1. What is your opinion of the status of the industry today in terms of availability of suitably trained or educated people?
CEO: I have a multifarious response because there are solid availability for certain types of role. There are challenges in other types of roles. I know looking for highly experienced Sales and Accounting management people is a challenge and getting people who are well qualified is not easy. Getting Sales staff for the front line is not overly hard because we do not have a very high bar. We look for clever, bright people and we teach them. We have taken that approach because of the low availability of quality individuals. Logistics, I have not been overwhelmed by the availability of really good Logistics people so we have home grown ours. Operation, interestingly, a number of our really good people of late have come from overseas – that has been quite a rich vein for us. There is not an avalanche of good individuals, you have to look pretty hard.
HR Manager: I agree with George. At the entry level for Sale for example, we actually do quite well. We run intake assessment centres often and we get a really good responses to that and we generally get a good group of people out of the assessment centre. But at Key Account level there is often a challenge there and it is the skill set (that is lacking). It is the analytical and relationship building skill set that is difficult to build and often lacking.
2. Four years ago FGC set up an “education project” to “raise the level of education” across the FMCG industry. Do you think there is still a need for such education today?
CEO: From a company perspective, no, we do our own thing, because we have the (in- house) skills to do our own thing – there are not many organisations within the FMCG industry who have this capability. From an FGC perspective, I get the impression that people believe or perceive there is a need, but whether there is or not at present I have to say for me the jury is out. In this context you must recognise that the FGC Education project was set up before I was part of the FGC.
3. Given that, there is a body of research that says quite often a group of Chief Executives when they get together to talk about the industry will say one thing but when they go back and work within their company they actually do something totally different. Do you think that might have happened here in making the decisions about the Education Project - was there perhaps a perception that this is good for the industry but I do not need it in my company?
DEO: The way the FGC works is that it has working groups that basically develop programmes. This project would have come from one of those working groups, they tend to be staffed by individuals who are not on the Board itself. Whilst there is usually a Chair and Vice Chair from the Board, most of the have 15 to 30 participating companies send their people along for the committee experience. They tend to drive the outcomes. So there tends to be a fairly broad base of opinion before something bubbles up to the Board.
there is a little bit of “we feel this is good for the greater good, therefore it makes sense”, it may have been so.
4. Part of the concept for the FGC project was to set up a staircasing from certificated industry designed short courses to University Certificate – Diploma – Degree in FMCG – MBA in FMCG. Do you think there is still a need for this staircasing today leading to specific University qualifications with FMCG after it?
CEO: It gets back to the previous question. If you believe there is a need to start with then as a structure to put in place to deliver that need it seems to make eminent sense. (He did not say it but his tone implied that he does not believe there is such a need.)
HR Manager: The way our company would approach would be as long as there is relevance for our business and what we are trying to achieve we might support it, but this is not necessarily a qualification. Perhaps something broader is needed. It is the same discussion as we have around working with other institutions _ on one hand you have a qualification that is recognised y the industry, but is it fit for our purpose, is it the best thing relative to our business. The thing to focus on for us is the relevance and currency of it. I believe each business will want to use their people development as a competitive edge because it is the thing that sets us apart both from an attraction perspective and also keeping people with us. We focus on raising the bar through good focused people development.
5. So that implies that you would rather train your people internally because that way they are not learning the same as everyone else on the same course, but rather that they are getting something special from you which will help the competitive edge of your business
HR Manager: Well we have a mix so a blended learning approach (some general courses and some in house) is needed some of which is definitely our way of doing things. However, we have to ensure that the training is not insular and that the staff get exposure to the external learning environment.
CEO: To that point we use an individual (staff) plan approach. So where an individual has identified learning/skill gaps we look at the opportunities and if they can be satisfied by going on a course for 6 – 12 months doing two days per month etc that is absolutely fine. But the blended approach is what we do. We will pick elements which are capable of being delivered in-house because we have sufficient volume (of people wanting to be trained) to do that. But if it is an individual who requires a particular piece of training and there is something external then we are more than happy to add this in to the programme for that individual.
6. So you blend the outside delivery in terms of learning the fundamentals of the job and there is another in-house component which is the company “way of doing things.”
