At CF, Leaders Are Made, Not Born
CF is on a journey to define and shape what successful leadership looks like throughout our company — a critical requirement to ensure the company’s continued industry leadership. We began this work by using employee input to create a set of leadership competencies for those who lead themselves, lead others, lead teams and lead the business. Over the past year, we began to integrate leadership competencies across our company by launching a core training curriculum for employees.
With this core curriculum, leadership development will begin within a new employee’s first days at CF. It will be part of a robust onboarding program that will help new hires develop into confident, competent employees who can achieve success in their current role and prepare for future growth. The curriculum combines e-learning and instructor-led training.
Individual contributors, or those responsible for “leading self,” undergo a six-week program of 11 online modules and one instructor-led course. Covered content includes CF’s business, culture and values; creating a safe and inclusive workplace; and CF’s leadership competencies and performance management process. It culminates with the employee creating an individual development plan and understanding how to manage their performance and career.
The program for team leaders can last up to 40 weeks and, in addition to the content shared with self-leaders, covers coaching and motivating employees; managing challenging workplace situations; and hiring and retaining high-performing talent. It includes 12 e-learning courses and four courses led by an instructor.
Together, these programs create a foundation for training and development that is consistent and scalable across CF, and ensures employees have the right knowledge and tools, at the right time, to succeed. This approach does not only benefit individual leaders. It also allows us to build a strong bench of employees ready to step into critical roles. The result is a more confident workforce today, and a stronger company for years to come.
A New Way to Develop Engineering Talent
More than two years ago, CF general managers came up with an idea to bring engineers from across the company together for several days of education, professional development and community. That vision became a reality in 2019 with our inaugural Technical Conference.
The conference combined technical presentations with breakout workshops where participants could exchange ideas. CF leaders gathered for a panel discussion on potential career paths for engineers. Feedback on the conference was so positive that we plan to make this an annual event.
Topics covered:
- Process safety
- Reliability
- Mechanical integrity
- Career development
- Breakout sessions on
specific disciplines
day conference
engineers in
attendance
CF facilities
represented
To create a strong company, we need a workforce that is aligned not only on the importance of safety, ethics and environmental stewardship, but also operates in a spirit of mutual respect. Knowing that unconscious biases can play a role in people’s interpersonal interactions, CF is implementing training for employees on the importance of recognizing and overcoming potential sources of bias.
The training program has two components: the first, Invisible Influencers, is a 30-minute course for all CF employees. It equips learners to recognize and address the effects of unconscious bias by challenging assumptions; encouraging diversity of experience, opinion and expression; and supporting a workplace culture that actively strives to be more inclusive. The second component is a three-hour workshop for people leaders called Disrupting Everyday Bias. This training gives participants the skills to disrupt the impact of bias in their interactions, behaviors and decision-making in the workplace.
Once training programs conclude, we reinforce learning with short videos and resources that review key concepts. We have piloted both of these programs and plan to launch them company-wide in 2020.
True inclusion and diversity are not only about attracting a wide variety of people to work at our company, but also creating an environment where all people feel welcome. We believe that these programs will help CF intentionally create that type of workplace.