Mainfreight has secured the top position in the 2023 Balanced Projects for Best Traineeship competition. This accolade demonstrates Mainfreight’s commitment to developing exceptional people through a strong traineeship program. To gain insights into their winning strategy, we sat down with Courtney Bould, European Manager for Training and Development, and Massai Amanupunnjo, Development Program Coordinator. They shared their perspectives on what makes a successful traineeship program, reflected on their experience in the competition, and the insights they gained from the Benchmark Report.
What does it feel like to have your traineeship recognized as having the best Balanced Projects within their program?
It feels pretty good to be honest. As a business we constantly measure ourselves against our own performance, striving for high quality. At the same time, receiving external recognition from the leading traineeship experts in a meaningful way is satisfying and takes this achievement to a whole new level.
Winning this specific prize is particularly meaningful for us as it resonates with our hands-on culture, the way we do things around here, and our commitment to empowering our people with genuine responsibility.
Trainees within Mainfreight gain hands-on experience while building their own career path. Can you tell us a little more about this, and the benefits you see for trainees?
Leaving school or uni, you may not always know exactly what you want to do; many of us have been there too. At Mainfreight, we believe Education is optional, learning is compulsory – what we mean by this is at Mainfreight you commit to learning regardless of your background. For all team members, including trainees, we expect people to learn from the ground up and learn by doing. Regardless of whether you’ve studied a ‘fancy’ degree or not, in our business you roll up your sleeves and get stuck in.
Along the way, our people discover their strengths, gain hands-on experience, and how they can add the most value to the business. They’re not going to be the best picker, loader, export operator, or driver for that matter, at least not straight away! But when you commit to starting at grassroots level and learning, the sky’s the limit at Mainfreight as we only promote from within.
Promote from within means that we only hire entry level from outside Mainfreight, once you’re in, we develop you, and leadership/sales/… opportunities are only available to people within our business – we do not hire from the outside for them! This forces us to be creative as a business, and for our trainees to be creative too when career planning.
Promote from within is entrenched in our culture, and we find it develops our people, makes sure we have depth of knowledge, it also demonstrates our trust and investment in our people.
Mainfreight trainees also experience a diversity in their roles – often starting at entry level positions and working throughout the company. Tell us how this strengthens your traineeship program, and what benefits does this have?
Since our traineeship started in 1992, not a single trainee has followed the exact same path as another. They could have worked in any of our 10 European countries (Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Romania, Italy, France, Spain, Ukraine), within any of our three products (Warehousing, Air & Ocean, Transport), and within any role across these products. To put it lightly – there’s opportunity aplenty.
We see some trainees want to gain international experience, others want to develop themselves deeper in one market; no two people are the same, no worries! This brings diverse perspectives to the table, ultimately helping us overcome challenges faster and continuously improve for our customers.
When trainees start at grassroots level and work their way through different roles, they learn the way we do things around here, preparing them for leadership, developing their empathy as they’ve ‘been there’ hands on, and when sitting across the table from a customer, the customer can trust that the Mainfreighter has experience and knows what they’re talking about.
Having experienced multiple roles, our trainees work well with team members from diverse backgrounds, ensuring well-rounded adaptable teams, beneficial when opening new branches.
Our traineeship program is more than just a series of roles; it’s a culture of growth, development, and impact. We don’t produce robots; we cultivate skilled team members who grow our business for the next 100 years.
Can you tell us about your three pillars: Culture, Family, and Philosophy, and how this is an integral part of Balanced Projects for Trainees?
Our Three Pillars—Culture, Family, and Philosophy—form the foundation of our business. Our pillars guide our values and decision-making, influencing everything from how we treat our people and customers, to our relentless strive for growth.
Our culture is built on trust and teamwork, we see our team as a family, we have each other’s backs. We work together in tight-knit teams and push for higher standards in performance, safety, and profitability. This high-performance culture helps us care for our customers, attract new customers, improve our delivery, attract ambitious people, challenge, and satisfy our team members, and ultimately lead to profitability and growth.
When it comes to our trainees, they understand the assignment: continuous improvement and striving for excellence. Whether in their day job or within projects, the expectations are high.
How are you taking away the feedback and benchmark report and using the insights to build the traineeship program? What are the benefits of receiving the benchmark report?
I was skeptical as I’ve seen underwhelming, vague, un-actionable feedback in the past that wasn’t worth the paper it was written on from other parties. This on the other hand was a pleasant surprise! Seriously, the benchmark report was great and highlighted blind spots. Thank you again for it!
One key insight was trainees’ desire for more targeted feedback. People who opt for a traineeship are typically ambitious, want to develop, and grow. The benchmark report highlighted that they would like us to pay more attention to them as individuals rather than as a team. The responsibility for their day-to-day leadership rests with their direct leaders in their branch, what we’ve done is implement more structured check-in meetings with their leaders to give more personalized support and ultimately help with their development.
Our onboarding process has become more in-depth to ensure expectations are clear from the beginning, which helps trainees understand what is expected of them and how they can succeed within Mainfreight (and the program).
Additionally, we are re-evaluating our approach to trainee events. We have always given the reigns to trainees to manage their own participation, we won’t throw the baby out with the bathwater – instead we’ll do a combination of signing them up and encouraging them to continue to do so themselves. It’s a simple thing but makes an impact.
It also highlighted things that we do well with the trainees including our training and development, their ability to build their network, a strong understanding of our business and the supply chain, close relationships with customers, and their freedom to take decisions.
While we had some things well-organized, we’re thankful for the direct feedback on what improvements would make our traineeship program even better.
What advice can you give future entries to the competition about Balanced Projects in traineeship programs?
For future entries to the competition about Balanced Projects in traineeship programs, my advice is to embrace and celebrate your uniqueness. We felt a bit like the black sheep, our strong company culture and the trust we place in our trainees to work with customers set us apart from the other businesses. It’s a missed opportunity. Trust your trainees more with decision-making and customer interactions. If you don’t let them hear what the customer has to say, they cannot deliver what they truly need; frankly – the customer is the boss!
This approach must be authentic, not something theoretical in a strategy document. If you don’t believe in its value, it won’t work. Allow people to make mistakes, and space to fix them. You’ll be thankful for the confidence, experience, and satisfaction it builds in your people, it will satisfy your customers and ultimately your bottom line.
Best Traineeship wants to thank Courtney Bould and Massai Amanupunnjo for offering us a glimpse into Mainfreight’s winning traineeship program. Their emphasis on Mainfreight’s Three Pillars—Culture, Family, and Philosophy—illustrates how these principles drive their approach to nurturing talent, performance, and fostering a supportive learning environment. Their insights underscore the importance of trust, autonomy, and continuous improvement in shaping a successful traineeship program that prioritizes both individual growth and business outcomes. Follow Mainfreight on LinkedIn here.
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