A people-centered transformation
Inchcape Philippines flexes a Great Place to Work certification as it nears its first anniversary
By Joyce Reyes-Aguila
ASIDE FROM marking its first anniversary in the country next month, automotive distributor Inchcape Philippines is highlighting another achievement: a Great Place to Work (GPTW) certification. The recognition is given to “employers who create an outstanding employee experience,” according to Great Place to Work, the firm that hands out the recognition to deserving companies.
“We’re talking so much about the cars, but we’re not talking enough about the people behind the vehicles that we showcase,” says Inchcape Philippines Head of People Lyn Cyril Palle, in an exclusive interview with “Velocity.” “We want to make sure that our team is really together in these initiatives to strengthen the brand, and we always rally them for support. This is the core family that we have when we bring our brands forward.”
The company, a joint venture by Inchcape and CATS Group of Companies, started on its GPTW application six months after the integration in August last year, according to the executive. Ms. Palle reveals that the culture of the two entities aligns with the “One Inchcape” culture — which the company says is a “big part of (the firm’s) ongoing success.”
“Then, CATS as a legacy brand already has 34 years in the industry as a family business,” she explains. “The immediate conversations were really to understand the people behind the existing organization. There was a big exercise to map out and understand the culture, values, and behaviors that we want to carry forward to the Inchcape dynamics. Inchcape has an established global reputation. Having to understand who gets the superiority was really an interesting journey. We tried to map out the existing CATS culture and core values against the One Inchcape values and behavior. Apparently, everything matched but it was just verbalized in a different way in CATS and in Inchcape. But all in all, it’s really focusing on our desire to be customer-centric, to be able to deliver to the people we serve, and we just used different words.”
Ms. Palle shares that an initial survey was fielded in the company to gain insights from its over 500 employees. “In the beginning, there will be a lot of questions. The beauty of how we did this transformation is that we really had a lot of individual conversations to make our people comfortable. The intention from the beginning is to make sure that everybody jumps over to the joint venture. We did not want to clean it up before doing it. The story that we told everyone is that we are all being invited.”
The executive, who led the CATS Group of Companies’ People Team prior to the merger, reveals that the conversations revolved around how people can benefit from the move, including opportunities from globalization and access to international resources. “Having that reassurance that we’re all in this together in this journey, I think, allowed most of our employees to be really convinced to jump over. I’m happy to say that everyone jumped over.”
Ms. Palle continues that the organization’s confidence comes from the solutions it already made available to its people. The reforms include new technology for its after-sales and backend processes, and a “very professional” body and paint facility in their location in C5. “They could not imagine (these) could happen, but they were delivered.” She adds, “In the area of health and safety, we’ve been aggressively making sure that our teams are well-protected. We have revamped a lot of our lifts and replaced them with new ones to make sure that our people see action in what we say. We are making sure that our teams go back to their families healthy and well.”
Inchcape Philippines is also taking care of its talent through upskilling, and eventually plans to offer international career opportunities within the company. “Most of our cars really churn different models every so often. Your skillset needs to be up to speed. Now, our technicians will be trained in electronic diagnosis, special tools, and equipment. They all need to learn that very fast because the things that they use in servicing always change, and there are different brands that we cater to.
“Because we are a house of brands, we also want our team to move around the environment, not just to grow old vertically with a certain brand.” She adds, “I think that Inchcape brought in (initiatives) to make sure that our teams will be ready for that scale-up to digitalization. It’s really to support the entire journey of their career and the aspirations of our employees. Most of the time, our technicians fly out of the business to join international companies. The aspiration is to really make sure that we move our talent to the businesses that we also own abroad.”
The executive shares that the management wants to understand employee aspirations and then strengthen their skillset, and move them to “accommodate new talents to develop,” talents who display passion in vehicles and services.
“In the future, we want our local talent to be part of that pool who can go around the region,” Ms. Palle explains.
Inchcape Philippines is strengthening its inclusion and diversity thrust to support the brand’s international presence. “It is very, very important for us because, from a family business, we started to open our doors to all markets. We break those silos of grouping, and not knowing who are in the other brands. We started staging activities and learning sessions that have representation from all our brands. The Philippines is being seen as a spot where we can really grow certain areas in terms of shared services. The more we create a diverse thinking pot, the smarter we get, the better we get, and the faster we can move the business to achieve its goal.”
Ms. Palle says changes, such as implementing a uniform software in all brands to centralize data, aligned all their brands (Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Jaguar Land Rover, and Changan Auto, as well as dealerships for Mazda, Harley-Davidson Motorcycles, and Fuso) to the requirements of Inchcape’s unified transformation approach. The GPTW certification the firm received last April had high marks for making people feel welcome and having competent leaders to take the company into the future. On the other hand, the HR head reports that respondents identified well-being as an area of focus, and a wellness program is available to support the company’s goal of having people that are “sound, healthy, and well.”
“We want to make sure that people really like waking up and coming to work,” Ms. Palle insists. “We want to make sure that we continue to excite our teams because we know we ask so much from them. All these changes that we have accelerated and pilot for the Philippines helped our people really feel that this organization is really vested to grow and bring us together on that growth.
“While we want to still be identified for the brands we represent, at the backend, there’s a bigger Inchcape family supporting all. I think that’s the strength in the scale of resources that we have at Inchcape. That’s something that we want to promise to our employees — that these (changes) are not just for this phase because it’s for integration.”
She concludes, “We always aim for our true north to be consistently recognized. There are things that you feel you only need to think about as the people or human resources team. But these are things that can also be thrown back to the team so that they define what they really like in order to be engaged. You just need to give them a platform.”
