By Jun Marfori
Last October 18-19, 2017, CEGOS Asia Pacific and POWERinU collaborated on a People Manager training program for one of CEGOS’ global companies, Bombardier, a global company headquartered in Montreal, Canada. CEGOS, the largest Training company in Europe, has POWERinU Training and Consulting Philippines, Inc. as its Philippine partner, and both have collaborated on numerous occasions to deliver Learning and Development solutions to Philippines-based companies.
POWERinU’s Consultant Jun Marfori conducted a 2-day Manager Essentials Program at the Cebu city’s Asiatown IT Park office of Bombardier. Bombardier is the world’s leading manufacturer of both planes and trains; it has sizable Administration offices in Cebu. A global company with 69,500 employees all over the world, the Entity delivers but also looks ahead, while also evolving mobility worldwide by answering the call for more efficient, sustainable and enjoyable transportation everywhere. Together with the company’s vehicles and services, the employees – including the Cebu-based employees, are what make Bombardier a global leader in transportation.
The Program Aims for the 2-day program were:
- To increase the effectiveness of managers at Bombardier
- To give managers the confidence to make the right decisions related to managing people
- To create a common culture of good management practice at all levels within Bombardier
As calibrated with Dave Bryan B. Latonio (Head, Finance Shared Service Center -Cebu) and Country HR Business Partner Stella Arbon-Ouano, prior to Day 1 delivery, many of the participants were “onboarding” as they were new to the people leader role, but already have a large span of control, leading anywhere from 6-20 direct reports.
This discussion aligned with a key program objective which was to enhance the development of first time and first level managers and supervisors at BT (Bombardier Transportation) by creating and instilling congruent behaviors; by leveraging the BT Talent Champion toolbox and by embedding “BT way of working” in the organization through this essential target attendee group. As this is seen as a key global initiative, parallel runs have just concluded, or are ongoing, or planned soon, across the other BT global sites.
Day 1 covered: 1) The Role of the manager and Context for programme; 2) Management Styles; 3) Role clarity and prioritisation; 4) Effective delegation
This was succeeded on Day 2 by the following key discussion and workshop topics: 1) Performance Management; 2) Feedback & Coaching; 3) People Development’ 4) Managing Difficult Situations.
While using the corporate Bombardier Talent Management resource and repository, BT Talent, the workshop design also included a number of group discussions around Case Studies and real-life scenarios. Learning from both days were reinforced by the use of Learning Journals, wherein each of the attendees documented their key insights and lessons learned for each module / session. And the design utilized the principle of Learning Partners, so that each attendee had a shared accountability for self-learning and encouraging learning of the designated partner. This principle in action was encouraged to be sustained outside the 2-day training; and the application was premised on continued peer Coaching for mutual growth and accountability.
It was fulfilling to note that, after 2 days of training, it was observed in action and the classroom, by the trainer, that:
- Essentially the participants are a set of competent, committed, knowledgeable, engaged individuals and people leaders
- They understand BT and seek to align their and their team performance to the expectations of BT and meet and support the overall BT Business Transformation objectives
- They are also a very caring group, understanding that in order to maximize their team performance they need to appreciate the differences in their team members, support them and develop them, monitor and manage their performance with sensitivity to these unique qualities
- They understand that they need to exercise different leadership styles and communication, feedback, motivation approaches and conversations to elicit the maximum potential and increased performance of their people
In addition, the attendees manifested that:
- They are committed to taking more direct approaches to handling their team members, employing the appropriate leadership style depending on the experience, need, maturity, competence and ability of each of the team members – to learn and apply the essentials of this course
- They have formed Learning Partners who are committed to support them in their journey to becoming more effective people leaders; and they in turn are also committed to support their learning partners, even after and outside the course
- They are committed to be more transparent and elevate and engage their leaders and the Leadership team and HR if and when necessary and they need help- especially in handling low performers and in the acceptable HR processes and practices within BT
- They now know that if they “delegate” to senior Team members who have shown the potential, capacity, capability and will to take on additional developmental assignments, that they will ensure that this process is documented and agreed on, and the appropriate expectations are set, the resources and support needed are provided, and coaching and feedback are constantly provided
Before the conclusion of Day 2, Country Head of Finance Shared Service Center (Cebu) Dave Latonio reiterated the importance of adherence to the BT Performance Management process, the dedication to coaching / developing / leading people, resulting in sound performance, and attainment of personal KPIs and Entity objectives. Together with the HR Business Partner, and the Senior Finance Shared Service Leaders, Dave reiterated his support to the Supervisors and Team Leaders in the exercise of good people leadership skills. The session ended with the graduation photo session.
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