DEI

Being the Boss learning journey earns 2023 Brandon Hall Group Gold Award in DEI for initiative at Reprise Digital

With Paradox Strategies’ Being the Boss learning journey at its core, elevateHER, a strategic women’s leadership development initiative at Reprise Digital, has won a 2023 Brandon Hall Group Gold HCM Excellence Award in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for Best Advance in Leadership Development for Women, organizers of the highly esteemed awards program have announced.

Reprise Digital, a division of The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. (IPG) and a global digital marketing agency, teamed up with our partners at Advantage Performance Group to deploy Paradox Strategies’ Being the Boss, a mobile app and an accompanying learning journey, as part of the initiative to increase representation of women leaders in senior leadership ranks across the globe.

Best Advance in Leadership Development for Women

The Being the Boss learning journey, combined with internal mentorship and custom curated workshops, has effectively advanced the company’s need to support and develop women leaders globally. This program targeted specific development needs of women leaders at mid-level management and promoted a culture of diversity, helping to support women in their wholistic needs for advancing in leadership roles.

“It is exciting to have our work recognized and celebrated. It was a pleasure sharing the Being the Boss journey with these inspiring women,” said Paradox Strategies Founding Partner Dr. Linda Hill. who is also a Harvard leadership professor and author of the widely acclaimed book on which the app and learning journey are based. “Our combined approach of self-paced content and reinforcement sessions had a powerful effect on participants. Their impressive work in the program led to promotions and increased responsibility. We see women thrive after completing the program, and I am eager to see where their careers take them.”

“As a senior female HR leader, I see first-hand that the need for programs and resources which support rising female leaders in passing the plateau of mid-level leadership is particularly evident and vital for the overall diversity and success of the organization.” said Michelle Crenshaw, Global Chief Talent Officer for Reprise and executive sponsor for the program.

“At Reprise, we made a commitment to further the careers of our high-potential female talent, through our elevateHER program and a key partnership with Advantage Performance utilizing the Being the Boss curriculum. Moreover, we are proud of the growth and success of this program across two cohort cycles so far and are compelled to renew that commitment and investment year over year, as we collectively work toward the betterment of the agency as a whole,” Michelle said.

Reprise has seen steady gains in female retention, new hires, and promotions.

The program included a powerful combination of self-paced content, via the leadership development app Being the Boss, and reinforcement sessions, including talks by Dr. Hill. Participants were high potential women from four markets: Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the U.S. These participants experienced promotions and increased responsibility following the program.

The camaraderie between the participants is an important component of the Being the Boss journey. One participant said, “It feels like we are not alone.”

“We are delighted with our partnership with a client that values leadership development and invests in the advancement of women leaders,” said Selva Blum, senior leadership development consultant at Advantage. “Through this program, they have made significant progress in building a strong diverse pipeline of leaders at a global level.”

“Dr. Linda Hill’s timeless imperatives for becoming a great leader resonate profoundly, particularly in the context of the challenges that women often navigate on their journey to leadership excellence,” she said. “I am personally grateful and honored to have met the remarkable women leaders in the program and witnessed their dedication to their resilience, growth, and development.”

About the award

Now entering its 30th year, the Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards is among the most prestigious awards program in the industry. Often called the “Academy Awards” by learning, talent and business executives, the program was one of the first of its kind when it debuted in 1993. The awards recognize the best organizations that have successfully developed and deployed programs, strategies, modalities, processes, systems, and tools that have achieved measurable results. We are honored to receive applications from organizations around the world ranging from small, medium, large, and global enterprises, to government, not-for-profits, and associations.

The 2023 Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards™ recognize best practices for initiatives in Learning and Development, Talent Management, Leadership Development, Talent Acquisition, Human Resources, Sales Performance, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and the Future of Work.

“Excellence Award winners are shown to be organizations that truly value their employees and invest in them through their human capital management programs. These HCM programs have been validated as best in class for business value and the impact on the employees themselves,” said Brandon Hall Group Chief Operating Officer Rachel Cooke, HCM Excellence Awards program leader.

