From learning to leadership: How Sakura Finetek measured training impact through securing the leadership pipeline 

When a company undergoes significant transformation, having strong leadership at every level becomes critical. At Sakura Finetek Europe, a specialized medical device company that manufactures histological instruments, this reality became clear when they welcomed a new CEO and embarked on an ambitious five-year strategy.

In the second episode of Lepaya's Impact Lab, we spoke with Baljé Weber, Manager HR Operations and L&D at Sakura Finetek, about how the company designed and implemented a Leadership Foundation Program for new managers.

Read on to discover Baljé's insights on securing stakeholder buy-in, measuring program success, and the key factors that made their leadership development initiative a success.

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What was your initial situation at Sakura, and why did you decide to launch the Leadership Foundation program?

About eight months ago, we welcomed a new CEO after our previous one left following 24 years with the company. The new CEO had a clear vision for making our company more future-proof through a five-year strategy where people development is a major pillar.

One of the key factors for making a people strategy effective is having a strong leadership group to engage with employees during times of change. We were implementing new approaches to be more effective and efficient, not from a cost-cutting perspective, but from an employee empowerment standpoint to boost productivity. This meant we also needed to empower our leaders.

Thus, we designed a comprehensive approach covering all leadership levels, but that was a vast scope. So we decided to start by getting the basics right with new managers, as they lay the foundation and have the most direct contact with their teams.

This situation coincided perfectly with our decision to provide senior technical support staff the opportunity to become managers. It's part of their journey from manager-in-training to actual manager. So that's the core where we started, and that's why we created the Leadership Foundation program.

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How did you assess the actual skill gaps and design the right program?

Last year, we developed competency profiles, including one specifically for people leaders. We used this as our foundation, looking at what behaviors and skills we wanted to see from new managers in our organization.

We included this in our briefing with Lepaya, clearly communicating that we wanted to target specific competencies and see particular behaviors. It was a collaborative back-and-forth process with the account manager and learning designers to ensure we were aligned with the vision.

How did you secure buy-in for the program, especially from potentially skeptical team leaders?

We’re fortunate that many people in our organization understand the value of empowering leaders. This is strengthened by the fact that employee development is a pillar in our five-year strategy—we want to be an employer of choice, and developing people is a core element.

We did face some challenges, as higher management wanted to test the program with a smaller group first to gauge the results, which was a fair request. So, in our program design, we made it very clear what types of skills we would be training and how this would improve these individuals' performance.

The program was also directly linked to our formal assessment process. Participants had to demonstrate their readiness to begin the training, and by a certain period, they needed to show they had developed all the skills defined in our competency framework. 

This structure made it easier to get stakeholders on board because there was a clear business need and measurable outcomes tied to the learning experience.

How did you ensure employees understood the program and could apply what they learned?

Our HR business partners played a crucial role here. The collaboration between L&D and our business partners was excellent, and they worked directly with the manager-trainees to guide them through the program.

We also formalized the entire process. As I mentioned, participants were hired into this program with the clear intent of becoming full managers by the end of it. This created a structured pathway with several measurement points that our business partners monitor to ensure participants stay on track, including their participation and growth from the learning experience.

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How did you measure the success of your learning programs?

Our key measurement was behavioral change, specifically whether participants could demonstrate the expected behaviors—this was evaluated at the end of the performance cycle.

Simply put: did they get the job? That's our core metric—how many people actually secure the management position.

We also used qualitative measures, including 360-degree feedback conducted at the beginning, with a follow-up planned in a few weeks to measure changes in perception.

The competencies we use are integrated into our performance cycle, so we have a consistent framework for evaluation throughout the organization.

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How did you measure ROI for this type of initiative?

That's a challenging question, but we had an end goal of developing people into managers, and if they didn’t succeed, there was an opportunity cost we wanted to prevent. We measured this cost against the training investment.

While it wasn’t a traditional ROI calculation, it helped us measure effectiveness and determine if the investment was worthwhile. Our assumption was that if everyone got the job, it would save us significant money compared to hiring externally or running completely different programs.

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How did you get managers to prioritize learning instead of abandoning it due to daily business pressures?

In our specific case, this wasn't a major challenge because the training was directly tied to getting the job—the intrinsic motivation was very strong. For other programs where this connection isn't as clear, prioritizing learning is indeed one of our biggest challenges. 

It often comes down to reducing resistance and making learning accessible. Managers need to be engaged in the process, not just approving the training and walking away. When managers ask about the learning progress, employees feel the space and permission to give learning the priority it needs. 

The key to achieving this is connecting everything to strong business needs. As long as you can make the business case compelling, you'll get engagement from managers and leaders. If it's vague, you'll get the results we often see in L&D—deprioritization and lack of engagement. 

We now ask managers directly: "You're asking this person to be trained—why are you carving this time out of their normal day for this? Why is that important to you?” If they can articulate that importance, they're more likely to support the learning process.

It's about setting the scene with the manager and creating shared responsibility for driving the learning culture. It becomes a pull from the business, not just a push from L&D. 

If you were to summarize your experience, what are the two most important pieces of advice you'd share?

First, be very clear about what you're trying to achieve. This program succeeded internally because we had crystal-clear objectives and defined how we would measure success. In our case, there were real consequences—people might not become managers if they didn’t develop sufficiently. This put pressure on us to provide quality input to help them grow as quickly as possible.

Second, you need to start acting at some point. Many people were looking at each other about how to facilitate this program. At some point, we took ownership and said, "If we don't move now, it won't work." You need to start, find a good partner, and build momentum. 

Those are the key elements: make sure you have a very clear scoping of what you're trying to achieve, and just start.

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