Case study: the Nortel Networks Experience
In 1996, the Department of Trade and Industry awarded Nortel Networks with the Northern Ireland Training Award for the successful running of a Barton Training camp involving protestant and catholic children from communities of the south (Galway) and the north of Ireland (Belfast).
Here is the account of Peter Jones, former training manager at Nortel Networks and now General Manager at Kühne & Nagel Ireland, on the experiences gained by Nortel Networks.
Business context of
Nortel Networks in Ireland
Why we selected Barton Training
What were the benefits to the children?
What was the impact of the
course on the delegates?
What were the benefits
to our organisation?
The business context of Nortel Networks in Ireland
Nortel Networks (Northern Ireland) Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nortel
Networks Ltd., a multinational telecommunications company with approximately 55.000
employees worldwide. The Northern Ireland operation is based at Monkstown, just
outside Belfast. Approximately 720 people are employed in the Manufacturing Division,
a further 220 in an R&D centre on site.
The industry is particularly competitive, as our products could be manufactured in any high-quality facility in the world. The only real differentiator to competition is people. We need to ensure that we take our natural local advantages of good education, enthusiasm and humour and add high quality training.
An apparently unrelated need was our desire to be a "good corporate neighbour" to the local community. Especially in the present political climate we were interested in promoting co-operation between communities North and South. We have been interested in supporting schools and colleges, whose students may be part of our future workforce.
Why we selected Barton
Training
We have used outdoor experiential learning extensively in recent years. These
have been of some considerable benefit, but it has been pointed out that the activities
themselves are of no value outside the context of the course. It was then that
we became aware of Barton Training, which uses children camps as the medium for
management training. This involves running a REAL project and asking many questions
of the individual, while at the same time providing much practical knowledge.
In January 1995, when we took the decision to proceed, I discussed with my training counterpart in Nortel's Galway plant the possibility of running a joint venture between the two sites. We agreed to target five graduates from each plant and to approach the education authorities north and south of the border, with a view to having 18 children from the environs of each factory, thus adding a cross-community dimension.
The event was held at Killary Outdoors centre in Connemara from 18th to 26th of August 1995. During the week the delegates organised windsurfing, canoeing, power boating, archery, baseball, arts & crafts, a day at the beach, visits to local places of interest, hill walking and swimming. The highlight was a concert, which the children wrote, staged and performed themselves.
What were the benefits to the children?
The camp provides a valuable opportunity for children to learn personal and social
skills. Here are some example reported from the schools of how the Barton camp
and the delegate’s involvement can benefit the children.
- One girl was provided not only with a place for safety for five days and nights but the chance to feel safe enough to talk about what was happening to her at home. This information was passed on to the school’s Child Protection Officer and has been instrumental in getting her name on the "At Risk Register".
- One boy lives in an all-female household with his gay father nearby. At Barton he can be a relaxed child with no fear of criticism for being a boy and to be in the company of lots of other males.
- A girl was able to have what she termed as "her holiday" instead of running the home and looking after her siblings, and on occasion her mother.
- One boy got three meals a day, people to be with and play with, people who cared where he was and what he was doing, put to bed at night and woken up when it was time to get up. All this was a novelty for him.
Other children who are homesick can learn how to deal with it – a great achievement for one particular child – and gain greater confidence and self-esteem in other areas of their life. These examples are among the many extremes, but there are also all the other children who gained a little something from the camps: learning how to live with others; enjoying being a child and taking part in activities; being clean for five days; being able to relax, to trust and be trusted.
What was the impact
of the course on the delegates?
The course was challenging. The delegates were supervising the children from 7am
until 9pm. If an activity was not working as well as anticipated, the feedback
from the children tended to be immediate and to the point! In the evenings the
delegates reviewed the day with the course directors and planned the next day,
getting to bed often after two or three in the morning. Combined with the emotional
involvement with the children, it meant that for all the delegates the experience
was particularly intense.
The consensus was that the learning was correspondingly effective, as one delegate described it in his presentation: "Unlike an 'ordinary' course, there is no manual from this one to be put on the shelf and forgotten about, the learning lies in the minds and the hearts of each of us." It was impossible to stand and watch the children getting on the coaches for their homeward journey to their respective communities and not feel that we had achieved something special.
The individuals have returned from the programme with enhanced skills, confidence and self-belief, wanting "to be someone who gets work done, not just someone who does work". They have made a significant impact on their teams since their return, and have been able to pass on some of their newly acquired skills to their colleagues. The spirit of the camp, I believe, is captured in the following statement of one of the delegates: "By the end of the week our team was likened to a professional basketball team, where when you throw a pass, you knew someone was there to catch it".
What were the benefits
to our organisation?
The programme has helped us persuade managers that development can mean more than
just conventional courses, and that helping the community is a desirable side-effect.
Better quality development and a considerable degree of support for community
groups has been the result. The benefits to the organisation can be categorised
as follows:
- The Barton event is now officially endorsed as the first key stage for our high potential graduates. It fills an assessment function because of the breadth and depth of feedback that the delegate receive and also a development function because, uniquely in my experience, the length of the course allows the individual to absorb the feedback and revise his/her behaviour.
- We have taken some of our key resources and helped them along a fast-track development process. They have acquired a degree of extra maturity beyond what might have been expected.
- Network links have been established between the Monkstown and Galway plants. The ten delegates have made contacts, which will be of benefit to them, in some instances for the rest of their careers.
- The reputations of both the Monkstown and Galway plants have been enhanced within the corporation, particularly as operations that adopt innovative training solutions. The publicity surrounding the course has led to the company scheduling four courses in England and one in Montreal, in addition to another one in Ireland, during 1996.
- There has been a significant impact in the local community. The company's public image has been improved. We have made a contribution to cross-community relations by taking a mixture of protestant and catholic children and helping to dispel any myths, which the children may have held about the other community.