In business, sustainable growth is no certainty, and often takes several years to accomplish. Even at Hogan, the business did not experience rapid growth until more than a decade after the company was founded. This is what makes Hogan’s European distributor Awair’s story so incredible. In just five years – three as a Hogan distributor – the company has experienced rapid, yet smart, organizational growth and success.

Although the company was founded in Italy, Awair has since expanded across Mediterranean Europe to establish and maintain a presence in Spain and France. This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Roman history. They are most definitely experts in geographic expansion.

As part of our Distributor Spotlight Series, our friends at Awair have offered to tell their story so that we can share it with the masses. In it, one can easily understand what has made their organization so successful, and why the future is even more promising due to their stellar leadership and expertise.

“All roads lead to Rome,” as our wise ancestors said. For Hogan, the road took a while to complete, but then the old motto proved trustworthy, and Hogan Assessments finally landed in Italy with Awair in 2014. Now, they are there to stay – and to make an impact.

Awair is a fast-growing consulting company which stands out as the one-stop-shop for assessments. Established in Milan in 2012, it is a young organization, yet firmly grounded on the distinctive competences of its founders, each of them with over 20 years of professional background. 

“We serve multinational corporations, as well as large and medium domestic companies, head hunters, recruiters, and professional coaches. Our partnership with Hogan gives us a competitive advantage for the depth and scope of the analysis we can carry out, a great value added that our clients do acknowledge,” says Massimo Meroni, Awair Co-founder.

Francesca Antonini points out that Hogan’s and Awair’s DNAs are effectively compatible, “At Awair, we believe that business success depends on becoming aware – at personal and organizational level – of one’s own strengths and challenges. We help organizations realize this through a highly specialized and customized use of Hogan instruments.”

Gianfranco Gennaro brings his clear vision on the organizational priorities related to people development: “Awair designs and implements development centres that integrate Hogan tools to reach the expected goals and the best fit with the organizational culture.”

Awair is the ideal partner to accomplish organizational transformation. Andrea Facchini, the most recently appointed Partner, has no doubt: “We are passionate to help organizations implement successful programs of talent management and simplify transformation as well as leadership development. We provide coaches, consultants and HR specialists with personalized training and Hogan certification programs.”

Awair’s enthusiasm for Hogan products only equals its natural ambition for international expansion. Today, the company is proud to distribute Hogan tools and know-how in France and Spain as well, through its newly-founded local offices in Paris and Barcelona.

Gilles Dacquet and Ernest Sant are Awair’s French and Spanish Partners, respectively. The whole international team agrees that: “Taking personality assessment at the heart of performance improvement programs is still a great challenge in Mediterranean countries – and one we are glad to embrace and sure to win – together with Hogan – because the potential is huge.

Results are already there to be seen. Overall, in less than three years since the first workshop took place in Milan, almost 300 professionals have completed their Hogan certification program with Awair

Among Awair’s success stories with clients, the collaboration with insurance leader Generali Group must be mentioned. Hogan tools are part of Generali’s wide range of development offering to its executives and talents. Hogan helps executives enhance their levels of self-awareness, thus maximising its potential impact. Anna Chiara Lucchini, Head of Group Academy and Leadership Development at Generali Group summarizes the partnership: “The Awair team was very effective in gaining trust on the field and tailoring the solutions and processes on our needs, as well as available to adapt to our compelling deadlines and requests. Thanks to their deep knowledge and expertise, our executives and managers reported a positive and enriching development experience.”

Hogan Assessments’ International Distributor Network wasn’t built overnight. It took several years to grow to its current size and scope. However, the excitement generated by adding new distributors has always been at optimum levels whether it occurs in 2001 or 2017.

Earlier this year, Hogan proudly added Stairs People Advisors, one of Portugal’s leading HR consulting firms. Led by their Managing Partner João Ribeiro Santos and his talented team of advisors, Stairs offers its clients tailored development programs, adaptive recruitment & selection processes, high-potential identification initiatives, and resources for strategic reorganization.

Because they offer such a unique perspective, we decided to get an update from João and how the future of his organization looks now that he and his team have joined the Hogan International Distributor Network.

