Preparing future industry leaders inside the Hawassa Industrial Park

With the skills gained from ILO Siraye’s Leadership Development Programme, new leaders are finding their way to deal with complex problems and advance in their career. This program is piloted in Hela Indochine and Sumbri Intimate Apparel factories based on specific training request. In the program, a total of 18 supervisors and industrial engineers have successfully completed the 6 months program implementation. Out of which, 9 LDP leaders got salary increment and 4 were promoted to the next managerial position. 

Yared Habtamu is an Industrial Engineer at Hela Indochine Apparel plc inside the Hawassa Industrial Park. He thinks, he was “lucky to have received training through the ILO Siraye programme that enhanced his skills.”  “The training was given face to face for four consecutive days followed by mentoring of our progress and periodic coaching support.” The program helped us become assertive leaders. I also gained skills in terms of minimizing production waste solving problems; distributing tasks among the human resources; increasing quality, productivity, reducing absenteeism, proper utilization of annual leave; and creating safe and conducive work environment. 

Yared believes the training has improved his communication skills. Yared has shown better performance in his work and was promoted with salary increment. 

Meseret Mengesha, is another supervisor at, Hela Indochine Apparel plc who was also part of the ILO Siraye’s Leadership Development Programme. She indicated that, “the training covered leadership and technical skills that helped me improve my confidence in dealing with people. I have learned how to solve problems easily, follow standards, and improve productivity.  The training was then followed by continuous coaching and mentoring where we can see our gaps and get advice on how to address them.” 

She added, “I have seen improvements in my skills after the training and mentorship. I started engaging and interacting more with the workers in my line and gained better confidence to lead meetings with the workers that I supervise. With these, I have improved my efficiency and got promotion with salary increment.” 

According to Mihirt Abrham, a technician at Hela Indochine Apparel plc, “the training has changed my performance and helped me get promotion and salary increment.  I became capable of solving problems that we face at production lines which is improving productivity of my line. With skills I got from the soft skill I now have excellent coordination skill with colleagues and better collaboration with workers in my line.” 

Meselech Labiso is a warehouse data controller at Sumbri Intimate Apparel plc. As per her testimonial, the ILO Siraye’s Leadership Development Programme was “very interesting and helpful in her career”. She said, “I took training in communication and soft skills. The training was a four-day face to face workshop which is then followed by a mentorship through in-factory visits and video conference. The training covered important topics like problem solving, minimizing waste, and developing interpersonal skills.” 

“I gained very important skills from the program which I used in my work to improve my efficiency. Besides, I was also able to help improve the capacity of my colleagues with the skills I gained from the training and mentorship. I have also developed the habit of leading meetings and discussion with my co-workers so that we can identify problems and solve them immediately. The workers in my line also learned a lot from me and they can now operate independently even if I am not with them.” 

“The continuous mentorship was also very interesting as it helped us to stay up to date with the knowledge and skills we gained from the face-to-face training. It was also a good reminder for us to continue applying the skills in our day-to-day work.”

“For me the skills that I gained from the training and mentorship is more valuable than financial gain,” reckons Meselech.