Pandora
Global jewellery brand Pandora introduced its Phoenix strategy for sustainable growth in 2021 but, to support its growth trajectory and ambitious financial targets, the company’s board concluded that investing in leadership would be key.
An innovative leadership and development programme was needed to involve all of Pandora’s 3,750 leaders, who are based in 11 countries and speak 19 different languages. It was necessary to create a common leadership language among the leadership community, encompassing personnel from the manufacturing, retail and HQ/office divisions.
The programme needed to be relevant to a proportion of leaders (for example, store managers) who had never received any leadership training, while some of the leadership community (for instance, in the HQ) had benefited from several leadership programmes.
The Pandora RISE Leadership and Development programme – hailed by the PMAs judges as “hugely impressive” and a “deserving winner” – was launched in September 2022 with a timeframe of 18 to 24 months. Its objectives were to elevate leadership capabilities, decrease attrition and boost employee engagement by promoting a shared leadership language and fostering empowerment and accountability.
Pandora collaborated with Achieve Breakthrough to design the programme, and extensive interviews and data-driven insights helped the duo tailor it to meet the diverse needs of the leadership staff. It was delivered as a mix of face-to-face and online learning, and programme material was also available online. Each eight-module programme culminated in a celebration event where leaders shared their achievements.
An issue that was quickly addressed by early cohorts highlighted the need for more content relevant to leaders’ context. Achieve Breakthrough quickly recalibrated the programme and introduced contextualised information and case studies for each cohort. Continuous feedback loops ensured the programme’s relevance and effectiveness, and assessments show that 97 per cent of leaders perceived the overall impact of the programme to be positive.
Leadership effectiveness scores surged to an impressive 9/10 (from 7.9/10), engagement scores increased by 14 per cent, while attrition rates decreased globally by 13 per cent, creating significant cost savings and a 210 per cent ROI within 12 months. As a result, the programme became self-funding. “The stats on the impact were hugely impressive,” the judges said, with 2,700 colleagues going through the programme and impact data reporting strongly as a result.