WP Engine Case Study

Summary: Discover how WP Engine transformed its leadership pipeline from technically skilled managers to confident and capable leaders through immersive business simulations. This initiative also helped to energize the company’s internal promotion culture while nurturing employees’ professional growth.

“Our partnership with Abilitie has enabled us to create a customized end-to end leadership development curriculum that enables us to continuously build new leaders AND accelerate the development of our existing leaders as they advance through their careers.  We went from building classrooms to building schools.”

Brian Kenney, Sr. Leadership Development Manager at WP Engine

The Challenge

In 2022, WP Engine was a successful late-stage startup in the technology industry. While its managers were technically skilled, the organization’s rapid growth emphasized day-to-day performance over long-term leadership development. The fast-paced business often saw new managers placed into roles without ample training, creating a team of technically-sound business managers with little experience leading people. 

While WP Engine’s leadership team recognized the value and need for management training, no dedicated resources were available to implement it in an organized, systematic manner to sustain its continued growth. They partnered with Abilitie to build a scalable training program rooted in simulations with hands-on practice that would further develop these critical people management skills.

The Approach

WP Engine’s leadership development program aimed to:

1. Invest in managers to improve their culture, skills pipeline, and productivity 
2. Provide learners with the expertise, practice, and tools to lead teams confidently
3. Simplify long-term hiring
4. Retain institutional knowledge within the growing company

To achieve these goals, WP Engine collaborated with Abilitie to develop programs that emphasized experiential learning over traditional workshop-based training. Together, they created four management training programs tailored to different experience levels:

1. Emerging Leader Program (ELP): High-potential employees on the path to becoming managers are able to practice their communication, coaching, and people management skills. Learners experience a Management Challenge simulation and decide how to handle difficult management scenarios. They communicate with AI-enabled characters, giving feedback and coaching to their fictitious direct reports. 
2. Accelerate Bootcamp: This six-week intensive program for junior to intermediate managers is a fast track to management. An impressive 83 employees joined the first cohort. The intensive bootcamp covers business acumen, financial statements, people management, and holistic value creation through Management and Business Challenge simulations. It’s the most popular program at WP Engine.
3. Elevate: Elevate takes senior managers to the next level. The program provides practice in high-level corporate strategy, building a successful business, and people management. Learners are assembled into teams and collaborate to form companies competing for customers in a dynamic marketplace, experiencing a fast-paced and realistic business environment during a simulated Enterprise Challenge. 
4. Leading Organizational Change: This program is designed for employees at director-level and above to practice setting and maintaining organizational alignment while executing high-stakes strategic choices. In this Executive Challenge simulation, teams form companies and compete fiercely for customers within a dynamic marketplace. Each participant assumes an executive role within a cross-functional team and is tasked with crafting a cohesive business strategy.

The Results

2024 is the third year of WP Engine’s partnership with Abilitie. To date, over 200 people have completed the programs, helping to improve the company’s culture, skills pipeline, and productivity. Through a combination of targeted training, experiential learning, and a partnership with Abilitie, WP Engine cultivated a strong and capable leadership cadre to prepare for long-term success.

The programs generated significant positive results, including:

• A 90-plus Net Promoter Score (NPS), demonstrating that attendees are extremely satisfied with the programs.
• Improved key performance indicators (KPIs) with a 21% increase in engagement related to growth, development, and career future.
• 50% of employees participating in the Emerging Leaders program have earned management positions. 
• Existing managers received better year-over-year ratings from their teams, proving that the programs work for both aspiring and experienced managers. 

The quality and results of these programs continue to drive demand and have created a cultural change where employees actively seek out development opportunities. Thanks to WP Engine’s investment in professional development, the team is more engaged, confident, and productive. 

In the future, WP Engine plans to create additional professional development programs that will reach a broader range of candidates beyond aspiring managers and new leaders. The L&D team is excited about expanding Abilitie’s simulations to include additional AI-enabled conversations, which will allow even more participants to simulate real-world discussions and scenarios to improve their business acumen and leadership skills.

“I loved the dynamic and team-based activities. Working with other people really is the challenge, and so it was great to have so many opportunities to practice collaborating. The lessons learned in those activities and challenge simulations have had a tremendously positive impact on my ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams and stakeholders.”

Participant