On Monday 20th January the Vanuatu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) began its workshop on “Mentoring your Team to Mentor Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSME’s)” at the Grand Hotel in Port Vila where Principal Officers from the Department of Tourism, Industry and Cooperatives and the Human Resource Officer within the Ministry of Tourism, Trade, Commerce and Ni – Vanuatu Business attended. This workshop was designed to follow on from the earlier workshop for Provincial Officers and their business clients.
The workshop was opened by VCCI’s General Manager Astrid Boulekone who emphasized the importance of senior officers collaborating together across the different departments and to take the lead in guiding their teams to provide optimum assistance to MSME’s at provincial level across Vanuatu.
The four-day workshop, which ended on Thursday 23rd of January, was facilitated by consultant Mereana Mills and VCCI’s Business Resilience Training Officer Irene Titek. Focus areas of the workshop included how to best manage people and teams, especially those who are based in the Provinces, and was followed with training in mentoring of staff. Participants were treated to guest presenters including Emily Tumukon, a former senior Public Servant, and Reginal Garoleo, former Principal of Malapoa College, now both consulting on Leadership. Both guests shared their experiences on leadership in the workplace.
Participants were also introduced to the GROW coaching model, which stands for learning through experience: reflection, insight, making choices and pursuing them. In addition they were also introduced to the Adaptive Project Management Cycle to assist them in their work with their Provincial Officers, supporting businesses on the ground. Mereana Mills commented that “The senior officers were very receptive to ideas about working with their staff to be more effective and understanding that mentoring is just one tool. By the end of the week a strong network of Managers emerged and we hope that they will continue to support each other to achieve the governments goals”
As the training came to a close on Thursday last week participants thanked VCCI for organising the workshop adding that now they know what effective mentoring is, and that they hope to develop their mentoring skills with their staff to strengthen the services of their respective departments.
