Different companies in Albania and around the world do not always realize that the employee are the added value and the most valuable asset they have. Often these companies tend to seek outside experts, or people of different qualifications, when they could develop the potential by investing themselves within the company, where employees with high development potential often compromise their capabilities, precisely because the structures to enable them to emerge do not exist, or because companies call the investment in human resources a loss.
Fortunately, there are companies in our country that are treating employees not as staff, but as collaborators..
The Balfin Group has a special program for the most talented employees, who are given the opportunity to promotions and give them boost to their careers.
This program is called “Talent Pool” and consists of identifying, training and developing professional talent and preparing them for the highest professional and leadership positions at the Group level, up to the position of CEO for each Company that the Balfin Group owns. The program identifies the talent development steps, implements them and enables the creation of a team of employees (working in different Groups) who are offered the opportunity to advance in their careers in the leadership and challenging positions that the Balfin Group offers.
The Talent Development Program is taking place for the second time in the Balfin Group and we met some of the participants as well as the last week’s trainer of the program.
Granda Flaga, Spar Albania’s Human Resources Director, sees this program with great optimism: “It is the second year of the program and it is a great opportunity for every employee to develop their knowledge to a higher level and an extraordinary professional development opportunity. We say people are the biggest asset of a company, but in Balfin, this is a reality that we can all see every day, as Balfin is investing in its staff with international trainers, bringing the latest practices and innovations. I consider it a very beautiful and very valuable experience, from contacting colleagues from different industries of the Group, to presenting programs in the field of management, sales, human resources and marketing. The practices are so concrete that they facilitate the implementation of our day-to-day work as well as the transfer of information to the colleagues and teams we manage. ”
We also reached out to Borian Ujkaj, Spar Albania’s operational manager, and Florian Vathi, Director of Retail Sales at Neptun Albania, to see how they value their Talent Pool participation.
Borian Ujkaj, asked about the concrete effectiveness of this program, he stated in detail that “Talent pool is as innovative as is successful. During this program we have conducted several trainings to understand the importance of innovation in our everyday work, as well as other trainings to improve internal communication with employees, such as better listening, external communication with the audience, and work delegation training. All of this will be very much needed to do a better job in the future.”
Florian Vathi, asked about his Talent Pool experience said: “This Talent Pool built for me and my colleagues is a development plan that fits in well with my career aspirations and I see it as an appreciation and and very good opportunity. It’s an opportunity to refresh old knowledge but also get some new ideas, which will be very important in Neptune’s operational functions. “
The trainer, Julia Goga Cooke, stated on the progress of the program so far, “In these last days of Talent Pool training, I would say that it has been a pleasure to work with this very engaged, focused and very active group in their participation in discussions and exchange of ideas and experiences. It will be very interesting to see how this group will apply the elements of this training to their companies.”
Continuation of the program
The Talent Pool program is designed to develop candidates into three disciplines: That of leadership and technical knowledge, knowledge acquired in the format of classroom training. On-the-job knowledge, which is training following the day-to-day work of group leaders combined with their coaching, both at group companies with senior executives and at headquarters in Balfin. The training also continues to follow the candidate through mentorship techniques, where the talents are attached to high quality Balfin Group leaders who are a support point in their advancement through distance support.
Assigning new positions to successful candidates
Talent Pool candidates who successfully complete the training process are the first candidates to be considered for new managerial positions that are vacant in the Balfin Group. Potential positions in the Balfin Group that may be offered to these candidates are: Deputy Executive Director or CEO of one of the group companies, Project Manager, Director / Department, or Regional Manager, etc.
