Bangkok, 26 April 2023: "If an organization were a large building, its employees would be the pillars that support the structure." This is one of the remarks from Mr. Samrit Chirathivat, the founder of Central Group, that has been passed down from generation to generation. As a consequence, Central Group remains committed to encouraging and developing "people" which are the organization's core and drive the business to strong growth, while the Human Resources Department plays a role in polishing and retaining the organization's "talents" so they are ready to face future challenges.
Mr. Pascal Billaud, Chief People Officer at Central Group, stated, "Central Group places importance on the care and development of people in the organization, which has more than 100,000 both domestically and internationally, and I believe that everyone is valuable, and we can develop their skills."
The company therefore pays close attention to the people selection process to ensure that everyone receives experiences, career opportunities, and a good working environment under the organizational culture “I·CARE”, which consists of Innovation - creating new things, Customer - caring about customers, Alliance - all business groups moving forward, Relationship - commitment and dependency, and Ethic - the desire to uphold ethics. These result in effective operations in accordance with the company's goals, allowing the company to progress gradually in the world of disruption.
One of the most important people development strategies is to organize development programs for employees of all roles and levels, from staff level to executives, through various programs and courses. The programs contain a wide range of topics and are continually updated to meet the needs of individuals, responsibilities, and current events. This is the commitment of all management within the Central Group, including Central Retail, Central Pattana, and Centara Hotels and Resorts, to collaborate in fostering and advancing talent to adapt to the latest trends. This will enable the organization to evolve alongside a changing world, achieving steady and robust expansion.
Examples of the Central Group's highlighted development programs are as follows:
1. The People Manager Development Program: This is a program that helps supervisors improve their "people management potential" in order to achieve greater success as a team than ever before. The learning method includes e-learning and workshops, as well as People Manager Talk, which allows participants to learn by discussing and exchanging team management experiences with professionals from outside the organization and Central Group executives.
2. Management Development Program: This is a learning program designed to assist management level in becoming effective team leaders capable of leading their teams to their maximum potential. Participants in this program collaborate on project-based action learning to generate new business ideas and put them into action in real-world scenarios.
3. Executive Development Program: It is a learning program designed specifically for executive level, such as the latest EDP-Executive Development Program, which is for executives from all business units of Central Group from Thailand, Vietnam, and Europe to gather under the learning theme "Becoming Future-Ready Organization" to prepare for stepping into the organization of the future. Central Group has collaborated with IMD (International Institute for Management Development), a world-renowned business learning institute with extensive expertise in offering learning programs for top executives in companies worldwide. The program is divided into 3 tracks:
3.1. Business Transformation - To prepare for the upcoming business transformation by learning new business modeling methods and looking for future opportunities for sustainable business growth, such as the topics Using AI and Data Analytics for Driving Digital Transformation, Using AI and Data Analytics to Lead to Helpful Innovation, and Transforming Business Processes and Creating a Better Customer Experience.
3.2. Ambidextrous Leadership - To master a leadership ability that focuses on two components at the same time, both proactive and reactive, including exploration, which is to think outside the box and create new innovations, and exploitation, which creates changes and boosts operational efficiency.
3.3. Talent Nurturing – To prepare people to find, create, develop and retain talents of the organization and important successors, such as the topic of Becoming an Architect of Change, being a creator of change, etc.
When it comes to seeking talents, Central Group employs the approach of offering talent opportunities to current employees based on performance, and potential for self-development in order to rise to higher positions within the organization in the future. The ideal talents for the organization will be developed through a system called ICDP (Individual Career and Development Plan) to plan, analyze themselves, and identify professional growth targets, including skills that they desire to acquire. Then, all parties involved, including the Talent Development team, analyze and design learning development programs for them, as well as providing possibilities for them to advance in their careers as the firm grows sustainably.
The Central Group’s Human Resources Department is committed to developing and promoting the talents to keep up with the mega-trends in order to jointly transform the organization into the new world for stable and strong growth.
