Epilepsy-Pralid, Inc.
At-a-glance
Not-for-Profit, Human Services focused on helping people in their constituency live the life of their choosing. Based in New York state, and serving Rochester, Syracuse, and Binghamton.
Mission
At Epilepsy-Pralid Inc. (EPI), our mission is to be a successful partner for all individuals with developmental or acquired brain conditions as they strive to remove barriers to their personal fulfillments.
Vision
For all individuals in our community with developmental or acquired brain conditions to receive the support they need to live the life of their choosing.
Stephanie Reh
Education
Stephanie completed a Masters in Strategic Leadership from Roberts Wesleyan College in the Spring of 2015.
She's also a mother of two creative daughters, does life coaching, and professional organizing. She also enjoys orienteering, and watching her daughters as they study dance.
Challenge
In late 2013, Stephanie Reh had just joined the human services not-for-profit Epilepsy-Pralid, Inc. (EPI), as Human Resources Director. Along with her other priorities and initiatives, Stephanie was focused on the ongoing integration of two workforces recently combined in a merger, and an internal promotion/recruitment gap.
Shortly after joining EPI, Stephanie and her colleagues engaged with Matrix Insights as among the earliest enterprise customers. Stephanie and Matrix Insights shared a vision to change the face of leadership and teamwork, leveraging the Matrix Insights suite of cutting edge tools for personalized learning.
Talent Challenges:
- Pipeline
- Development
- Coaching
One of the prevailing challenges at EPI was resources. Stephanie elaborated, “I think it’s more that the talent doesn’t necessarily realize they have so much to offer. So I think the challenge was changing the mindset from ‘we don’t have, and so we can’t do’ to ‘we don’t have as much, but we can still do. ’”
Talent supply was also a pain point. “We had vacancies we couldn’t fill internally, which didn’t make sense, because we have over 300 employees. So there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to groom people to fill those spots. So we identified a need to grow our leaders.” These challenges inspired what became EPI’s Emerging Leaders Program, created by Reh and her colleague Sandy DeBuyser in 2014.
“When we were developing our Emerging Leaders Program, I really felt like the fundamentals of leadership included self-awareness and establishing relationships. Matrix Insights was a perfect fit, especially the Interaction Styles lens.”
Solution
Stephanie explains that self-awareness was one cornerstone to her program architecture. “We started out with the Interaction Styles lens, and I think this was a huge eye-opener for people. It brought it home and was very tangible, allowing people to recognize that ‘Oh, so when I interact with this person, sometimes it doesn’t go well, and this might be why.' ”
Stephanie and her team extended the self-discovery with ongoing coaching. “What we did in the program, nearly every session, we’d do some kind of activity, usually provided to us by Matrix Insights, that would wrap around the Matrix Insights lens we were focusing on at the time. I myself would go in as a coach, which is a great feature, and assign development tasks that helped our leaders to keep thinking about continuous development and actionable strategies. Having those items front-and-center is really important.”
“This year we just started the second ELP cohort, so the pilot was successful, and we’re doing it again. It’s basically been institutionalized, and the core remains Matrix Insights.”
Results
- Grow Self-Awareness
- Develop Talent Internally
- Create the Basis for a Culture of Coaching
- Remain Cost Effective
Stephanie aspires, among other things, to create a culture of coaching. “It’s something I’ve talked about in other organizations, ‘wouldn’t it be nice to do that someday.’ The nice thing is that I actually get to do it here. And it's going very well, the coaching is very well received.”
As a veteran HR executive, Stephanie had seen many options for building out programs of this kind, and so costs and benefits were top of mind. “It’s more of an opportunity cost (of inaction), and that is sometimes hard to even describe to people.”
The return has been measurable for EPI, and the most direct correlation is in the Emerging Leaders Program. “For example, last year we had six people finish the program, and five of them were promoted during that time, which far exceeded any expectation I had. The whole point of the program was to prepare them for this eventual promotion, when such a promotion was available, but because they had higher visibility through the program, and were experiencing accelerated development, their names came to the top of the list when the opportunity came up. Even if they weren’t fully ready, the Senior team knew that they were getting the tools they needed. Again, the fundamental tool had to do with self-awareness, through Matrix Insights. They were ready to go.”
“So we were able to grow our leaders, and hire internally, which is a lot cheaper than trying to find them, and trying to onboard external people who don’t know the organization. I think that’s the major source of the ROI.”
Stephanie offered that she recommends Matrix Insights to HR/Learning leaders. “Give it to somebody who is hungry for development, and it’ll be awesome.” In terms of contrasting the platform provided by Matrix Insights to other developmental tools or resources, Stephanie described that “it’s more modern, it’s more cost-effective. It’s very easy to implement. Like I said, turnkey.”
“You can add Matrix Insights to many development programs and it does not become this monstrosity that you have to adapt your culture to. Matrix Insights aligns to your culture, and that’s what I like about it.”
Weighing their options was simplified by one key factor. “Honestly, because of the price, I didn’t even go there because I knew at a non-profit there was no point even having that conversation” about legacy approaches or resources. The choice was Matrix Insights.
About Matrix Insights
Matrix Insights provides an integrated approach to leadership assessments and personalized leadership development that drives sustainable, superior results. Organizations and coaches use Matrix Insight's to enhance leadership development programs, team-building events, and executive coaching.