K Company: Virtual Development Center Program for Expatriate Managers
K Company successfully conducted its virtual Development Center (DC) program for overseas expatriate managers, designed to accommodate time zone differences and diverse working environments. By delivering a compact, competency-focused format, Carrot Global provided a highly engaging and practical learning experience. Through a structured process of assessment, feedback, and individual debriefing, participants experienced meaningful development while enhancing communication and connection among expatriates across global sites.
Background: Why Did the Client Introduce This Program?
K Company is one of Korea’s leading consumer goods manufacturers, operating a wide range of production facilities and organizational units both domestically and overseas. Its Indonesian manufacturing site alone employs more staff than its headquarters in Korea, demonstrating the company’s strong global operational footprint.
For years, K Company has run a Development Center (DC) program for new managers at headquarters, helping them assess their leadership competencies and reflect on their growth path. Carrot Global has collaborated with K Company for three consecutive years to design and operate this program.
While the existing DC program received high satisfaction—particularly for enabling new team leaders to objectively reflect on their leadership style and identify future development directions—the company observed a growing need:
the number of new managers assigned to overseas subsidiaries has been rapidly increasing.
As a result, the organization sought to provide equal leadership development opportunities to global expatriate managers, not just domestic ones. This led to the launch of the newly designed virtual DC program for overseas managers.
Client Requirements Identified During Program Planning
Since the participants were expatriate managers working in various countries—such as Indonesia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Türkiye, China, and Japan—several operational challenges needed to be addressed. Their roles involve broader responsibilities and diverse working conditions compared to domestic managers, making it impractical to follow the same 2-day (12.5-hour) schedule traditionally used in Korea.
The client requested two key elements:
Shorten the total training hours while retaining all essential DC content.
Operate the program flexibly, aligning sessions with local working hours in each country.
The goal was to preserve the core value of the DC program—leadership assessment, feedback, and competency-building—while adapting the structure to a realistic and accessible virtual format.
Program Design: Key Focus Areas
The global Development Center program maintained the two main assessment components used in the domestic version:
Oral Presentation assessment
Role-playing evaluation
However, given the global and virtual nature of this cohort, the entire program was redesigned for remote delivery via Zoom.
Compact, High-Impact Learning Structure
To ensure engagement and effectiveness, the program shifted from a 2-day format to a short, concentrated structure:
Small cohort size of 2–4 participants per group
Total duration of 4.5 to 8 hours, depending on regional conditions
Competency-focused, highly immersive flow
Tailored feedback provided individually thanks to the intimate group size
This format significantly reduced participants’ time burden while fully preserving the program’s core experience of reflection, assessment, and development. The result: exceptionally high satisfaction scores.
Client-Tailored Approach & Differentiators
The strongest differentiator of this program was its end-to-end development support, going beyond simple assessment.
After the DC session concluded:
Each participant received an individualized feedback report.
Within 1–2 weeks, they joined a 1:1 debriefing session with the facilitator (FT).
This one-hour debriefing provided:
A deep dive into the participant’s reflections and assessment results
Interpretation of competency indicators
Personalized recommendations for future development
A discussion-based coaching conversation tailored to each individual
This approach ensured that the program did not stop at diagnostic results— it helped participants design a concrete pathway for real leadership growth.
Notably, this 1:1 debriefing model was newly introduced exclusively for the global DC program and recorded higher satisfaction than the domestic DC version, making it a meaningful addition from the client’s perspective.
For expatriate managers who must lead teams in unfamiliar cultural and organizational environments, this structured support served as an essential element, significantly enhancing the program’s real impact.
Program Results & Participant Feedback
The program concluded with an exceptional satisfaction rating of 4.9 out of 5.
Feedback highlighted that participants viewed the DC not as a simple assessment tool, but as a highly meaningful and practical experience directly connected to their real managerial responsibilities.
Key participant insights included:
The simulation tasks were realistic and allowed deep immersion.
Clear and direct feedback helped them understand their strengths and development areas.
The program provided a rare opportunity to objectively assess themselves as new managers.
The virtual format enabled expatriate managers from different countries to connect, share challenges, and exchange insights.
Many participants emphasized that the program helped restore a sense of belonging to the broader organization—an important benefit, as expatriates often feel distanced from headquarters’ development initiatives.
Overall, the program proved to be a valuable experience for both the participants and the client, reinforcing leadership alignment and strengthening global identity within the organization.
Building True Global Leaders Requires More Than Assessment
Real global leadership development is not just about diagnosing competencies—it’s about connecting those insights to a tangible growth pathway.
Through a carefully structured model of assessment → feedback → debriefing,
Carrot Global ensures that overseas managers experience balanced, actionable leadership development opportunities.
—Strong leadership that holds firm in global environments—
Let Carrot Global help you build it. 🌍
#Global HR development
#Cultural awareness training
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