Training Manager Tonie Thiel

LAST month, Honda’s long-awaited tenth-generation Civic small car was the star guest at a welcoming party attended by no customers, no sales people, no politicians or motoring journalists.

The guests were Honda Australia Tullamarine-based employees – all 150 of them from the managers to the front-desk receptionists – in a national first of immersing staff in the product to maximise corporate knowledge and bring a new level of product training.

The employee program came on the back of a national dealer, sales and technician training program that customarily takes place when a new model is introduced.

Honda Australia’s dealer training manager Tonie Thiel organised the company’s 150 national employees to become proficient in the new Civic model as the cars were arriving into dealerships.

Though she said the dealer training and the employee event “was like organising 30 weddings in six weeks”, the results were seen as being beneficial to how Honda professionally relates to customers.

However, more important will be how staff engage family and friends when discussing Honda and its products.

“This is a different approach than we have done before, because it is more in-depth and involves a greater number of Honda employees,” she said.

“It was important that the new Civic, which has a lot of new technology, be introduced with a new level of training across the business.

Honda Civic

Ms Thiel said employees were trained to know about the new Civic’s technology, features and about the competition.

“But it’s also about being proud to be part of Honda and become an advocate for the company they work for,” she said.

“All staff have come away from the three-day intensive training fully conversant in all aspects of the new car and able to answer any question about the car and its competitors.

“This means we have employees who know everything about Honda products and they become a powerful tool in getting the Honda message out there and in significantly boosting their pride in their job.

“These are just two examples of the benefits of training and employee engagement.”

Ms Thiel said Honda Australia was very aware that existing and prospective customers would already know a lot about the new Civic before the car even arrived in showrooms.

“The training was very important by ensuring Honda employees and Honda dealer staff were knowledgeable about the car to answer any questions,” she said.

The staff training involved a daily average of 40 people over three days with interstate employees (except Western Australian staff who had a separate event) brought to Melbourne (Broadford) for the training.

Race Solutions was contracted for the driver training events and they worked with Ms Thiel’s team to give a very broad experience of training.

The training included a drive program with the new car, the previous Civic model and some competitor cars on closed-track exercises and public road routes.

Ms Thiel said the next phase will be to visit dealers and bring new staff up to the same level as those who attended the training event.

The training for employees for the Civic was run separately to the dealership team training event, which involved 107 teams and 400 staff from the dealer principal to technicians and advisors.

“Everything we did for the dealership teams, we did for the Honda Australia employees,” Ms Thiel said.

The technique borrows from management surveys – including the Gallup Organisation and Canada’s Ivey Business School – which states that employee engagement is critically important in the business environment.

Gallup studied 7939 business units in 36 US companies and found that employee engagement was positively associated with performance in areas including increased customer satisfaction, profitability and productivity, and reduced employee turnover.

By Neil Dowling

Honda US trains at the grass roots

HONDA in the US is broadening its training programs within the company, and within the community, as a way of stimulating manufacturing to generate jobs growth and to benefit the US economy.

The Japanese car maker has accelerated its training programs in the US, starting in March 2015, with one designed to bring new workers up to speed on new manufacturing technologies.

But in addition to applying training to its current workers, Honda North America aimed it also at junior high, high school and college students. In Ohio, where Honda North America’s manufacturing is based, it created a video game based on car production and a mobile laboratory.

Honda also partners with Ohio high schools to develop the curriculum required for manufacturing jobs, funds science and engineering curricula, and offers scholarships to college students who pursue an associate degree in Manufacturing or Mechanical Engineering Technology.

In its program statement, Honda North America said: “Through these efforts, Honda strives to keep attracting people with willingness and skills and to contribute to the advancement of the manufacturing industry, the key to the US economy, by carrying out the continued activity”.

By Neil Dowling