Cummins’ fosters leadership culture as part of its workforce strategy
Racheal Njoroge- Cummins Managing Director- Southern Africa
Cummins’ strategic roadmap centres on critical enablers to realise its leadership culture and vision of inspiring and encouraging all employees to reach their full potential. The company’s workforce strategy cultivates an environment where all employees, regardless of employee type and location, know what is expected of them, are rewarded based on performance and have access to differentiated experiences, tools and leadership coaching to help them develop.
We embarked on a multi-year initiative to address the recognition that there is variation in how talent processes are applied to the hourly workforce, leading to lower quality outcomes and inefficiency and impacting the company’s ability to maximise the capabilities of a deep talent pool.
Leadership culture is foundational to the company’s workforce strategy. It speaks to the criticality of leaders at all levels of the organisation and the right environment for employees to achieve their full potential and coach and manage team members for success. Sponsored by senior leaders, several streams of work embed the foundational elements of the company’s talent processes in each organisation across Cummins’ global footprint.
The roadmap focuses on performance management, talent acquisition and onboarding; individual development and careers; and merit-based compensation. For our company’s business, Cummins expects improved productivity and engagement; skill-building that keeps the company current with advances in technology and changing customer needs; and access to a deeper pool of diverse talent as we look to fill open positions from within.
Cummins South Africa’s recent achievement of its Level 1 Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) contributor status is the latest milestone in its transformation journey, says MD Racheal Njoroge. “It is a significant achievement given it is such a big jump from our Level 4 certification in 2021. It also demonstrates Cummins South Africa’s commitment to leading the charge in true economic transformation.”
With transformation a top priority in many African countries, Njoroge highlights increased localisation discussions in Botswana and Zambia, for example. “We are already looking at how to apply our own best practice regionally.” Going forward, skills development is a priority focus to build a talent pipeline for the industry. “B-BBEE not only looks at employment but ensures that there are sufficient skills,” says Njoroge.
Avril Campher, Transformation Leader for South Africa, says that the Level 1 certification has been the culmination of a considerable team effort. “The important thing for us now is to preserve, protect, sustain and maintain our status. There are many lessons we have learned on this journey, and it is important for us to tap into that to fill any gaps going forward.”
For more information, visit: https://www.cummins.com/sites/default/files/2022-04/2022-cummins-human-capital-management-report.pdf.
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