How professional training strengthens brands’ supply chains

Written by Jeroen Scheepers | May 15, 2024 9:50:33 AM Z

Employee development is essential for strong supply chains — and for your organization’s business continuity and growth. “The supply chain is the backbone of an organization. You need to get all functions, but also suppliers and customers, involved to make impact across the whole chain,” explains Stefan Hoogervorst, director of Involvation’s Value Chain Academy.

The Value Chain Academy (TVCA) is built on this belief. Involvation created TVCA to offer end-to-end supply chain learning and development: Through e-learning, webinars, on-site sessions, experiential games, and simulations, the Involvation team tailors talent development strategy to each client’s needs.

Why Professional Training Is Important for your Supply Chain

You may have a quality supply chain. But without training and development for employees, it’ll stagnate, not strengthen.

In global health, politics, economics, and energy and goods markets, change will only happen faster. Supply chains have become increasingly complex: The links in the chain have become more global and more intricate; individual products have become more complex; customer expectations have evolved; there are scarcities of raw materials and components; and suppliers are struggling to deliver reliably.

Organizations need to invest in employee development to stay competitive, matching it to the pace of change.

That’s why learning and development is important: It enables organizations to thrive.

The Essence of Employee Development Strategy

Building a culture of continuous learning and improvement starts with demonstrating its value to your employees. Let’s take supply chain, for example:

Promote cohesion and collaboration: A quality supply chain needs its functions to interlink. No silos, just problem-solving for mutual success.

“You need to collaborate; there's no way around it. Learning by implementing touches much more on these soft skills. Our team has worked on these projects with a variety of companies and industries. They’re ideal coaches because they’ve done it themselves,” says Stefan.
Communicate the value of end-to-end awareness: A robust employee development strategy should be open to all roles your supply chain (in)directly impacts. Finance and Quality, for example, and HR to identify expertise gaps.
Highlight progression opportunities to attract and retain talent: Supply chain is multidisciplinary, so end-to-end knowledge is essential for lateral and vertical moves.

“In supply chain, you see people from various backgrounds,” Stefan says. “To drive your company's performance, you need to equalize and advance understanding across the whole organization.”

The more employees learn and develop, the wider their career horizons should be within your organization. That’s an employee development strategy for sustainable growth, which Stefan expands on: “Offering your people a growth journey toward a leadership or management role is one element. But supply chain is a very broad function: You can offer talent a career from various angles, via horizontal paths as well. We create this range of pathways with The Value Chain Academy, through continuous learning.”

What Makes Training and Development for Employees Effective?

Influenced by Dr. Ina Weinbauer-Heidel’s research, we’ve designed The Value Chain Academy’s content around key levers for knowledge application:

The learner: 3 levers

Transfer motivation, or individual willingness to learn
Self-efficacy, gaining confidence in new skills
Transfer volition, the willpower to apply new knowledge

The training design: 4 levers

Clarity of expectations sets training outcomes to achieve
Content relevance for trainees’ roles
Active practice so trainees can apply learning in their work
Transfer planning lets trainees map out how to apply their learning at work, and commit to it

The organization: 5 levers

Opportunity for application, meaning organizations need to give employees chances to apply learnings
Personal transfer capacity, meaning employees need space to evolve ways of working
Support from supervisors to set and meet skills development goals
Support from peers across functions
Transfer expectations in the organization should be clear, to motivate employees to apply new knowledge

These levers ensure the training we deliver has lasting impact, as it’s directly applicable to each client’s organization. These are our basic building blocks, which we use to co-design bespoke talent development training with clients.

“The clearer the transfer expectations from the organization, the better the chances that the transfer will actually happen,” Stefan elaborates. “And you need support from your colleagues, which is why we do a lot of team-based training. Because we do this in a mixed setting — where you have supply chain, purchasing, etc. — they'll all recognize they have a role to play. Far too many trainings are silo-based, separating functions, and without interaction, you basically steer people into more siloed behavior.”

How to Generate Meaningful Impact through Employee Development?

Promote an open learning culture

To learn effectively, your employees need to feel secure enough to try new things, think differently, work together. “A key element that sets The Value Chain Academy apart is that we help clients create a learning environment where people feel secure and empowered to make changes,” Stefan shares.

“If you enable people to feel comfortable sharing mistakes and discovering new approaches, they can create collaborative impact. It’s about reaching out to others, not finger-pointing and blaming. You can embed knowledge-sharing and continuous improvement in your organization, and also speed up improvement through support from colleagues and senior management.”

Have clear professional training goals

What problem(s) does your organization need to solve? We’ll shape training to reach your aims for continuous learning and soft skills development in logistics and beyond.

TVCA's blended approaches (learning on the job, business games, simulations, coaching) allow trainees to step into other functions’ shoes — understanding how roles interrelate; how their work contributes to the whole.

We differentiate training streams based on learners’ prior knowledge, ensuring all employees can engage. And we empower employees to become talent development ambassadors within your organization. “We aim to train internal experts within our clients’ teams, enabling their independent, in-house continuous learning in logistics,” Stefan shares. “Then our team evolves into trusted advisors, providing ongoing inspiration, coaching, and guidance in uncertain moments.”

Involve senior management

For employees to commit to training and development, senior management must champion it. Demonstrating investment in people, in talent retention, and in company performance.

Rituals is a strong example of this, and we’ve worked with the brand on professional development in logistics.

For Long-Term Success, Prioritize Employee Development

Training and development for employees is Involvation’s engine, and we’re proud of our track record delivering for household-name multinationals. The Value Chain Academy exists to empower your talent to innovate, collaborate, and unlock growth, through continuous learning in logistics and more.

For further details, contact Stefan Hoogervorst.

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