspirations survey was designed to capture employee motivation and drive. A development library was created to facilitate individual development planning conversations during feedback.
Assess the talent pool.
The team ensured transparent and effective communication and engagement with all key stakeholders throughout the project. The initiative included a battery of psychometric assessments, individual development reports, coaching, and development planning sessions were included for each of the employees nominated to the talent pool.
Map the talent pool to the critical roles.
Assessment data and results contributed to a management report outlining overall results, group insights, development themes, and any observed risks in the talent pool or critical role bench strength. Talent cards mapped and ranked potential successors based on their estimated readiness against the critical role profiles.
Conduct a people review
Finally, a people review was conducted with the Talent Committee to review high-potential talent, make higher-quality data-driven decisions about their inclusion on the succession plan for each critical role and ensure alignment between individual development and the organisation’s strategic goals.

Results

Succession planning has significantly contributed to enhanced individual performance at RSG. Through targeted development, employees are prepared to take on key roles, resulting in a notable improvement in performance metrics shown in a before-after comparative analysis.
Succession planning has contributed to higher employee engagement levels: 82% of employees recommending RSG as a great place to work in the 2022 Employee Engagement survey.
The project has successfully identified top performers and potential leaders, leading to higher representation of specific groups within RSG: 40% of the talent pool comprises Saudi Arabian Nationals, compared to 27% in 2021, and 22% of potential successors are female, compared to 10% in 2021.
Talogy was shortlisted as a finalist in the Best HR, L&D, OD Consultancy category at the CIPD Middle East People Awards 2023 for the success of the project.

“At Red Sea Global, we understand that long-term success hinges on nurturing a pipeline of talented future leaders, to deliver both the projects of today, and those of tomorrow. Our Succession Planning initiative is a strategic priority, cultivating leaders who embody a commitment to excellence and to our shared values. In collaboration with Talogy, I am proud to lead initiatives that not only align with our regenerative development goals but also ensure that our talented and diverse workforce thrives, in line with our responsibility for supporting Saudi Arabia’s transformation.”

Tim Williams – Group Head of People Strategy and Culture, Red Sea Global

What’s next with Talogy?

As strategic partners, Talogy and RSG are committed to ongoing improvement and innovation. A review of potential selection tools is planned, to augment the existing hiring practices, and ensure that new hires are assessed and selected for their ability to think in an abstract manner and deal with unfamiliar problems, to compliment the ability of the current talent pool within RSG. A further People Review with the Talent Committee is planned with the next round of the Succession Planning Initiative in 2024.

“We’re engineering a future where technology seamlessly integrates with luxury and sustainability, thanks to the Succession Planning Initiative, a joint effort with Talogy. Our dedicated technology team has played a pivotal role in systemising the project. We’ve introduced a cutting-edge digital Individual Development Plan for everyone at Red Sea Global, which ensures that our focus on critical role profiles and individual development is not just a commitment but a digitally driven reality. At Red Sea Global, technology is more than a tool; it’s a catalyst for transformation.”

Dr. Ahmed Alsohaily – Group Head of Technology & project participant, Red Sea Global

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