Exela Case Study
Aligning Talent for Long-Term Success at Exela Using PDP
KNOW YOUR STRENGTHS
Phil Olsen, a highly-regarded business consultant with over 22 years of experience with PDP, was already well-established in the consulting field when he considered partnering with PDP Global. As the President of Know Your Strengths, a consultancy focused on matching talents with tasks, Phil had tried several assessment tools but felt they lacked precision, accuracy, and adaptability. That’s when PDP Global came into the picture and changed everything for him.
Company Overview
Industry: Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
Location: North Carolina
Employee Size: 700
Instruments Used
ProScan®
TeamScan®
JobScan®
Certified PDP Professionals
Organization-Wide ProScan Completion
Retention Wins from Reorganization
The Challenge
- Ineffective Management Leading to Potential Turnover
- Communication Gaps Weakening Company Cohesion
- Individuals’ Strengths Not Aligning with Their Role
- Missed Cultural Cues During the Hiring Process
Exela, a manufacturer of life-saving sterile injectables, operates in one of the most demanding and error-sensitive environments in healthcare. Despite their vital mission, leadership struggled with misaligned teams and performance inconsistencies that risked both employee retention and operational excellence. With a high-stakes SAP rollout underway, Don Overton, Vice President of Human Resources and Finance, drew on his familiarity with PDP Global from a previous role and advocated for using it to solve team dynamics and performance challenges.
What started as a pilot quickly transformed into an organization-wide initiative, leading to dramatic improvements in communication, talent alignment, and team performance.
The Solution
- Management Training for Tailored Communication Styles
- Role-Specific Job Modeling and Interviewing Structure
- Cultivating Mutual Understanding Through ProScan Results
Exela leaned into PDP Global’s behavioral instruments to build stronger teams and create a scalable, values-based hiring and development system. Beginning with a single department, PDP’s ProScan and TeamScan revealed the root of internal friction: roles misaligned with individuals’ strengths and communication breakdowns driven by unrecognized behavioral dynamics.
The results after utilizing PDP Global were undeniable as the initial team transformed into a high-functioning unit, and other departments soon followed. Teams were reorganized around natural strengths. Employees were moved into better-fitting roles, and some who were at risk of leaving the company ultimately chose to stay after finding renewed purpose and understanding under new managers.
"The implementation of utilizing PDP as part of our hiring process has helped our teams to better understand candidates beyond their resumes. It’s helped us identify individuals who not only have the right skills but also align with our team dynamics and values. Since adopting the survey, we’ve seen a measurable improvement in employee fit and retention, ultimately leading to stronger team performance and a more cohesive culture."
Kristin Maney, Talent Acquisition Manager
Kristin Maney, Talent Acquisition Manager
Now, Exela uses PDP Global’s people management system throughout the hiring and onboarding process. Every new employee completes a ProScan, meets with a certified PDP Professional, and begins their journey with deep behavioral insight into themselves—and their role.
The Implementation
Embedding PDP Global into the core of Exela’s people strategy began with empowering leaders to understand and act on behavioral insights. Through certifications, workshops, and hands-on coaching, Exela created a behavior-first culture that supports high performance.
“I have prior experience with DiSC, and the tools supporting you with PDP Global are so much better. Instead of leaders relying on training that happened a year ago to estimate what profile a potential hire is and maybe how they’re going to react to stress, I get great comfort knowing that we send out the PDP Survey and we’re going to have side-by-side reports, a unique motivational checklist, and information that really spells it out for you.”
John Hernandez
Vice President Call Center Operations, MAQ Management“I have prior experience with DiSC, and the tools supporting you with PDP Global are so much better. Instead of leaders relying on training that happened a year ago to estimate what profile a potential hire is and maybe how they’re going to react to stress, I get great comfort knowing that we send out the PDP Survey and we’re going to have side-by-side reports, a unique motivational checklist, and information that really spells it out for you.”
John Hernandez
Vice President Call Center Operations, MAQ Management
Company-Wide Certification and Culture Integration
Exela began training internal champions through PDP’s mentor and professional certification programs. Over 20 individuals—including high-potential leaders from the Emerging Leaders Series (ELS) and senior managers—became certified, ensuring a robust internal knowledge base for interpreting reports and leading discussions.
Company-Wide Certification and Culture Integration
Exela began training internal champions through PDP’s mentor and professional certification programs. Over 20 individuals—including high-potential leaders from the Emerging Leaders Series (ELS) and senior managers—became certified, ensuring a robust internal knowledge base for interpreting reports and leading discussions.
Job Modeling for High-Stakes Roles
Given Exela’s CGMP compliance and FDA-regulated environment, the stakes of hiring the wrong person are exceptionally high. PDP’s JobScan allows them to model roles where behavioral fit is non-negotiable—like sterile core manufacturing, where conformity, stamina, and precision are essential.
