 Anne Best
Iron Mountain
| Headquartered in the U.S., Iron Mountain Inc has a $2.4bn turnover. The European company has grown rapidly since its inception in 1999 and now serves 18 countries across 195 facilities, the largest data protection and records management company in the region. They are working to double the size of the current business to £500m in three years through a combination of acquisition and organic growth. |
When Anne Best, Vice President of Human Resources for Iron Mountain Europe, sought to successfully implement a strategic review of talent within the organisation, she chose to do so with support from Thompson Dunn. The thorough psychological profiling in Thompson Dunn's Executive Management Assessment, provides valuable insight into how a manager's thinking preferences are likely to impact upon their ability to excel in their role both now and in light of additional complexity in the future. Iron Mountain is aware that its expansion over recent years has demanded that each employee 'raise their game' significantly. It is in effect a different company from that which many current employees joined and this upskilling is a huge shift for the organisation and its people. Iron Mountain is investing in its people in order to support them in this change. Integral to Iron Mountain's business strategy is its people strategy. Their Management Development and Succession Review (MDSR) is key in attracting, recruiting and retaining the best talent. Strategic workforce planning has been designed to feed the company's leadership pipeline going forward, identifying the best people and making this talent more visible to the rest of the organisation. This outcome is critical in embedding behaviours that support the business objectives within all levels of the organisation. Of her decision to engage Thompson Dunn to conduct the assessment of her top people, Anne says: 'We were transparent with our senior leaders about our desire to have an objective assessment of their potential and at the same time we wished to provide them with a positive personal development experience. I felt confident that Thompson Dunn would be able to deliver this on behalf of Iron Mountain'. Anne highlights how the collaborative design between Iron Mountain and Thompson Dunn has been instrumental in the program's success, 'Together we have designed a process that thoroughly assesses the capability of existing managers. This includes a 360 degree feedback assessment against the Iron Mountain Leadership Characteristics, provided by the individual, their manager, staff and peers. I have been very pleased with the positive comments that have been volunteered across a range of functional disciplines.' The internal 'bar' has been raised, whilst supporting the development of its existing employees Iron Mountain Europe has recognised the important role that recruiting the highest level of talent plays in meeting its business objectives. Accordingly, Iron Mountain is now working with Thompson Dunn to add psychological insight into its senior manager recruitment process. Having already benchmarked the top 60 managers within the European business allows Thompson Dunn to understand the 'playing field' that new recruits enter and must perform upon. It is imperative that new entrants have both the temperament, 'fit' and the intellectual 'horsepower' to thrive in its fast paced business environment. Presently some months into the MDSR process, Anne reflects positively on the tangible difference that the process has made to staff: 'The qualitative data from this assessment process is already helping us make better decisions around succession planning and internal appointments. By involving senior candidates in this assessment as part of the recruiting process, it helps them realise how important getting the right people is for us and enables them to understand what we are trying to achieve in terms of building capability so that we can achieve our growth objectives. This is a very exciting journey and people are genuinely energised by participating'. Thompson Dunn has over 20 years experience of facilitating organisations to de-risk their strategic recruitment decisions through the application of accurate, considered and strategically aligned psychological insight and look forward to continuing to work with Iron Mountain and others to leverage increasing business value from their organisational talent.  | Lawrence Francis
+44 (0)20 7486 1199
lawrence.francis@thompsondunn.com |
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