CEO: Yes
HR Manager: I will just give an example. There are some skills that you want to get the critical mass or commonality of across all areas of the business. So, for example, in our Sales area there are some concepts and some models that we want everyone to buy into.
that programme
7. The Sales area is quite unique from the rest. People come into Marketing with degrees and so they are already trained whereas there are no degrees, at the moment, in Key Account Management. How do you cope with that. If you are bringing new people in how do you train them in Sales and Key Account Management?
CEO: Exposure
HR Manager: We are very fortunate to have the resources through our Australian team as well and through the global company. So we take all of Key Account Managers through a programme where the Australian training team come here. This builds in a formal training way on the work we do in-house with our front line sales people. This is often around the terminology and works at a core strategic level for our Key Account Managers.
8. Given what you have just said, are you aware of the FGC courses, particularly the one in Key Account Management?
HR Manager: Yes.
9. Why then do you not use them for training.
HR Manager: It goes back to the fact that we have had a really good programme developed internally, with a huge amount of investment and a lot of consultation with stake holders. It has been rolled out in Australia and New Zealand with the full support of the business. It has a good connection with what we are doing with our Sales people in getting that whole message out there quickly to a targeted audience. In this way it makes good sense commercially and internally for our business. It allows us to get the messages over quickly and efficiently.
10.That goes to the nub of what I am trying to find out because you have just said there is a need for training and it was not being met and so you developed a course internally. This means the FGC was right in saying the priority is Key Account Management. So they were obviously right in setting that up, but the courses are not meeting the needs that you company has in that area.
HR Manager: I am not qualified to comment on that because I am new to the business and the FGC decision was made before I was here.
CEO: This company has been in business world wide for a long time and it has a very long history of running our own, in-house, Sales programmes. We see our training in the same way as we see direct in-store delivery, owning a delivery fleet, we see all of that as a competitive advantage for us. So, we have written the training programmes, we own the IP and it is written in exactly the way we want it to be delivered.
I have been with the company for many years and the first day I started I was shown there is a way we do it – this is the company system and this is the company way - and we have been using the same training programme for field Sales teams for the last 17 – 18 years. So there is a really long history of in-house training in the company system and way of doing things.
industry?
CEO: No, we have had significant degrees of success with people who have come from other sectors, but it depends where you come in.
12.Anecdotally in the sales area, people who have had lots of experience in sales in other sectors have applied for jobs only to be told “you don’t have FMCG experience”.
CEO: That would not be something that we would do.
HR Manager: It does depend on the specific role. It may apply in senior Sales positions but it is not a blanket statement.
13.What do you think are currently the top 5 priority area/subjects for industry training?
CEO: I am not sure I am qualified to comment for the industry, but I can comment for our company. Leadership, selling, productivity, people management skills, Those are my top 4. HR Manager: What you asked in your email was about the challenges we face in this industry with regard to training. Two of them that come to mind are the pace at which the business goes, and the speed at which you have got to get information and knowledge out to people, but then also your time constraint.
So you can not just quickly pull someone out from the field and tell them to come in for a 3 day workshop. So the one thing that would be very useful is more focus on field coaching particularly round that Sales area. Just to get people out there building capability in the field. So the coaching area, particularly with the Leadership training and leadership coaching would be one of our priorities.
14.You said Leadership, what do you mean by Leadership?
CEO: In the context of our business it is the ability to create agenda and inspire others to deliver on that agenda. It is also the layers of process within the Leadership framework that we have in this company in terms of managing through performance, having the right level of conversations with staff, it is about acknowledging responsibility. Leadership for us is a lot about personal choice and it is about making the right choices and owning the results – deciding what you have to do (in a given circumstance) and then doing it.
15.What is your personal philosophy about professional development for staff?
CEO: I would rather give you a for instance. We had no learning and development team in the business when I joined 6 years ago. Today we have a very strong team.
HR Manager: An example of the commitment to the sort of things we do is from the executive team throughout the company so it (training) is not seen as an HR function but rather as a business function. It is not being isolated into a corner and you just get on with it, rather the sponsorship around it (training and development) is from the executive.