“There are lots of technically competent people in the world that can be successful at a variety of places, but PDP Global helps me figure out whether or not they'll be successful here at Exela.”
Celeste Brantolino, Senior Director of Learning & Development
Executive Buy-In
Exela’s CEO, Phanesh Koneru, was a pivotal voice in the adoption process. With a scientific and legal background, he approached PDP Global with deep skepticism, only to become one of its strongest advocates after experiencing the precision of the results firsthand.
Leadership Coaching and Real-Time Support
Long-time PDP Global representative, Don Crosby of Global Behavior, has been an ongoing partner, providing live training, report interpretation, and real-time coaching. Whether via onsite workshops or phone calls, his support helped ensure fidelity to the methodology and confidence in its application.
The Results
Certified PDP Professionals
Organization-Wide ProScan Completion
Retention Wins from Reorganization
Reduced Turnover Risk and Retention Gains
In one department, team restructuring led directly to reduced frustration and retained talent. Employees who were once on the brink of quitting found renewed satisfaction and engagement after being aligned with managers and responsibilities that matched their behavioral style.
“It’s like a recipe. If you follow the recipe, you’ll get a great result. PDP gives you the owner’s manual to work effectively with every individual.”
Celeste Brantolino, Senior Director of Learning & Development
Celeste Brantolino, Senior Director of Learning & Development
Improved Hiring Accuracy
PDP Global’s interview reports, job modeling, and stress indicator insights give hiring managers the tools to evaluate role fit holistically. Specific behavioral flags countering the model are proactively discussed in interviews, helping ensure realistic expectations and better long-term success.
Stronger Communication and Self-Awareness
PDP’s communication reports and coaching guidance transformed how Exela’s leaders engage their teams. For example, Senior Director of L&D Celeste Brantolino adjusted her leadership style after understanding the needs of team members with low extroversion and higher pace, shifting from high-speed vision casting to data-backed, reflective conversations.
Culture of Integrity and Process Discipline
Exela’s manufacturing process demands perfection. “Follow the directions” isn’t just a saying—it’s a regulatory mandate. PDP Global allows Exela to identify individuals with the behavioral makeup to thrive in high-conformity, high-stakes roles, avoiding costly errors before they happen.
“PDP helps us identify individuals who are naturally aligned with the demands of pharmaceutical manufacturing—from precision and compliance to teamwork under pressure. By understanding behavioral strengths, we place people in roles where they’re most likely to thrive and contribute to our culture of quality and operational excellence.”
Don Overton, Vice President of Human Resources and Finance
Don Overton, Vice President of Human Resources and Finance
The Results
Increase in Retention
Reduction in Turnover Costs
Turnover During Peak Season
All-Time High Retention
HPOne’s retention skyrocketed by 20% to a staggering 80% rate after using the PDP People Management System to make the right hires from the start and intervene with employees close to quitting to support them. Of the 6% of the workforce identified as close to burning out during peak season, managers successfully intervened to retain every single one of them, contributing to a total 50% reduction in turnover costs.
Confident and Streamlined Hiring
Because recruiters could utilize PDP JobScan models to make informed hiring decisions, HPOne knew a 70% candidate match or higher would succeed in the role and perform well under the stress of the busy period. The Hiring Manager no longer needed to interview and give final approval for each of their 1,100 hires. When retroactively analyzing profiles of low performers hired before PDP Global was incorporated into the hiring process, HPOne determined that 75% wouldn’t have been hired in the first place had PDP job modeling been used.
Consistent Company Culture
HPOne’s company culture has always felt like being part of a family. But when Covid hit and that family shifted to remote working, it was harder to maintain that sentiment since employees weren’t experiencing the office community. PDP Global empowered the culture to grow in new ways, encouraging meaningful engagement from leaders and employees unique to their behavioral preferences. Colleagues attest that the culture still feels like a family: a fun environment with high integrity and accountability.
Leadership and Management Style Shift
Instead of leading and managing based on something “wrong” with an employee, the PDP People Management System shifted HealthPlanOne’s coaching perspective to capitalize and grow an employee’s strengths. Only after knowing someone’s strengths through ProScan can that individual be placed in opportunities to naturally succeed. HPOne used this behavioral knowledge to create small wins by giving certain tasks to individuals who genuinely enjoy doing them rather than someone who wouldn’t. Leaders appreciated hiring people who were not exactly like them because it created a more well-rounded team and released the pressure they often felt to be good at everything.
Moreover, HPOne’s HR department quickly realized that most complaints stemmed from simple miscommunication between people with different behavioral traits. ProScan equipped leaders and managers to conduct crucial conversations more effectively than before with insights into likes, dislikes, motivators, preferred communication methods, and logic styles.
With PDP Global, Exela created a scalable, people-first strategy that aligns hiring and development with behavioral strengths. From boosting retention and refining hiring to fostering a culture of high performance and integrity, PDP has become a cornerstone of Exela’s talent philosophy.
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