Stairs People Advisors, completed six months as Portugal’s Hogan Distributor and would like to share its first months of activity.

The training and development of the Stairs team in Hogan’s methodologies and instruments was the initial priority in order to provide the know-how for the team to promote Hogan products and services to potential clients.First, a Hogan Certification Workshop was organized for the team and some clients. The Managing Director of Europe – Zsolt Feher – led these two days of training in which all were enriched by the learning gained. Fourteen people were certified, all of whom will certainly be promoters and users of this tool.

One of the first and most important project of STAIRS was winning a partnership with an international consultancy company, one of the Big 4. Our goal was to deliver the Hogan 360 powered by PBC to 230 leaders and heads of one of the largest Portuguese multinational companies. The success of this 3-phase project is being determined thanks to an established partnership with Peter Berry Consulting.

Aligned with Hogan’s core assessments, the Hogan 360° uses an easy-to-interpret leadership framework to provide a real-time look at an individual’s attitude, behavior, and performance. The report offers constructive feedback around leadership expectations and sets priorities for improvement.

The Hogan 360 will contribute for the company model based on a continuous feedback culture, being that it’s universally one of the main priorities, and the focus on motivation and development of people, guidance for meritocracy, coherence, integration and objectivity.

During the month of August, we were visited by Hogan’s Dustin Hunter to continue the alignment of Hogan’s product strategies, as well as refreshing the Hogan Certification with the team.

In September and simultaneously with the journey of the PBC of Australia, we look forward to their visit to Portugal. It will undoubtedly be another milestone in strengthening relations and synergies in the consulting business and Hogan products in Portugal.

Building a global brand is a challenge under even the most favorable circumstances. At Hogan, we never attempted to introduce our assessments and products directly to the masses. Instead, we aimed to find valuable partners in various regions across the world who would help us build our brand. This is effective for several reasons, but the familiarity these partners have with their region is the primary factor.

It should come as no surprise that any organization looking to expand internationally would place an emphasis on the Greater China Region. With booming economic growth, this area has become a major business hub across all industries, presenting Hogan with a great opportunity to continue its mission of improving the global workforce.

To help with that mission, Hogan added Infelligent Coaching & Consulting in Taiwan as part of the Hogan Distributor Network. In just a few years since joining the Hogan team, Infelligent has far exceeded expectations and has significantly raised awareness about Hogan through the scope and magnitude of their work. Here’s an in-depth breakdown of a project that highlights the quality of what Infelligent offers its clients: 

In 2013, Infelligent Coaching & Consulting, a high-caliber team of human resources solution providers with more than 20 years of experience became an official distributor of Hogan Assessments in Taiwan. Over the past four years, Infelligent worked with Hogan in the localization of Hogan assessments into traditional Chinese, offering targeted and scientific personality assessment, executive coaching, action learning programs and training workshops, performance assessment reports and more to Taiwan’s business community. Infelligent not only successfully assisted numerous multinational and publicly listed domestic companies to implement highly effective organizational and personal development programs, it also helped endless managers in achieving higher performance at work and personal lives for a better work-life balance. At the same time, Infelligent has established Hogan’s leading position in the market as the gold standard in assessment solutions.  

Founder Jim Hwang states that one of the advantages of being an authorized Hogan distributor, apart from the obvious one of better overall business performance, is a more solid and long-term client relationship. Clients have become more like partners who trust and support one another, rather than being just clients. Joining the Hogan Distributor Network is clearly the right direction for Infelligent. The benefits showed immediately, particularly in the case of President Chain Corp that manages 7-Eleven, one of the biggest convenience store retailers in Taiwan.   

In 2013, Infelligent undertook a Hogan assessment consulting project for President Chain Corp. In a span of three years, the talent selection system at President has transformed from traditional, human-based and performance-oriented processes into a science-based and data-supported assessment system that supports personal development for executives and nurtures a highly energetic and effective organization. More importantly, after the first thousand days, the entire senior management team at President Chain Corp. was more cohesive than ever. The new system has effectively prevented the possibility of talent loss. And the steady growth in three consecutive years further proved these changes worked.

