In 2013 WorleyParsons, a leading provider of engineering, procurement and construction management services to the resources and energy sectors, asked Pearn Kandola to deliver a leadership and unconscious bias programme for their most senior leaders. The result was a one day bias awareness and inclusive leadership training workshop delivered by Binna Kandola between March 2013 and January 2014 to over 250 senior managers in Australia, Canada, the USA, UK and South Africa.
The workshops all used the same materials, but with appropriate local adjustments to accommodate the relevant environment. Binna also trained 35 of WorleyParsons’ in-house Learning and Development team in the delivery of the materials so that as accredited internal trainers they were able to run their own workshops to train more junior managers.
Binna Kandola presented his material on the nature of bias to the WorleyParsons’ Board in Sydney at the October 2013 Board meeting, where his message was very well received and favourably commented upon. The fact that the material was rooted in research, academia and science played particularly well to an organisation made up of data led engineers. This aspect was crucial in allowing the course content to resonate with the delegates – almost giving them “permission” to believe in the material and then to progress to considering how it applied to themselves.
Cleo Thompson, Group Manager of Diversity and Inclusion at WorleyParsons commented that, “the feedback we received at the end of each workshop has been consistently and overwhelmingly positive. We asked the delegates to score each aspect of the training on a one to five ratings scale and Binna’s workshops averaged a score of around 4.5 each time. This is an exceptionally high score for any type of “HR related” training at WorleyParsons and substantially exceeds that given to other trainers or other topics.” She added, “Binna’s style and delivery was extremely well received. After the workshops we received nothing but praise and thoughtful comments from the delegates as to how the messages have been taken on board and then used in day to day work with their teams. I am absolutely sure that this training is the best of its kind available on the market today and that Binna Kandola is a true global subject matter expert, able to deliver and work with teams at all levels.”
Cleo continued, “I also commend Binna and the team at Pearn Kandola for their behind the scenes work in preparing the course materials and adapting them to deploy local content on headcount, business sectors and other aspects of local data which helped to make the course material relevant to each local training group. Pearn Kandola were very responsive to delegate feedback so that the course was constantly evolving and improving as we continued to roll it out to other countries.”
