Ultra Electronics

Ultra Electronics manages a portfolio of specialist capabilities for the defence, security, transport and energy markets across 30 autonomous businesses worldwide.

A faulty connection

Ultra relies on its management of talent and succession planning for its long-term continued success, but with a rapidly growing workforce of over 4,500 – and hundreds of employees within the overall corporate succession plan – the company found they could no longer manage succession and development plans manually using Microsoft Excel.

No more crossed wires

Ultra were looking to automate HR talent and succession processes through a single system across 29 businesses worldwide. The solution should offer the flexibility to allow individual groups with unique business requirements to maintain control over their own strategic succession planning, depending on their own needs.

Sparking a change

With the help of Kallidus, Ultra Electronics were able to meet crucial HR challenges and retain global talent with the use of Talent’s smart and simple way of managing talent and succession.

The succession planning tool has maintained confidence across the workforce – individuals are reassured that Ultra invests in its staff which has resulted in a sky-high employee retention rate of 97% for key talent.

Internally, worldwide job opportunities can be easily identified within the group, allowing internal recruiters to approach the right people for the right roles quickly and effectively. Thanks to this process, over 70% of high-level vacancies are now filled internally allowing for great internal career progress – and significant recruitment cost savings.

Now that tracking talent is more streamlined, management time and resources have also been saved – the Chief Executive is now able to ensure he is meeting candidates who are part of a robust leadership pipeline when visiting Ultra’s worldwide offices; and with 8 out of 10 Managing Director appointments now made internally, Ultra can ensure it is retaining its talent globally.