organization *resh ideas on fruit Feedback through mentoring Task allocation Fostering relations Random pairing What sNewS lssue5'May 1998 1 Frankfurt played host to the first European fruit relationship meeting aimed at improving how we approach this important segment. Account managers and product specialists from western Europe met to specify targets, assign tasks and define action in a push to build corporate banking team in Frankfurt. 'The paper contains a cliënt listing and we are now enhancing the existing database by sharing knowledge.' cross-border networking. What the organizers were aiming for at this first meeting was the establishment of a constant program of networked cooperation rather than a single meeting without follow-up. Following the publication of Rl's ^ositioning paper on the fresh fruit industry last November, European Rabobankers have been involved in milking every marketing advantage from it. Acknowledged as an extremely useful instrument, the positioning paper is not a Attending the first European fruit relationship meeting, left to right: Michael Abel, Mariano del Vescovo, Alain Cracau, Gonneke Heerkens, Andrew Aitken, Jacqueline Pieters, Rob Schots, Harald Presto and Arend Heijbroek nteans in itself but represents a strategie tooi in discussions with top corporates in the sector. 'You have to work with a tooi like that,' says Michael Abel of the Clients have been rated according to the action needed. Priority one customers (including Dole, Chiquita, Capespan) tend to be those where a relationship already exists with one or more Rabobank office or where account managers see possibilities to improve service on a cross-border basis. 'By meeting on a regular basis,' Abel argues, 'we can coordinate our offerings to these clients.' For example, tasks such as the preparation of a strategie action plan for one customer and a business plan for another have been allocated and results will be presented at the next meeting of this fresh new group in Milan next autumn. For more information concerning this meeting please contact Michael Abel in Frankfurt directly, telephone +49 69 792 06 435 ew employees are expected to effectively contribute to meeting our business needs as soon as possible. But in order to do so, they have to be integrated into our culture and history as well. Our Singapore operation, the model of a high- growth office pushing into both new markets and new products, has adopted a new concept for managing these hallenges and meeting our corporate oals. It is called mentoring. 'All of us can remember when we were newcomers. During our first three months at the bank, we feit awed and overwhelmed, and needed guidance,' remarks Neville Kiang of human resources in Singapore. 'Every time someone gave us the benefit of their experience and perspective, it was appreciated. It helped us integrate - anchor our roots in the organization. On a more organized level, this is what mentoring is really all about.' The goal of the Singapore administration department is to give new officers a confidential contact within the senior staff. He or she can help them to more quickly adapt to our goals and working ■nvironment, to better understand the ynamics of the organization together with the opportunities within it, to get feedback on their own goals and how they should best develop them, and finally to encourage networking within the One of the most important and delicate challenges facing any large organization is to successfully oriënt its new employees. The task, to ensure that they quickly become an integral part of the workflow, is especially crucial during phases of rapid growth like our own, with a broad diversification of our geographical and product range underway. Singapore launched a new initiative that addresses some of these concerns. organization overall. By meeting regularly with new employees over a six-month period, mentors can play an important role in cultivating their effectiveness, simply by listening, asking questions, offering insights, and giving feedback. The relationship runs much deeper than the formal junior/senior officer ties: a mentor is expected to open himself personally as well as professionally and to exchange ideas and insights of a more confidential nature as well. The mentor is not responsible for appraising performance or for giving performance feedback to the mentee's manager. The program was inaugurated in Singapore last summer, when new officers joining the bank were paired with the heads of various operations depart- ments. Apart from a rule that mentors and officers cannot corne from the same department, the pairing was essentially random. After the first six months, virtually all of the participants, both new officers and their mentors, expressed their Making the most of mentoring, left to right (standing): Chan Lai Ham, Hanneke Stemmann, Diane Gan, left to right (seated): Goh Wee Nee, Neo Lee Hong and Neville Kiang satisfaction with the program and its benefits; good administration must insure that officer and mentor are well matched so that they can form a rapport. While the initial program used departmental heads, more senior officers need to be identified as future mentors, not least because of the suggestion, now under consideration, that the program be extended to cover a wider group.

Rabobank Bronnenarchief

blad 'What's news' (EN) | 1998 | | pagina 13