By Benjie Garcia* & Elaine Cercado
Last 26th of April, POWERinU Training and Coaching Philippines, Inc (PTC Philippines) sponsored and co-presented to the IBPAP – HRCC (IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines – Human Resources Champion Circle) the “2020 Learning Future.”
The event, held at F1 Hotel Manila at Bonifacio Global City, focused on the latest learning trends and the 5 key drivers for change for the 2020s workplace, which include technology impact, cross-generational challenges, diversity, future workplace and leader/manager readiness.
CEGOS Asia Pacific managing director, Mr. Jeremy Blain, presented the road to the 2020s by first showing the macro trends we are already experiencing today. Mr. Blain called the 2020 workplace the 4th Industrial Revolution, which is “characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres.” He outlined some of the evidences of the market disruptions that are currently happening in many industries, for example:
- Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no taxis
- Airbnb, largest accommodation providers, owns no real estate
- Skype & WeChat, largest phone companies, own no telecommunication infrastructure
Mr. Blain then segued into the “perfect storm” that would kickoff the 4th industrial revolution. He was actually referring to major shifts in the workplace and human capital, which was backed up by a survey conducted by CEGOS across 1500 senior level business, HR and learning leaders across Asia-Pacific, US and Europe.
During the panel discussion moderated by Mr. Nestor “Jun” Marfori, Jr., PTC director, the discussions zoomed in two out of the 5 key drivers: the cross-generational challenges and the manager/leader readiness. The panelists were Mr. Blain, Ms. Ana Maria “Penny” Bongato-IBPAP executive director for talent development & research, and Ms. Rita Ditangco-Bantigue-Senior HR business partner of MERALCO.
Ms. Bantigue shared that at MERALCO, they have a workforce that is split between the so-called Baby Boomers/Gen X and the Millennials and this split has brought forth several challenges. One of these is in coming up with cost effective programs that appeal to both groups. Another challenge is the constraints to implementing compensation-related policy changes in a unionized workforce and the corresponding collective bargaining agreements. The third challenge is that Millennials expect to be coached and mentored by their managers, who in turn, do not have full appreciation and competencies to deliver on these expectations.
Ms. Bongato mentioned that most of IBPAP companies predominantly employ Millennials and based on their studies, their major concern is on employee engagement. Based on Cegos research, Mr. Blain shared that Millennials and Gen Z have a strong desire for collaboration or “want to be involved”. He cited the case of Citibank that introduced a “reverse mentoring” program to enable Millennials and Gen Z employees to work closely with senior leaders resulting in a more collaborative environment.
In order to support manager/leader readiness, Ms. Bantigue mentioned two approaches being implemented by MERALCO. They made it an expectation of their managers to coach and are monitoring this using SuccessFactors. Also, they recently introduced a coaching program for their high potential engineers. For IBPAP, Ms. Bongato announced that the Leadership Development Council came up with a Team Leader Benchmarking Study to identify the competencies needed for a Team Leader. The results of this study are now being translated into a Team Leader Program.
Two event participants also shared their experiences with their respective organizations. Mr. Jimenez of Johnson & Johnson shared that since shared services were only introduced 5 years ago in their company, they are still in the process of finding the balance between the traditional and new approaches like gamification and new technologies.
Another participant who shared was Ms. Shianghio of Alexander-Mann Solutions, who mentioned that around 95% of their company workforce is made up of Millennials. They came up with a Project LEAP, under which, employees were organized into teams, and were empowered to identify solutions to concerns that the teams identified. Her company also conducted focus group discussions called World Café to gather employee feedback and suggestions. These interventions resulted in significant employee engagement.
All throughout the session, Mr. Blain used a live polling application, pigeonhole, to get the pulse of the audience on certain topics and questions. Below were some of the interesting survey results during the event:
| Question | Top 2 Responses |
| · To what degree is HR / L&OD leading the agenda in your organization in terms of 2020s human capital workplace readiness? | 49% “we are starting to make progress” 26% “a little” |
| · In the context of the 4th Industrial revolution and our journey to the 2020s workplace, how prepared would you say Leaders and Managers in YOUR organization are now? | 60% “somewhat prepared” 21% “we are making a lot of progress in this area” |
| · How much does your organization use mobile technologies to engage, collaborate and connect with Customers externally + Managers and Staff internally? | 39% “we are making progress” 22% “little or none” |
| · How advanced is your organization in its implementation of / formalization of technology enabled work and learning? | 60% “we are making progress” 40% “to a small extent” (Note that actual vote count is significantly lower for this question compared to the other 3 questions) |
During the break, the audience networked and had the chance to experience the ELearning solutions from CEGOS at the demo area, which ran on various operating systems and devices, including laptops, tablets and mobiles. There were many enthusiastic responses at the demo area, as the audience experienced highly learner-centric and engaging eLearning solutions.
CEGOS, which has received the top 20 content development companies award from training industry for the 4th consecutive year, has over 200+ unique eLearning modules in 11 strategic areas including management, leadership, sales, personal effectiveness and project management. Visit www.cegos.com.sg for more information about the CEGOS’ award-winning eLearning and blended training solutions based on global best practices.
During his closing remarks, Mr. Benjamin Deodato “Benjie” Garcia, president of PTC Philippines, the distributor partner of CEGOS for multi-modal training solutions in the Philippines, thanked the audience and announced the IBPAP-HRCC exclusive eLearning starter pack as follows: any 3 “bundles” (each bundle contains an average of about 5 modules each) for up to 50 users, accessible over a 6-month period for PHP 96,000.00 only, exclusive of Value-Added Tax.
This offer is valid up to end of May 2016 (update: this is now extended up to end of December 2016), and is the perfect package for companies who wish to pilot pure eLearning solutions. There are also off-the-shelf or customizable solutions available for those who wish to have just pure classroom training, or eLearning blended with face-to-face training and assessment tools.
Visit http://powerinu.com.ph/2020-learning-future-post-event-portal/ to download the complete event presentation and information.
* About the Co-Author: Benjie Garcia currently serves as president of POWERinU Training and Coaching Philippines, Inc.