Developing of Staff
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While many companies claim that their staff are their best asset and that the development of talent is a key strategic priority, it is rare to find a company where this philosophy is lived out on a daily basis. All too often the development of staff is a task undertaken when “we have time”. In my experience, things are different at Safari Destinations (SD). Staff development at this small but dynamic company goes beyond being a necessity for survival in a developing country with a small population and limited skills.
It is a matter of success and a source of pride. As the new HR Manager at SD responsible for driving the staff development agenda, I have often heard the following from Lorraine Potter, one of the Managing Directors of SD: “This is a learning opportunity. This needs to be shared with staff. How can we do this?” I arrived to find weekly training sessions an ongoing practice. Talk of developing the product and destination knowledge amongst the reservation’s team is foremost in the minds of management as this is key to the company positioning itself as an expert on Botswana and the experiences available to travellers. Material resources had already developed to support the reservation’s staff in acquiring this knowledge and learning about the organisation’s processes.
One to one mentoring by a senior takes place with all new staff in this team and has been the practice since the early days of the company. Informal feedback on performance is inherent in these roles with more formal feedback taking place every 3 months in the first year and thereafter, every 6 months. A recent development is that staff themselves (and not only management) are responsible for the training of new staff. This is in keeping with the philosophy that we never stop learning and that while we teach, we learn. With the rapid expansion of the company and inevitable stretching of staff resources, the company restructured and appointed team leaders in the reservation’s team in late 2014. But the values and practices, on which the company was first built, have held strong and are fiercely protected by the two Managing Directors, Lorraine Potter and Carina Grüninger. One such value is the commitment “To constantly strive to learn more about our country, agents, suppliers, our jobs, ourselves and each other”. Transforming this commitment into action requires leaders who themselves actively demonstrate their own openness to learning, are excited to learn from others and make the time to learn as well as create the space and opportunity for others to develop and grow. This is what I have found working at SD. It is the foundation on which the company has grown and been successful and provides fertile ground for the future for as management guru, Peter Senge says: “The only sustainable competitive advantage is an organization’s ability to learn faster than the competition”.