Training the next generation of leaders

Design, engineering and advisory company Aurecon embraces a hybrid work environment. It’s something that has been infused into its work philosophy, particularly after the COVID pandemic.

“Our people can choose where to work based on the outcomes that need to be achieved,” Aurecon chief people officer Liam Hayes said. “So this could be at an Aurecon office, a project site office, at home or another space.”

The company employs around 7000 workers across Australia, New Zealand and Asia. And post pandemic, it simplified its flexible work policy into a flexible work philosophy, which he described as “flex best for you and your work community”.

“Each team develops and maintains a ways of working team charter that captures the behaviours and practices that create the best outcomes for our clients, our people and Aurecon,” he said.

Aurecon’s leadership program

In 2021, Aurecon launched its Leadership Foundations Program. It’s a 12-month blended learning program targeted at mid-career team members and is designed to align with the company's leadership framework.

“The framework stipulates three core domains of leadership,” Hayes told HRDTV.

“Firstly, leadership mindsets, and that’s associated with the complexity and ambiguity of the strategic questions, decision parameters and cognitive and task complexity of the role. The second element is leadership practices and that’s about the capabilities required to lead and execute our business strategy. And the final element is leadership context, which is about the scope and systems we lead within.”

The program has an onboarding experience and five theme modules based on Aurecon’s principles. During each module, participants join facilitated workshops, peer coaching circles and complete a series self-paced coaching workouts on the leadership development platform, Adeption.

The strategic intent of the program was to create a democratised, flexible and sustainable leadership pathway to uplift the collective capability and capacity of Aurecon’s target team members, Hayes said.

“By October this year, we aim to have onboarded over 800 leaders to the experience, helping us to achieve our version of developing leadership mindsets and behaviours at scale,” he said.

‘Direct impact’ of leadership training on performance

“This approach has had a direct impact on organisational performance given that the inherent nature of the program requires participants to constantly be planning on-the-job actions specific to their work context. So it makes it really real for them. And this then supports them to hone their leadership capacity and continuously learn from these alongside their peers.”

The program has improved or sustained high performance among participants, said Hayes. And those who have taken part in the program have shown an increasing level of commitment towards driving their personal growth and have a greater awareness of their developmental blind spots.

“Participants have also expanded their network and formed meaningful connections with a diverse peer group, providing the opportunity to practice operating within a networked organisational environment,” he said.

Advice to emerging HR practitioners

Having started his career in a relatively small HR team, Hayes said it gave him the opportunity to work across different areas of HR, including generalist, business partner, payroll, recruitment, reward and learning. This was a gamechanger when he moved into leadership positions as it gave him an appreciation of the value each area brings to HR and how they need to work collectively to drive outcomes.

“I would encourage emerging HR practitioners to be curious, ensure they understand the commercial drivers of the business they work in, get involved in strategic projects and look to work in different areas of HR or build an appreciation of those different areas through mentoring,” Hayes said.

“I think we all are seeing that HR is continuing to evolve and change and by building a broad set of skills early in your career, you’ll be best placed to navigate these changes.”