THE

LEARNING JOURNAL (3 of 4)

NAME: SAMPAN, CARLO M. (MDM2020)

TOPICS: Training & Development, Performance Measurement and Management
DATE SUBMITTED: May 20, 2020

1. MAIN IDEAS AND THREE POINTS OF INTEREST
One of the ideas that resonated to me is encouraging the flow of the employees considering
their skills and the challenges given to them. Whether low-level or high-level workers, they
contribute to the success of the organization, and it is important that the management
recognizes that. Another point is that treating employees as partners helps in unleashing their
powers, and in turn, benefits the company since they feel empowered and valued. Lastly,
another takeaway is that being a great leader requires being able to coach and mentor, since
leadership is about establishing and creating new leaders.

2. WHAT WERE THE KEY ISSUES/KEY POINTS RAISED IN THE SESSION?
Some issues raised include recognizing the employees’ individual expertise, their ownership of
the responsibility and authority given to them and having the pride or sense of what they do. It
is important that they see the impact of what the organization does, and having the feeling of
they are part of giving such impact. With training and development, having continuous
upgrades of ones skills and intentionally allocating hours for training also help in fostering
mutuality and unity on the basis of their learning needs. To add, consultation with the
employees with their individual development plans and what drives them – career, aspirations,
motivations, hobbies, etc. – helps in alignment with the company’s human capital management
decisions and programs. It provides the right space and environment so efforts are not
piecemeal and wasted.

3. WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS LEARNING FOR YOU?
Transitioning to the ‘new normal’, we recognize that our organization also sees another
another opportunity of transforming from a conservative company to an innovative
organization. Part of our efforts involves creating the capacity to adapt and be flexible. In this
context, my role in the organization becomes significant in these survival times. Collaboration
and cohesion with the management and our staff is evidently important in decision-making and
actual implementation of the new policies and procedures. In a way, we don’t want to just
impose new ways and environments at work, but we will also ensure that their voices and
choices are heard and taken into careful consideration to foster a balanced organizational
structure and to keep and further improve our engagement with them. For example, a one-on-
one dialogue with them (since we are a small organization) can help us better understand their
choices of programs and projects to work on, their choice of rewards and benefits, choice of
time of work and even location (considering work from home arrangements). For their
performance, I believe it is also equally important to know their interests, skills, strengths and
the task requirements and assess if they are commensurate to their posts. Having these
assessments will help implement the right training programs adapted to their preferred of
learning activities, and be able to seek and implement continuous personal and organizational
development opportunities.

 THE LEARNING JOURNAL (3 of 4)

4. HOW CAN YOU USE THIS LEARNING IN YOUR WORK?

Before writing this journal entry, I attended our MANCOM meeting, wherein we discussed
about the ways moving forward during and post-COVID. I was happy to be able to greatly
contribute in influencing the decisions presented to and approved by our Board of Trustees
with related to human capital management. We decided that now more than ever, we have to
prioritize our staff not only for them to be feel that they can serve our end customers, but for
them to also realize that the management is values them and that our aim is to provide a
balanced work environment. With the availability of technological advancements, the
organizational structure and policies will be more employee-centered to keep and further
empower our staff. During this time, we are implementing re-skilling and training opportunities
for them on how they can still carry out their tasks on an online setting. These include proper
communications skills such as writing, effective use of digital assets and even the technical
know-how of operating software and other platforms. All these help us have an assessment of
our capacity not only with the output, but also with how the organization can function similar
to our efforts before the pandemic. Staff will be provided with training activities about online
counseling for the help desk, social medial management and content creation for the
communications team, and partnerships and online events facilitation for the partnership
development department. This approach will be implemented to encourage inter-departmental
coordination and relationships, even if we are all not physically together. Undergoing these
trainings will also help them develop and acquire skills in exploring and conducting their own
way of delivering the services we provide, and allows them to add their personal touch on it.
The staff will also be required to attend at least one online training session a week from the
numerous sources available, and we are including in our a calendar a personal project of
coming up with out own livestream activity for the following objectives: (1) apply their newly
acquired skills and test the familiarity and capacity of our organization in an online setting (2)
maintain our visibility to our stakeholders and industry where we belong to (3) continue to
provide our services and re-launch our organization with the digital transformation component.

We are also revising our HR metrics, and listening from the staff, the basis will provide a good
balance between work and their personal interests. For example, there will be a change of
performance metrics with emphasis on their accomplished work and not only on the hours
spent working. This includes allowing flexibility and options to choose their work schedules and
location (like work from home setting). In addition, the restructuring will include more
mentoring type of approach in leading in terms of listening more to the staff and paying
attention to their attitude towards work such as looking into their attendance and performance
evaluation, and walking with them through this journey of transition. In addition, we will add a
new incentives or rewards mechanism based on their shared specific needs. For example, an
incentive to being able to attend to at least 15 help desk cases (10 is the minimum) per day will
merit the staff to an additional .5 day off the following week, but should be availed with at least
3 days notice to ensure that their absence will not compromise the quality of work provided.
Another example is that instead of transportation allowance, our staff will have additional
communications allowance and a mobile internet instrument to allow them to work effectively
anywhere they are. But with these rewards, the responsibility comes that they are expected to
deliver the same or even better output.