ABSTRACT
Stepstone chose a strategy of gradual integration through the use of pilot countries and gradual export of best practices across the European operations in order to develop greater operational consistency. Integration was pursued by using countries as pilots and then based on the experience of these countries, exporting certain processes across Europe. An example of a country level development that served as a basis for possible export was the “Stepstone Academy” established in Germany. Stepstone’s Country Manager for Germany – the most successful of the European start-up operations – detected that the longer life-cycle of customer accounts created a need to change the attitude of the salesforce from “hunter” to “farmer.” In order to develop a long-term partnership with customers, employees needed to both deepen their knowledge of Internet recruitment, and also develop their insight into the workings of the human resource management function [in the client organizations]. Stepstone Academy provided new models of team leadership training and training focused on dedicated sales techniques to equip staff with key factors for their success. The export of such models and knowledge that was being developed within independent countries initially relied on two things: the appointment of a corporate training role within HR, the holder of which trouble-shooted across countries and acted as a conduit between country managers, and the establishment of a new forum for managers. This operation began as an informal network and problem solving mechanism that became known as Country Managers’ Meetings. These informal meetings set up on their own initiative were organized around small workshops in which three or four country managers worked together on a particular project. These small teams were responsible for working out a proposal for the whole company. Similar workshops were also created at the functional level in Marketing and Sales.
