Through short seven-minute presentations, the Axis Leaders teams driving the cultural transformation program presented their ideas with examples illustrated by real projects. Find out more about what’s on the move at Tecpetrol.    

Tecpetrol’s process of cultural transformation is being pursued with a contagious degree of enthusiasm. The employees who stepped forward to develop the three Axes—culture and leadership, training and development, well-being and benefits—are known as the Axis Leaders, and they’ve set up teams to find ways of turning their ideas into proposals suitable for implementation throughout the company. This stage was followed by the opportunity to share their ideas in brief seven-minute presentations, with the aim of attracting allies and sponsors to make them a reality.

During the process, the 70 Axis Leaders took part in specific training courses to learn entrepreneurial skills. "There were four workshops designed to help people learn to think out-of-the-box, with super disruptive exercises and slogans, emphasizing the 'why not' approach. Loads of ideas were presented and we pulled out a few to analyze the obstacles involved and the kinds of budgets implied," explained Julieta Delorenzi, Cultural Transformation Manager, to Tecpetrol Hoy.

The employees were divided into nine teams to come up with a series of original proposals based on 400 ideas drawn from all areas by the Allies of Change. They worked together to share concerns and suggestions with a view to finding ways to improving the work climate throughout Tecpetrol. On June 3, the ensuing proposals were presented to the team in charge of Change Management, where Human Resources is playing a key role throughout the process.

The projects

The projects were split into three areas according to where demands had been identified.

Culture and leadership:

-     Trust: working on the culture of error

-     Continuous feedback, and providing feedback to people’s bosses at a second stage

-     Effective communication: analyzing what information is needed and which channels work best to communicate it

-     Sharing knowledge: using collaborative tools to share projects and also as a social network

-     Implementation and structure of action plans following the results of the climate survey (using the Great Place to Work® pillars as a guide)

Well-being and benefits:

-   Benefits: flexible benefits scheme

-   Ways of analyzing and measuring people’s workload, based on automating specific processes, improving equipment, and training people how to use tools to carry out their tasks more efficiently

Training and development:

-     Add a new platform to Tecpetrol University to handle the response to the needs detected in the climate survey. The team's proposal, presented by Germán Chávez was combined with a project already under way, making it an ambassador 

-     Strategic training: standardizing those processes which are performed in many different areas and rotating people through different areas to enhance their professional development

Although not all of the projects presented will end up being implemented, and several may have passed through several modifications by the time they’re ready, all the hours of work invested in their development are already bearing fruit. "Some of these changes are already happening," pointed out Delorenzi, who agrees with those employees who’ve been at Tecpetrol for over 20 years, that this is an unprecedented experience.

The members of the Change Management team reviewed the projects with each group, and added sponsors, whether by affinity, skills or strategy, to help drive them when it comes to the final stretch. This is when they’ll be choosing the projects that will see the light of day and defining when they will be launched. "We’re extremely enthusiastic and it’s really contagious, but we don’t want to stop at the ‘this is a good idea’ stage where it’s about a pilot project: the challenge is to continue with this momentum, with this desire to see change happening for real!"