Mid-Career Opportunities to Learn and Grow
The Hess culture encourages and supports everyone to continually learn and grow. We want our employees to realize their potential – so they mature in their current roles, and are prepared when it’s time to take on their next assignments.
At Hess, we believe that everyone has the ability to lead, whether in their role on the team or in a formal role with direct reports. How we achieve results is as important as what we achieve. That’s why we have measurable competencies or behaviors, called Leading at Hess, as a standard. As people progress in their careers and take on more senior roles, we expect a greater command of these competencies.
Development at Hess is ideally a mix of on-the-job experiences, coaching and mentoring, and formal education. Every employee is expected to have a development plan with specific actions to guide their career.
Employees can upgrade their skills and capabilities through The Learning Center, an online resource that offers modules on general business knowledge, technical and functional capabilities, desktop skills, compliance issues and Hess topics. Since it launched in 2008, employees from Hess businesses worldwide have embraced its 24/7 availability and just-in-time performance support. The site offers more than 1,000 e-courses, which all align with our businesses and business priorities. It also provides job aids, registration for instructor-led training, video-based scenarios and other support tools.
To sharpen leadership skills, we offer enterprise-wide development programs. The Supervisory Essentials Program (SEP) helps new and emerging supervisors transition from top team members to team leaders. The company has designed a three-day workshop to help first-time leaders effectively and smoothly manage the change in their roles and responsibilities, as well as prepare them for the challenges ahead.
SEP is the first of four programs – Supervisory Essentials, Leadership Essentials, Business Essentials and Enterprise Leadership – designed to benefit talent at all levels, from first-time leaders to senior executives. The series focuses on the critical leadership skills that are required by supervisors, managers and senior leaders in all of our business units.
The series of programs recognizes the importance of growing leaders’ capabilities so they can be more effective in their current roles and prepare to take greater responsibilities within Hess in the future. Each of the programs is built around a 70/20/10 philosophy of learning; that is, 70 percent occurs on the job, 20 percent through coaching and networking, and 10 percent from formal classroom education.
Each of the four programs has its own focus. For example, Supervisory Essentials provides supervisors with the skills they need to manage the performance of others. It also lays the groundwork for future career development by reinforcing the principles and qualities of leadership. The program is broadly designed for new and emerging supervisors and team leaders who have supervisory responsibilities.
The Business Essentials Program (BEP), by contrast, is designed to expand the skills and capabilities of experienced mid-level leaders. It is aimed at mid-level leaders responsible for the critical role of translating company strategy into the daily actions that move Hess and its people forward.
BEP participants spend several months analyzing feedback from others about their performance and behaviors leading up to an intense week-long program developed in conjunction with Duke Corporate Education (DCE), an offshoot of Duke University, that focuses on preparing business leaders to face new challenges, solve complex business issues and shape their organizations’ futures. Hess learning and development team members worked with DCE to design a custom program tailored to meet the company’s specific leadership development needs.
During the workshop, BEP participants take part in strategy sessions with Hess senior leaders, attend classes taught by experienced university professors, and participate in business discussions and teambuilding exercises. They receive coaching and support for several months after the workshop and often build extensive informal networks of colleagues from all around the company.
We are committed to creating a work environment that encourages continual learning and development for all employees. We want a diverse and inclusive workforce where everyone grows, builds capabilities, experiences new challenges and sharpens skills.
In addition to our multiple training programs, we offer employees a chance to grow through coaching and mentoring. Both coaching and mentoring create developmental relationships that give less experienced employees the chance to learn from the expertise of more senior employees.