Charles River Scales Frontline Leadership to Strengthen Employee and Client Experience
Learn how Charles River built a global, values-based leadership program that reached 2,700+ leaders and improved leadership effectiveness by up to 21%.
Ergebnisse mit DDI
-
2,700+ Leaders Developed
across frontline teams worldwide
-
10 Countries, 8 Languages
delivering a consistent leadership experience globally
-
21% Increase in Leadership Effectiveness
as validated by managers and direct reports
Wachstum durch Führungsstärke
Erfahren Sie, welche DDI-Lösungen am besten zu Ihren Prioritäten passen.
Demo anfordernBuilding Leaders Behind Life-changing Therapies
Charles River plays a pivotal role in advancing human health, supporting more than 80% of FDA approved drugs over the past five years. As a global contract research organization (CRO), the company provides essential products and services to help pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, government agencies, and leading academic institutions around the globe accelerate their research and drug development efforts in service of its purpose: Together We Create Healthier Lives. Acting as an extension of its clients, Charles River is committed to delivering high-quality science, operational excellence, and a trusted partnership that advances outcomes for patients, animals, and communities worldwide because every moment matters.
With ~20,000 employees across 100+ facilities in 20 countries, delivering on this purpose and client commitment depends on strong leadership at every level. Frontline leaders, in particular, translate strategy into action across laboratories, manufacturing sites, and operational teams, directly influencing safety, quality, and employee experience.
As the company continued to grow globally, leaders recognized that strengthening frontline leadership capability at scale was a meaningful opportunity to support a more connected, agile, and high-performing organization.
At Charles River, how our leaders show up everyday shapes both the employee and client experience. Investing in frontline leadership capability is a key part of our Global Talent Management and Development strategy, helping ensure leaders consistently bring our values to life while delivering for our clients.
Wendy Branche, CVP Global Talent Management & Development, Charles River
Aligning Leadership Around Shared Values
As Charles River expanded across regions and business lines, leadership development efforts reflected the needs of local teams and environments. While many effective practices were in place, the organization saw an opportunity to establish greater alignment and clarity to frontline leadership expectations.
This meant defining a consistent, scalable leadership framework grounded in the company's values and reflective of the realities of the work. Close collaboration across the business helped ensure credibility, relevance, and a strong adoption upon launch.
Frontline leaders became a natural starting point, representing the largest population of people leaders and having the most direct reach across the organization. Their influence on engagement, communication, and performance made them critical to shaping the overall employee and client experience.
Frontline leaders have the most direct impact on how employees experience Charles River every day, so we focused on giving them practical skills they can apply in real situations. That's where you start to see stronger team dynamics and more consistent experiences for both employees and clients.
Carli Madrid, Leadership Development Partner, Charles River
Designing a Scalable Frontline Leadership Experience
In partnership with DDI, Charles River designed and launched Leading the Frontline: Cultivate Your Leadership, a leadership development experience tailored specifically for frontline leaders.
At the core of the program is a shared leadership framework grounded in Charles River’s four core values, Care, Lead, Own, and Collaborate, which define what effective leadership looks like across the organization. These values were embedded throughout the learning experience, reinforcing consistent leadership behaviors and expectations.
The program was delivered through a blended learning model that included live instructor led sessions, peer discussion groups, and targeted micro learning, enabling leaders to build skills, reflect, and apply learning directly to their roles.
I was able to implement the strategies and ideas immediately and felt like a more effective and confident leader after each session, becoming more productive as a result of the skills I gained.
Frontline Leader, Charles River
Scaling With Consistency, Quality, and Ownership
To support global scale while maintaining relevance, Charles River chose to embed Leading the Frontline: Cultivate Your Leadership within the organization through an internal facilitation model. This approach ensured leadership development was grounded in the realities of the business and delivered by facilitators who knew the work firsthand.
Our internal facilitators don't just teach leadership concepts, they make them real for Charles River leaders. Because they understand our business, our industry, and the day to day challenges leaders face, they're able to translate the learning into practical, realistic actions leaders can apply immediately.
Paula Oliver, Master Trainer and Internal Facilitator, Charles River
This model allowed Charles River to deliver a leadership experience that is both globally consistent and locally meaningful, driving strong adoption and sustained behavior change.
To support this at scale, Charles River established a strong operational foundation, including:
- A five month, cohort-based program designed to reinforce learning over time
- A blend of live interactive workshops, peer discussion groups, and self-paced micro courses to accommodate different learning styles
- A global network of 60 DDI certified internal facilitators across ten countries
- Delivery in eight languages to support global accessibility
- Standardized global timelines to ensure consistency across cohorts
- Regional coordination to support enrollment and learner engagement
- Ongoing facilitator development and evaluation to maintain quality and effectiveness
This intentional focus on internal facilitation enabled Charles River to scale leadership development globally while preserving consistency, relevance, and a strong sense of ownership across the organization.
Measuring Leadership Impact Across the Organization
To understand how leadership development translated into real world impact, Charles River gathered feedback from program participants, their managers, and their direct reports.
Results showed meaningful, double-digit improvement across key leadership skills, indicating not only strong participation, but meaningful application of learning on the job:
- Overall leadership effectiveness: +20% (participants), +21% (managers), +15% (direct reports)
- Communication skills: +19% (participants), +16% (managers), +15% (direct reports)
- Receptivity to feedback: +16% (participants), +12% (managers), +12% (direct reports)
- Job performance: +12% (participants), +9% (managers)
These insights reinforced the connection between frontline leadership capability and day-to-day performance across the organization.
Strengthening Everyday Leadership Behaviors
Beyond quantitative outcomes, qualitative feedback highlighted clear shifts in how leaders showed up for their teams. Leaders reported greater confidence in coaching and delegation, improved communication and collaboration, and increased comfort navigating challenging conversations.
Direct reports noted feeling more supported, heard, and engaged, reinforcing the link between effective frontline leadership and a positive employee experience.
These shifts are also being observed by leaders across the business.
We've seen a real shift in how our frontline leaders engage with their teams. You can see it in how teams communicate, collaborate, and ultimately deliver stronger results.
Marie-France Perron Lepage, General Manager Lyon, France, Charles River
Building a Foundation for Ongoing Leadership Growth
Today, Charles River has established a scalable, globally aligned approach to frontline leadership development, one that reflects the organization’s values and supports leaders across regions and business units.
What began as an intentional investment in frontline leadership has evolved into a sustainable system for developing leadership capability at scale.
Leading the Frontline has given us a consistent and scalable foundation for developing frontline leaders at Charles River. It reinforces what effective leadership looks like and ensures leaders across the organization are equipped with a shared standard to lead their teams.
Adrianna Davis, EdD, MS, PHR, Director Leadership Development, Charles River
With continued focus on alignment and development, Charles River is well-positioned to support its people, deliver on its purpose and strategy, while building the leadership capability needed to propel Charles River into the future.