The Challenge

As a global organization, pladis must adapt to constant global changes. However, Brexit, the recession, inflation and rising prices not only have implications on its business, but also on its people. The global scale of pladis means these disruptions make their international teams vulnerable to sudden changes.

The Solution

Through Lepaya’s professionals and leadership program, they create learning impact at every touchpoint to support their globally distributed people. With customized skills training combined with learning technology, pladis empowers their talent to navigate organizational change and impact business goals.

Impact at every Touchpoint with pladis

Pladis has seen many changes. Known as McVities in the UK and as Verkade in the Netherlands, its organization is always evolving. But one thing has stayed the same since 1886: making your favorite home treats and delights.

Much like the evolution of its brand, pladis faces similar challenges to many multinational companies – adapting to constant global changes. Brexit, the recession, inflation and rising prices not only have implications on its business, but also on its talent.

The global scale of pladis makes their international teams vulnerable to these sudden changes. Therefore, pladis needed an upskilling partner to support its people and develop resilient talent with a growth mindset to navigate organizational changes.

“What our people need is first of all to be resilient and be able to adapt to changes but also having a growth mindset to focus on the future and take the next steps.” Tessa Jobben, HR Program Manager

Live the Impact

Through talent upskilling, pladis takes the next steps forward as a business

These global challenges mean their people’s skills have to adapt and evolve. Pladis developed resilient talent with a growth mindset to ensure they’re ready to change and succeed no matter the turbulence. If their people don’t react, adapt and grow, then neither does pladis as a company.

Pladis integrated a learning solution that nurtures resilience skills to help their managers and teams perform better. And from our State of Skills research, Resilience and Taking Ownership are the upcoming Power Skills to help global companies meet revenue and growth targets in 2023. But pladis needs more than skills training, it needs to see and live the impact on their business goals.

Pladis launched professionals and leadership programs to support their global managers and talent with skills training.

“I also saw a colleague doing a presentation last week and I saw specific sentences coming back she learnt there. That was a lot of fun to actually live the impact” Tessa Jobben, HR Program Manager

Grow Confident Professionals from Day One

Pladis develops individual contributors outside of a team leadership role with key soft skills to impact performance

Starting a new career at a large organization is tricky. As an individual contributor in a new role, the training helped Lucrezia develop and apply professional skills from day one. By identifying the precise soft skills she needed – structured storytelling and leading stakeholders – pladis built the foundation for her to be successful.

The program guided Lucrezia through these key professional skills, but what really matters is the confidence she developed to apply them and impact her companies’ goals as an effective contributor.

“It’s a win for my manager and for the company because I waste less time and I’m more prepared.” Lucrezia Monsagrati, Trade Marketing Manager

The Elephant in the Sales Room

Having the right learning structure in place strengthens team cohesion & communication to approach difficult conversations with retailers

As a sales manager, Jeroen has to support his team through delicate discussions with pladis’ retailers to maintain sales performance. The learning supported his team’s cohesion and communication to increase their capabilities and help their sales output grow. But it’s the training’s structure itself that allowed Jeroen and his team to openly discuss their most relevant and challenging topics.

Jeroen now finds that the Lepaya training has enabled fresh cohesion and skills in his sales team to collaborate with retailers.

“You do the training with different people and you get one buddy assigned but you also feel more connection with the people you are in the training with. The strength with Lepaya is that you practice with your team members.” Jeroen van der Zant, Sales Retail Manager

Young Managers, Bright Future

Stepping into the role as a first-time leader early in your career isn’t easy, but pladis is there to support Nikie

Pladis has access to a range of learning technology through the partnership with Lepaya. With tools such as Virtual Reality, pladis grows confidence in their first-time managers to practice and apply the skills which impact teams.

Nikie is a prime example, as her confidence is fully enabled with VR. Pladis recognized and rewarded Nikie’s potential with a leadership role. But straight out of university, the pressures of leadership are challenging for young professionals. Presenting to others triggered stress for Nikie, but her training program and methodology has built confidence and a solid approach to help her succeed as a young and promising manager.

“Doing this course made me think: how will I organize my day? How do I approach something? It makes me do my job a little better.” Nikie Vroom, Logistics Coordinator

Once it clicks you just apply it

Working on the future together with pladis

Our learning impact isn’t finished here. We’re committed to helping pladis and their global people grow by extending the reach of our learning program. And we’re not just extending the same programs. Pladis is bringing back different skills training in different formats to develop more of the skills their people need.

But no matter the learning programs we provide, our priority is delivering impactful solutions at scale so pladis and its international managers and professionals are ready for future challenges.

“Where Lepaya makes the difference is first of all in the way the learning is set up…once it clicks you can just apply it… but secondly to work on the future together.”