In the years since the Covid pandemic, the nature of work has fundamentally changed. Remote and hybrid modes of working have become normalized, and communications technologies have consistently improved. As a result, many organizations have been able to globally scale, while unlocking new efficiencies thanks to the AI boom.

However, despite this picture of organizational successes, only 20% of the workforce feels connected to their company’s culture and mission. 46% of employees want to leave their jobs and 76% of millennials and Gen. Z want to be their own boss.

Will Guillaume Foussier, Founder and CEO, AceUp, is clear-eyed about the reality on the ground: “Yes, it’s true that we have seen unprecedented profitability performance from companies impacted in the S&P 500, but another result that we have seen through 2024 is a decrease in the quality of work and the quality of the employee experience,” Foussier says. “We have organizations where employees are more disconnected to their culture than ever before.”

How does an organization confront the possibility that employees feel excluded, disconnected, and even demotivated from their workplaces and work duties? How can a change in leadership and team dynamics drive increased employee satisfaction and team functioning?

Part of the answer, Foussier explains, lies in a human-centered approach to leadership coaching and team development – as pioneered by AceUp.

AceUp, launched in 2017, takes a uniquely dynamic solutions approach to leadership development. With a focus on exceptional coaching quality, advanced technology, and robust analytics—driven by their AI-Powered, Human-Centered Team Transformation Engine©—AceUp delivers a holistic approach to aligning organizations with their shared purpose.

AceUp offers solutions designed to provide impactful insights across all levels of an organization, from deeply personalized one-on-one coaching to team-focused programs. “We seek to deploy personalized leadership solutions for every team in the organization,” says Foussier. “This enables scaling the ’recontracting’ process that will ensure that teams are aligned with what we call the ‘team of teams’ – the organization, in other words.”

AceUp’s solutions suite, accessible through user-friendly web and mobile interfaces and dashboards, seamlessly integrates AI-powered coaching with expert-led one-on-one sessions to provide a comprehensive leadership development workflow. The platform also offers intuitive analytics and actionable insights, enabling organizations to identify areas for improvement and implement strategies to enhance team performance, workplace efficiency, and overall employee performance.

Some of the areas AceUp analyzes are specific, iterative, and context-dependent, such as how emergent leaders are assessed and supported in developing more including management capabilities. AceUp also delivers insights on how to support the middle management and senior executive layers of an organization, and aids in upskilling and reskilling, succession planning, change management and restructuring. 

AceUp’s secret sauce, however, lies in their focus on team transformation. “The ecosystem we have built around facilitating team transformation and team upskilling is our unique value proposition that helps us differentiate ourselves in our marketplace,” Foussier says.

Using AI-enhanced behavioral analysis and comprehensive assessments, AceUp identifies the skill profiles of employees and teams across all levels of the organization, focusing on leadership and management capabilities. The collected data is used to create tailored development programs for each individual. These programs may include AI-powered coaching via the AI-Powered, Human-Centered Team Transformation Engine©, micro-learning modules, or hyper-personalized one-on-one coaching sessions.

A key principle of AceUp’s approach is avoiding siloed or isolated development efforts: “We ensure that every solution deployed to an individual is also connected to the needs and goals of a team or group,” explains Foussier. At the core of AceUp’s ecosystem, the Talent OS compiles and analyzes data to provide a clear picture of employee progress, skill gaps, and areas for improvement. This intelligence is then used to drive targeted interventions and measure their impact on specific business outcomes.

The proof of AceUp’s effectiveness is evidenced by their impressive client roster. For example, they were brought in by one of the largest machinery suppliers worldwide to help implement leadership development and drive their mission to become a leader in sustainable technology. Assessing the skills gap at the company, AceUp was able to determine a new way to operate that would help teams at John Deere bring their new vision to the market while addressing systemic issues.

“We realized that one of the consequences of less effective leadership by some team members led to a lack of alignment and some disengagement in the implementation of basic safety measures,” Foussier explains. “Over six months, AceUp enabled teams to become more aligned and empowered, meaning a very quick seven-figure impact in the reduction of safety hazards”.

“Our leadership process looks towards inbounding individual qualities to what we call ‘teamship’: your ability to actually posture individual potential and bring them together, driving collaboration to achieve common outcomes,” says Foussier. “This is an evolution in the world of work as we know it.”

Considering AceUp’s ongoing success and increasing list of clients, this evolution looks set to continue.