A Passion for Learning

Nesibe is true to her word. She established herself in the company and expanded her horizons. “During my internship, I learned about all the types of training offered by the GF Academy – cross-divisional training courses at the corporate level – and helped set some of them up,” she says. “That’s when I knew I wanted to keep working in this area for a long time to come.” After finishing her internship in the Corporate HR team, Nesibe moved to the GF Machining Solutions division, where she was responsible for improving global HR processes and implementing the Me@GF platform as an HR Specialist. At the beginning of 2020, she received an offer from Schaffhausen that she could not refuse. Since then, she has served as Head of Learning and Development, overseeing the ongoing development of the culture of learning at GF and global training measures at the corporate level. Part of her role is creating a new, global learning platform called MyLearning@ GF.

Nesibe’s work has become even more important since the beginning of 2021, when the implementation of the GF Strategy 2025 gave new impulse to the culture of learning. GF is aiming to make “Learning” a key part of the corporate culture, along with “Performance” and “Caring.” Nesibe sees this as a logical step: “Our vision is for each and every one of us to make learning part of our everyday routine.” The new MyLearning@GF online learning platform is designed to help employees do just this. It went live with a pilot in May.

Why is the company making learning a central pillar of its new target culture now in particular? The GF Piping Systems, GF Casting Solutions, and GF Machining Solutions divisions are already world-class today. But the working environment is undergoing a transformation. “Our world is changing faster – and the markets we currently lead in are changing along with it,” says Nesibe. Digitalization, efforts to boost sustainability, and most recently the coronavirus crisis are pushing old certainties aside and making long-successful business models obsolete. “We have to respond by becoming faster and more agile. We need to be bolder and more confident about taking new approaches.”

She and her team are aiming to instill a new way of thinking among employees. Their message: You can learn anytime and anywhere! It does not matter whether it is during daily routines, from experienced colleagues, or bit by bit. “We don’t always have to participate in comprehensive training programs,” Nesibe says. “Every day, each of us should ask ourselves, what can I learn by watching the best members of my team – and how can I make our values an active part of my daily work?”

But Nesibe believes that making a new culture of learning an integral part of GF will take more than modern platforms: “As one of our values, Learning means that we are open to new ideas. In other words, learning isn’t a task that I check off my list once a year,” she says. “Everything that we do is an opportunity to learn something new and to share what we have learned with each other.” Nesibe and her team are already seeing how well this can work in training sessions they have reorganized. “It’s fantastic to see how colleagues from various areas who are meeting each other for the first time can talk openly about mistakes and learn from each other’s expertise,” she enthuses while describing the recent training sessions. “This is what we want to achieve.”

But what needs to happen to make this culture of learning from each other part of everyday work at a company that has always been about thinking precisely and the pursuit of technical perfection? It is not always easy for experienced engineers or long-time employees in particular to embrace new things and speak openly about aspects that are not working as well as they could. Nesibe thinks the key is a new awareness about dealing with failure. “It’s okay to make mistakes,” she says, “as long as we are quick to learn from them.”

Of course, there are different types of mistakes. There should not be any mistakes in situations that would have severe consequences – for example, when it comes to safety at work or standardized production processes involving large quantities. But: “Some mistakes can help us learn and can even be useful – for example, when developing prototypes,” says Nesibe.

One prime example could be the startup scene, where you begin by focusing on developing a minimum viable product (MVP) at high speed. The MVP is an initial version of the product with the key basic functions, which is then developed continually by incorporating customer feedback. “We are using this same approach in the development of the MyLearning@GF platform so we can improve the system as well as the spectrum of learning offers on an ongoing basis,” Nesibe says.

Nesibe knows it will take some time for the new learning platform to become established throughout GF. “While working at GF Machining Solutions, I came to understand how long it takes for concepts from the corporate area to reach everyone else.” This was why she implemented the project together with colleagues from the three divisions; in all, 16 people were involved worldwide. Nesibe is certain that the advantages offered by the new system will ultimately win over all employees at GF. In the future, the benefits will also include, for example, the option of training customers in the correct use of new machines.

Whether it’s customers or employees, “You can tell when people are getting into the flow and are enthusiastic about the know-how they are acquiring. That’s what we want to achieve with MyLearning@GF, too,” Nesibe says, and her eyes begin to light up. There it is again – the passion for learning.