National Commercial Bank (NCB) Jamaica Limited’s Management Development Program (MDP) is one of four leadership development training programs offered at the organization’s Corporate Learning Campus as part its succession planning strategy. With its focus on building leadership capacity, the Management Development Program is designed to prepare senior supervisors to readily transition into leadership roles over the medium to long term.
Program Details
Nominees are selected from Management Support, Service Quality, and Supervisory employees with performance evaluation scores of 84 percent and higher.
The curriculum is aligned to the strategic imperatives of the organization and is delivered by both external and internal subject matter experts (SMEs) who share their knowledge and expertise with the employees. Employees are exposed to practical application of managerial principles, exercises, and organizational examples. The broad objectives of the MDP are to:
- Broaden employee understanding of and skills in leadership, management, and business in order to function more effectively in present roles and in preparation for increased responsibility.
- Improve employees’ ability to interpret and influence company policy objectively and accurately through strategic-level discussions, exposure, and industry analyses.
The program’s structure is as follows:
Phase 1: Participants are required to complete a management-style test that characterizes management behavior based on varying situational analyses. The candidates use the outcome of the assessment to improve their management and leadership skills with aid/coaching from their immediate supervisors.
Phase 2: Each course begins with prerequisites, which are available online and made accessible to all staff from anywhere in the world. The prerequisites ensure a certain entry-level knowledge and build participants’ confidence as they enter the face-to-face, interactive session, and, as such, are strictly monitored for completion.
Phase 3: One course per month is delivered over a 13-month period. The MDP delivered a total of 13 credit hours or 208 instructor-led contact hours.
Phase 4: Participants complete a pre-test, which measures their level of knowledge prior to the learning intervention. This information is retained and compared with final course scores and is used as a measure of knowledge transfer.
Phase 5: Participants complete a post-test, which measures their level of knowledge after the learning intervention. This information is compared with the pre-test course scores and is used as a measure of knowledge transfer.
Phase 6: In the final month, participants do an oral capstone project presentation to a team of subject matter experts from the senior management team, who grade it. Feedback is provided to the team, which is incorporated into the written submission. The grades for the presentation and the written document are averaged to arrive at a final grade.
Graduation: At the end of the program, participants either return to their respective units with substantial increased responsibilities or start new assignments in other units.
Results
All graduates have been performing at higher levels of responsibility as the organization embarks on its transformation intiatives. Some 32 percent have been promoted to first-tier leadership in the organization.