Some of the concrete results from implementing Hogan Assessments at President Chain Store Corp. by Infelligent Coaching & Consulting included:  

1. Assisted President Chain Store in conducting assessment development and action planning programs for more than 500 high-level executives. The company’s investment and show of commitment invigorated employees, further building up their loyalty;
2. Facilitated more than 10 employees to become certified Hogan coaches and successfully fused Hogan’s system into the innovative processes and vocabulary inside the organization; and
3. Expanded the learning impact upward to parent company – Uni-President Enterprises Corp., which is biggest the manufactory company in food industry, and duplicated the successful experiences in talent assessment and development for its talent selection processes. 

Infelligent has facilitated many organizations in creating success stories like this, proving the effectiveness and value of Hogan Assessments over and over again with each of them.  

These success stories and endeavors of the Infelligent team has further raised Hogan’s brand exposure. When Dr. Robert Hogan, founder of Hogan Assessments visited Taiwan in 2015 by the invitation of Infelligent, he was interviewed by Business Weekly Magazine, one of the most prominent business publications in Taiwan. During the exclusive interview, he offered insightful views on personality assessments and talent development. Through the exposure on this high-profile magazine, more and more organizations came to learn about Hogan’s solutions. After the visit, Dr. Hogan expressed his appreciation for Infelligent’s expertise in utilizing Hogan Assessments to support talent selection strategies, build up Hogan’s influence in the industry, and establish Hogan’s leading position in the Greater China region. Dr. Hogan is also confident that the relationship between Hogan and Infelligent will continue to strengthen and soar in the future.   

And for Infelligent, it is strongly committed to the partnership with Hogan. Infelligent is confident that Hogan will continue to develop more innovative and relevant assessment tools tailored to not only corporate needs but also for personal development to shed insight on individual strengths and development areas, to ignite inner passion, to drive change from inner reflection, and to bring success for the team, organization, work, personal life, and for society.

At a time when organizations across the globe are struggling to identify and develop the right leaders, Hogan has made it a priority to leverage decades of research to ensure all of its clients and partners are equipped with the best tools available. As a result, the Hogan Distributor Network has experienced a great deal of success against its competition, and the result is a much more effective global workforce.

A prime example of implementing a leadership development program “the Hogan way” is Hogan’s UK distributor, Advanced People Strategies (APS). Led by Managing Director Chris Humphreys, APS has more than 15 years of experience in helping organizations develop leaders both in the UK and abroad. Most recently, they spent a year assisting one of the UK’s top engineering firms with the implementation of a robust leadership development program. 

APS Case Study

Advanced People Strategies have been able to support a leading British civil engineering company over the past 12 months in the latest leadership and development program. The organization is recognized as one of the UK’s leading engineering solutions providers, and work on some of the biggest infrastructure projects within the UK.

The aim was to create a leadership pipeline for the business and to do this more objectively, removing personal biases that can come into play. The organization wanted a leadership and development program that could identify and develop candidates. Using APS’s expertise working with senior managers, APS was able to devise and support this goal with the use of the Hogan suite as part of its development centers.

APS ran five development centers which included a variety of individual and group based activities. Most of the candidates were very well established within the business although some had differing levels of experience. Using Hogan allowed the organization to add further objectivity when reviewing and selecting people for follow-up development programs.

APS supported the organization with a guided review of each participant. The Hogan Suite was used to predict potential and fit to future strategic leadership roles. These predictions were reviewed alongside the levels of skill observed on the development centers, people’s track record and references from within the organization.

The company was happy that it met its objectives to act on unbiased information when deciding the most suitable route for their people development. Whilst all the candidates were talented and well experienced within their role, the development centers enabled them to decide on who would be a best fit for strategic roles for the business going forward.

APS has since been able to provide continued support for the managers and their development, supporting them with reviewing their 360 and looking after the admin of this system.

Even in the company’s early days, Bob and Joyce Hogan always aimed to improve the global workplace through the delivery of their assessment suite. By arming talented people at organizations like APS with cutting-edge products and data, all Hogan has to do is get out of the way and they’ll handle the rest.