Societe Lyonnais - Analysis of the Program’s Results

INTRODUCTION

Societe Lyonnais (SL) is a French Multi-national Company. Four years ago, the company set up a

“High flyer program" in order to develop the skills of its middle and senior managers at the

headquarters which is based in France. A one week generic Leadership program was set up

shortly before those managers moved abroad.

ANALYSIS OF THE PROGRAM’S RESULTS

After four years of running the program, the results have shown that it did not reach the

company’s expectations. In fact, 25% of SL’s expatriates returned home early due to

dissatisfaction. This score is much higher than the 10% average score of expatriates returning

prematurely in other companies1. In addition, over 35% of the expatriates who remained in post

were considered to be under-performing compared to management expectations of the Company;

30% of expatriates who completed their postings left the company within a year of returning to

France. Those score are also higher than the average scores which are 30% and 25 %

respectively2. As a result, the objective of reaching the revenues outside France to over 50%

within 2 years were not reached (it is currently only 30%).

ANALYSING THE POSSIBLE CAUSES

Different factors can explain the failures of the program.

a) Political Issue

Society Lyonnais has experienced political changes in its organization. The International Human

resources (HR) director who initiated the high flyer program and the 1 week Leadership Program

left the company shortly afterwards. The programs are now run by an interim HR director until

the global HR director will be appointed in May. The change in people who champion the

program has had negative effects on the program for several reasons. First, the interim director

when appointed to the position must take time to come in and to study all of HR‘s projects of the

company. The high flyer program might not prioritize the International HR director. Second, the

interim director might not have a good understanding about the company’s policies or the staff.

As