Leadership development for all at Sime Darby

By PREMA JAYABALAN
prema.jayabalan@leaderonomics.com

Sime Darby is a diversified multinational involved in key growth sectors, namely, plantations, property, motors, industrial equipments and energy & utilities, and employs over 100,000 employees operating in more than 20 countries.

The Sime Darby brand has been a key part of the Malaysian economy for more than 100 years.

In line with its vision, “To be a leading multinational corporation delivering sustainable value to all stakeholders”, it has taken steps to drive holistic, practical and business focused learning solutions to developing its employees.

“As one of the active members in the GLC Transformation Programme under the Khazanah Nasional’s Orange Book on Strengthening Leadership Development initiative, launched in 2004, we are focused on creating potential leaders who will be able to take the organisation to many great levels,” says Nadiah Abdullah, head of Learning and Talent, Sime Darby Group.

This led to the introduction of Sime Darby’s Core Executive Programme (CEP) in 2009, a series of mandatory programmes dedicated to the leadership development of Sime Darby executives at all levels of the organisation.

“CEP aims to deliver consistent level of competencies to improve individual performance whilst driving common language, culture and values across the group,” adds Nadiah.

“For example, the Core Executive Programme 1 (CEP1) aims to develop the leadership skills of our executives and senior executives through increasing their self-awareness and personal mastery to enable them to perform effectively at their level.”

CEP has recently expanded its horizons to the Group’s overseas counterparts in Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and China as the Group believes it is imperative to drive consistent skills and expectations across the countries it operates in.

“We have been running this programme in Malaysia for three consecutive years and we realised that there is a need to further scale this programme to our operations outside Malaysia,” explains Nadiah.

CEP1 was launched in Thailand on Oct 14 with great success. According to Nadiah, there was a mixture of employees from diverse backgrounds, skills and experience.

“I saw many positive changes in my staff within just two days after the programme,” shares a happy Natchamon Worakitvijan, head of Human Resources, Sime Darby Power Co. Ltd., Thailand.

“We saw an improved change in her behaviour and communication skills. She has transformed into a completely different person in just two days”.

CEP is one of the many high-impact leadership development initiatives to align the Group’s talents to Sime Darby’s strategic thrust of instituting a performance and value-driven culture.