Entries were evaluated by a panel of veteran, independent senior industry experts, Brandon Hall Group analysts, and executives based on these criteria:

  • Excellence Award winners will continue to be honored at Brandon Hall Group’s HCM Excellence Conference, February 13-15, 2024, at the Hilton West Palm Beach, Florida. Select winners also will serve as presenters in breakout sessions, sharing their leading practices during the conference.

“Our award winners are relentless in their pursuit of excellence,” said Brandon Hall Group Chief Executive Officer Mike Cooke. “We have received some of the most innovative use of HCM strategy that we have seen in the last 30 years, and in most cases, technology and collaboration across departments have helped them achieve amazing business results.”

ABOUT BRANDON HALL GROUP

Brandon Hall Group™ is a professional development company that offers data, research, insights, and certification to learning and talent executives and organizations. For over 30 years, they have empowered, recognized, and certified excellence in organizations worldwide, influencing the development of over 10 million employees and executives. The HCM Excellence Awards program was the first to recognize organizations for learning and talent and is the gold standard, known as the “Academy Awards of Human Capital Management.”

The awards recognize the best organizations that have successfully developed and deployed programs, strategies, modalities, processes, systems, and tools that have achieved measurable results. They are honored to receive applications from organizations worldwide ranging from small, medium, large, and global enterprises to government, not-for-profits, and associations.

View the complete list of award winners on their website.

To learn more about Being the Boss or how to bring it to your organization, contact us via the form below. We’d love to share more!

Linda Hill serves as a peer reviewer for ‘ACT Report’ aiming to transform DEI in tech

ACT Report - 'It was my privilege to be a peer reviewer of this important report. Now we all have a playbook to move the needle on DEI in tech.' -Linda Hill (image of report cover and photo of Linda Hill)

The ACT Report lays out 4 recommendations and 10 actions that tech companies and leaders can take to shift the DEI paradigm

CAMBRIDGE, MA (Nov. 5, 2021) – Harvard Business School Professor Linda Hill, a founding partner at Paradox Strategies, was among 7 peer reviewers for a just-released report calling for bold, collective action in the tech industry and elsewhere to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Produced by a coalition of 29 leading experts in academia and tech, Action to Catalyze Tech (ACT) challenges tech companies to open-source DEI best practices, collaborate on systemic solutions, and increase accountability to drive change. Over 30 CEOs and leaders have pledged to take action.

“It was my privilege to be a peer reviewer of this important report,” Dr. Hill said. “Now we all have a playbook to move the needle on DEI in tech.”

The report says CEOs must approach and resource DEI like any other business imperative. Companies won’t move the needle on DEI until they introduce systemic efforts, led by top leadership, that drive accountability for DEI throughout the company, it states.

“At Paradox Strategies we believe successful DEI efforts begin with an organizational diagnosis supported by top leadership,” said Managing Partner Taran Swan. “A comprehensive diagnostic can drive the development of an actionable DEI strategy that senior management is accountable to and that can be cascaded throughout the organization.”

Convened by the Aspen Institute, the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), PwC, and Snap Inc., a cross-industry working group partnered for more than a year to aggregate relevant, research-based actions that businesses can take to help radically improve DEI outcomes.

The ACT Report compiles this research and provides a blueprint and tools for companies from startups to mature organizations to implement to drive internal and sector-wide change. The full report is available here.

A coalition press release said executives from organizations including Airbnb, Apple, Dropbox, Etsy, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Salesforce, Spotify, and Uber, have committed to being founding signatories of the ACT Report, pledging to hold themselves and their companies accountable to accelerate progress toward achieving DEI success. Together, these founding signatories represent more than 500,000 tech employees.

Paradox Strategies offers a full range of solutions to support DEI initiatives, and produced a report on DEI best practices earlier this year.

Related: See our 3-part series on building diversity