HR Academy: “An incredibly valuable experience”

The third and last seminar block held in Krems on the Danube brought the fourth round of the HR Academy program to a close. For over a year the HR managers and specialists from a wide variety of voestalpine companies met for continuing professional development training in personnel management.

After Linz and Bilbao, the 16 selected personnel employees met again in Krems to complete the final training block in the HR Academy 2019/20 program. Selected, because a year before they had been nominated by the divisional heads of HR from the 500 voestalpine companies and locations. Or put another way, the very fact of their presence on the program is effectively a personal achievement. It is therefore all the more pleasing that the fourth year of the program proved to be a professional highlight for all the participants. For Li Cherry from voestalpine Böhler Welding in China, for example:

HR expertise to achieve corporate goals

The aim of the HR Academy is to support HR managers in their active role as a link between executives and employees, working to the best of their abilities to help the company achieve its goals. The substantive focus of the HR Academy reflects this objective. It covers a broad range of topics including greater familiarity with the corporate HR tools (employee survey, advertising materials for employer branding, onboarding templates, etc.), the practical application of consulting methods, specialist fields such as change management, communication, finance for HR, as well as personality tests, because “Only those who know themselves can lead and offer good advice.” Once again the HR Dialogue, in which the corporate head of HR and divisional HR managers took part in two highly productive discussion rounds, proved to be a key element in the program.

Great tools, plenty learned, positive atmosphere…

Over the course of the entire HR Academy 2019/20 program covering a range of subject areas organized into five modules, the participants worked together on a variety of exercises, drawing on input from external experts as required. Accordingly, participant feedback was positive. Comments such as “Excellent atmosphere, we learned a lot from each another, great HR tools which really complement our work” indicated that, once again, the HR Academy benefitted all who took part. Or in the words of South African native Aqeelah Brandt from voestalpine Automotive Components East London: “The program as a whole, and the lecturers, provided me with an incredibly valuable experience.”