W.K. Kellogg
Foundation
Organizational Realignment
to New Strategy
By teaming with Accenture to align its organization to its strategy,
the W.K. Kellogg Foundation has been able to focus on its
programming efforts while decreasing the size and complexity of the
organization.
Summary
A renewed articulation of the
W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s (WKKF)
mission and strategy led the
organization to reshape and
align its organization and staff
to its new strategic framework.
Accenture facilitated the
design and implementation of
a streamlined organizational
structure by working with WKKF
to translate the foundation’s
strategic framework into goals,
approaches and projects for each
department. Accenture helped
build a talent framework including
specific elements such as a
streamlined governance structure,
guiding principles for employee
compensation, job families,
career levels, salary grades and a
competency model. By teaming
with Accenture to align its
organization to its strategy, WKKF
has enhanced its programming by
decreasing organizational size and
complexity.
Business Challenge
From modest beginnings in 1930
with programs that served the
health and education needs of
youth in south-central Michigan,
WKKF has grown into one of the
world’s largest private, nonprofit
foundations. In recent years,
WKKF’s programming interests
have expanded into a vast
portfolio, creating correspondingly
complex organizational structures
and processes. Leaders decided
to clarify the foundation’s
unique mission and vision and
subsequently adopted a new
mission statement and strategic
framework. In so doing, WKKF
needed to reshape and align the
organization and its staff to the
new strategies. Once aligned,
WKKF sought to establish talent
management processes that would
allow them to operate effectively,
at a lower cost, by developing its
staff and providing incentives that
would both retain existing staff
and attract skilled new employees.
How Accenture Helped
WKKF’s leaders began the
organizational realignment by
designing and implementing a
voluntary retirement incentive
program to reduce the size of
the organization. Leadership also
embarked on an effort to simplify
the organizational structure
by streamlining the number of
organizational units and clarifying
the responsibilities of certain key
roles. While organizational leaders
were clear on their goals, they
recognized the need for specialized
skills to fully implement the
organizational changes they
envisioned. So they turned to
Accenture.
Accenture helped transition
departing staff in a way that
was respectful, effective and
consistent with WKKF’s core
values. Accenture also worked with
leaders to design and implement
a streamlined organizational
structure translating the
organization’s strategic framework
into departmental strategies,
approaches and projects. Based
on this information, WKKF and
Accenture worked together to
clarify the number and type of
staff required in each department,
form new teams, develop plans for
transitioning employees into the
new teams and then manage the
plans.
WKKF’s initial goal was to
be staffed appropriately with
positions that align to the
approaches. After the voluntary
programs and reorganization
were completed, WKKF turned
its attention to the next goal of
filling positions with the right
skill sets for current needs. For
this effort, Accenture helped build
an overall talent framework and
specific elements including a
streamlined governance structure,
guiding principles, job families,
career levels, salary grades and a
competency model. Accenture and
WKKF then used these elements to
redesign and implement key talent
management processes. Specific
efforts included providing tools
for leaders to cascade goals from
organizational, to departmental
and individual levels; provide
meaningful feedback to employees;
measure performance on an
annual cycle; adjust employee
benefits programs and processes;
and deliver on their commitment
to pay for performance and
alignment.
Regarding employee benefits,
over the years WKKF’s benefits
plans had become bloated and
complex. In order to attract
and retain the best talent for
achieving its mission, Accenture
helped it rationalize all its benefits
programs, aligning them to WKKF’s
core values and streamlining the
number of vendors it interacted
with. In this way, WKKF can
achieve an optimal balance
between its costs to provide and
administer benefits, and the value
its employees receive from the
various options it is able to offer.
After updating its talent
management processes, WKKF
was ready to focus on talent
development, turning its attention
to developing a curriculum that
aligned with its mission. To this
end, Accenture helped with a gap
analysis in order to understand
the organization’s current state
and what learning it needed to
develop for its new mission-driven
environment. Relevant training
would help energize WKKF’s staff,
refocus them on the mission and
provide them with the tools and
skills to perform their jobs at the
highest standard.
High Performance Delivered
By teaming with Accenture
to align its organization to
its strategy, the W.K. Kellogg
Foundation has been able to focus
on enhancing its programming
execution while decreasing
the size and complexity of the
organization.
• Organizational leaders
have greater insight into their
workforce allowing them to
plan ahead for known vacancies
and needs, proactively develop
employees based on their current
skills and interests, and manage
movement and interactions
among teams. The organization
delivered on its philosophy of
linking pay to performance by
providing performance-based
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High Performance Delivered
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pay to around 98 percent of
employees. Supervisors have access
to information and tools when
giving performance feedback,
documenting development plans,
providing career guidance and
giving on-the-job support to their
employees. In the most recent
fiscal year, supervisors discussed
and reviewed the performance
of all employees below CEO in
comparative peer group review
meetings.
• Employees have additional and
consistent information regarding
their role, how it fits into the
overall talent framework and
future opportunities within the
organization. In the most recent
fiscal year, employees had the
opportunity to document selfinput as part of the performance
management process, and about
95 percent of employees did so.
• HR team members are involved
in fewer one-off, individualized
requests and decisions which
allows them to increase the level
of support they are able to provide
to leaders and supervisors.
• WKKF’s new training
curriculum allows all employees
to view the overall development
plan for the organization and
its leaders, helping illustrate the
courses available and how they
contribute to the mission.
• The new mission-aligned,
streamlined benefits package
enables WKKF to attract the talent
they need and retain them by
being market-relevant—all at less
effort and cost than before.
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