TIAS congratulates Fugro on the Graduate Programme Award

TIAS congratulates geo-data specialist Fugro on winning the British Ground Engineering Award for Graduate Programme of the Year. On Wednesday, June 19, Manon van Beek, Global Programme Manager Talent Development at Fugro, received the prestigious award for the U.Gro Graduate Development Programme. ‘Fantastic to experience. The TIAS programme component in which 30 professionals annually tackle real, current business challenges from Fugro as a team is a unique selling point of this programme.’ Together with the TIAS team, Karen Bauer and Filip Caeldries, respectively Senior Learning & Development Consultant and Academic Programme Director, Manon gives a behind-the-scenes look at this TIAS InCompany customized programme.

Current business challenges 

Fugro operates worldwide from 57 countries. One of Fugro's key values is “We prepare for tomorrow.” Manon: ‘Of course, we are talking about sustainability and innovation, but at the heart of it, it is about the development of our organization. The foundation for this is that people feel at home at Fugro and can work together pleasantly, both interculturally and interdisciplinarily. That is partly the strength of the TIAS business challenge programme.

Testing with senior management 

‘The sponsors from Fugro,’ Manon continues, ‘deploy their team to further develop and test a strategic business case with senior management. To gain a good understanding of the issue, the team will need to ask the sponsor many questions. Because they do this from team diversity and thus from different perspectives, this may also provide the sponsor with new insights to further advance the business case.

Standing out

 ‘On the participant side,’ Manon continues, ‘I notice that the TIAS programme component is seen by professionals as an opportunity to stand out to senior management and to get to know Fugro and their international colleagues even better. But what I especially see is that once active in the programme, the ambition of professionals is further ignited. Many of them take the initiative to volunteer for projects with more responsibilities. It really does something to the desire to keep learning and stay connected to Fugro. The first meeting with Karen on how we will do it for the upcoming edition is already scheduled.’

Mapping the learning needs 

Karen, in her role as Senior Learning & Development Consultant, was responsible four years ago for clearly mapping out Fugro's learning needs, involving appropriate professors, and designing the programme. ‘Such a process begins with quite a few interviews with various stakeholders. I process this information into an initial programme that I discuss with the client.’

Bringing together content and practice 

The next step in the design phase for Karen is to sit down with the Academic Programme Director she has chosen to discuss the content of the programme. Prof. Dr. Filip Caeldries has been involved in this role from the beginning. Together with Dr. Eric Dooms, he forms the faculty team for the business challenge programme. Karen: ‘On one hand, you have the shaping of the content, in which Filip is closely involved, and on the other hand, the concrete implementation in practice. My strength is to bring that content and practice together into an attractive programme that seamlessly fits the programme's objective. In Fugro's case, for example, there was a desire to bring together participants from around the world. We therefore opted for an almost entirely virtual programme from the beginning with a virtual classroom, online team meetings, and coaching sessions.’

Out of the comfort zone 

‘What makes the programme powerful for me,’ Filip takes over from Karen, ‘is that we invite participants to step out of their comfort zone by immersing themselves in the business economic reality of a business challenge. We do this not by throwing participants, who have not yet looked beyond their own field, into the deep end. We do this by providing them with tools through virtual classrooms and four check-in coaching sessions, enabling them to understand the business challenges economically and substantiate their recommendations well.’

Getting the taste 

Filip observes, like Manon, that some participants get the taste for it along the way in the programme. ‘It ranges from “wow, this is a world I want to know much more about.” They often volunteer to grow in that business economic track. If one of the participants from an earlier edition has been promoted, I find it very nice to hear.’

Fugro's trust and commitment 

The fact that the business challenges are about real fundamental issues facing the Fugro organization means, according to Filip, that the Fugro management expresses confidence in their employees. ‘I find that important to see. Additionally, I notice from the commitment, particularly from senior management, that this programme is important for the long-term well-being of the Fugro organization. The involvement of senior management is exemplary. I would like to see it everywhere.’

Starting small and scaling up

Karen: ‘As TIAS InCompany, we always look for a design in our programmes that achieves the organization’s goal and allows participants to get the most out of it. For Fugro's business challenge programme, we continue to co-create with Fugro to further improve the programme in those areas. In 2020, we started with a pilot in the Netherlands. We then expanded the programme to the EMEA region, and now we are preparing for the third global edition. It is the perfect example of how a customized programme can start small. From there, you can continuously improve, adapt, and tweak the programme in an open dialogue with each other. That makes a customized in-company programme truly powerful.’

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