Post last updated: September 25, 2017
BCD Travel’s multi-year effort to link recruitment, professional development and employee satisfaction to service quality and client satisfaction has won international recognition with talent executive Christian Dahl earning gold at the 2017 Stevie® Awards for Human Resources Executive of the Year.
Dahl, senior vice president of Strategic Talent Management & Global Human Resources, accepted the award at a gala in New York City on Sept. 22. “I consider this Stevie award to be a recognition of our entire global talent management team that has succeeded in making BCD Travel a great place to work,” he said.
BCD Travel President and CEO John Snyder said the award reinforces the company’s strategy to make a clear connection between employee growth and business performance. “Building a reputation as a great company to work for helps us attract and keep top talent,” Snyder said. “And the outstanding service our excellent employees provide wins us recognition from the most important group of all: our customers.”
Dahl’s recognition reflects the talent-management progress BCD Travel has made under his leadership. A cornerstone of that success is the company’s Confident Self initiative. Launched in 2014, the initiative supports BCD’s business priorities by developing its people.
“The Confident Self is based on an understanding that employees will thrive in an environment where they are empowered to succeed, and that will create success for them personally and for our company,” Dahl explained. Employees say the Confident Self initiative helps them understand what success looks like and how to achieve it—removing the mystery of how to get ahead.
Employee surveys and external recognition reinforce the talent-management advances BCD has made through the Confident Self initiative and since Dahl became its top talent executive in 2011:
- Employee satisfaction rose more than eight percentage points from 2011 to 2016. The latest employee survey indicates 83.6% of BCD employees are happy in their jobs.
- The number of employees receiving training rose 15% between 2014 and 2016. Last year, 12,129 employees received training—a significant accomplishment in a company of 13,000 people.
- Nearly a quarter of new hires in 2016 were referred to BCD by existing employees.
- Forbes has listed BCD Travel among the best U.S. employers for each of the past three years.
- FlexJobs ranks BCD among the 100 top companies for workplace flexibility and remote working opportunities. Creating an environment that enables better work-life balance has been a high priority for Dahl. About a third of the company’s global employees work from home.
BCD Travel recently became the first travel management company to reach for and achieve accreditation from Investors in People, a globally recognized workplace ratings firm. The company earned IIP’s silver accreditation in late August. IIP ratings set the standard for what it takes to lead, support and manage people well for sustainable results.
The TMC also has stepped up its talent-development efforts for the broader business travel sector. In 2012, BCD partnered with the Association of Corporate Travel Executives to launch the Management Associate Program. MAP sends new graduates around the world to train for careers in the corporate travel industry. The year-long internship was recognized as a top trainee recruitment program at the 2017 European Excellence Awards in Berlin.
Other Stevie Award finalists were Geraldine Fraser of FrieslandCampina Asia and Nancy Vitale of California-based Genentech. HR Executive of the Year is a category of the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, which recognize the world’s best companies to work for and the HR professionals and others who drive great workplaces.
