POC™ Success Stories

Suncor Energy’s POC™ in Progress

Suncor Energy launched its own customized POC™ program in November 2004 by sponsoring two learning communities - one based in Fort McMurray, Alberta and the other in Toronto, Ontario. Participants were all part of the Human Resources and Communications (HR&C) Function and based in the Calgary, Fort McMurray, Toronto, Sarnia and Denver Suncor offices.

Suncor's leadership team was very deliberate about framing the POC™ launch as directly aligned with their overall strategic plans for HR&C as well as the organization. Converge worked with the leadership team real-time to link POC™ learnings to Suncor’s ongoing major company-wide change initiative, Cornerstone, both during and in between core sessions.

As POC™ grads, these participants will be positioned to face the challenges of being an internal Business Partner and be equipped to help their leaders and employees facilitate organizational change.

Suncor is committed to enhancing the Human Resources and Communications (HR&C) function's role as a strategic business partner within the organization by continuing to arm their practitioners with the tools and skills they need to positively impact the business. With this goal in mind, Suncor recently committed to launching their third POC™ Community in early 2007.

Qantas takes Practitioner of Change™ Down Under

While “POC™” is well known in its birthplace of Calgary, Alberta it has also gained exposure internationally. The learning process has been successfully delivered in Canada, the US, England, France and now… Australia!

Qantas Airlines located in Sydney, launched a significant learning process for its HR organization in 2004. More than 200 HR practitioners participated in a workshop called The Spirit of Business Partnering. It was custom designed for Qantas to introduce its practitioners to the evolving role of HR and the knowledge and skills required to contribute to today’s complex environments. This design was directly aligned to HR’s vision to collaboratively align themselves as partners with the various business segments.

It was also a prerequisite to an internal POC™ learning process launched in August, 2004. Twenty five HR leaders and practitioners participated in the learning process and the community graduated in March, 2005. Continuing to build and invest in their internal team, Qantas then launched its second POC™ Community in March 2005 that graduated in July 2006.

Several of the participants commented that “The Practitioner of Change™ in general is the best learning process I have experienced in my career. Why – the applicability of the content, the structure and the presentation by Converge”.

The experience in Australia has confirmed for us once again that these critical business partnering skills are universally applicable and globally needed.