CMC

CMC Worldwide is an accounts receivable management organization specializing in getting unpaid invoices paid (faster) and preventing future invoices from not being paid. Or as founder and director Ravi Schuster sums it up succinctly, "We want to improve payment behavior worldwide. Our focus is on continuously exceeding expectations, both internally and to our customers and their debtors.'

Learning with and from each other

To actually deliver this to its clients, it is important that employees have the CMC DNA. This means: having the drive, being open to other cultures, being eager to learn and intrinsically motivated to get the best out of themselves and others. This is also why the CMC Academy was established. Ravi: "We want to keep learning continuously. This is why we have set up our own internal academy where everyone can work on their own personal growth every day. Our CMC Academy consists of online training courses and monthly Academy Meetings around a specific theme, which we later also want to capture in the Learning module of Treams. During these Academy Meetings, each team discusses the important lessons learned from the training sessions and reflects on everyone's development and goals. In this way, we develop both individually and together as a company. And all together with Treams.

Time for renewal!

In addition to this in-house academy, every employee has a 1-on-1 conversation with their supervisor/coach every four to six weeks. Before the advent of Treams, however, the latter was mostly one-sided; the coach took the initiative, determined the content and kept the conversation record. In fact, the employee did not have to do anything, let alone take the initiative. This working method was at odds with personal leadership that the organization was striving for. So that had to change. Jorick Wimmenhoeve - Operations Manager: 'We wanted to streamline the interviews better and initially looked for a digital system to keep track of the interview cycles. We were talking to a number of parties for this, but they remained rather superficial. Until we came into conversation with Treams. They were the first and only party that asked the question behind the question and took the time to understand us as a company. They literally asked us the question "Why do you want to put more responsibility with the employees and how do you envision that? This refreshing and different way of thinking really appealed to CMC. 'It was immediately clear to us that they fit with us. They think ahead and together we define the steps to be taken. Especially doing things together is one of our ten commandments for our suppliers.'

"We wanted to streamline the calls better and initially looked for a digital system to keep track of the call cycles. We were talking to a number of parties for this, only they remained fairly superficial. Until we came into conversation with Treams. They were the first and only party that asked the question behind the question and took the time to understand us as a company."

"We want to keep learning continuously. That is why we have set up our own internal academy where everyone can work on their own personal growth every day. Our CMC Academy consists of online trainings and monthly Academy Meetings around a specific theme, which we also plan to capture later in the Learning module of Treams. During these Academy Meetings, each team discusses the important lessons learned from the training sessions and reflects on everyone's development and goals. In this way, we develop both individually and together as a company. And all this together with Treams."

Plan of action: development cycle

Treams prepared a plan of action with the theme "personal development journey for every employee. This describes the organizational goals for 2023, the current situation and the challenges. But most importantly, how you can start your journey and how Treams can support you in your personal development This development cycle consists of three parts for CMC employees:

1. Quarterly kick-off: the employee sets their own goals and schedules a meeting with their supervisor to discuss their plan.
2. Monthly check-in: the employee checks if he is still on the right route and discusses progress with the supervisor.
3. Quarterly wrap-up: the employee evaluates and reflects on whether he has realized his plan and also looks ahead what his next destination will be.

In the interim, employees request feedback from (in-)direct colleagues via Treams and are given their own control over the reporting of monthly check-ins, for example.

Better conversations

Jorick: 'Thanks to Treams' personal development journey, the responsibility now lies much more with the employee. He is in charge; you plan, you determine your goals, it's your thing. This gives the manager a more coaching role. This results in different conversations where you go into much more depth and consciously think about where you are and where you want to go. In addition to personal goals, we share organizational goals in Treams. Employees now have more insight into where we want to go as an organization. This ensures that employees see what their contributions are to the bigger picture, which ultimately ensures even greater commitment to our organization.

Greater mutual involvement

At CMC, they see a clear positive change after only a few months. 'There is much more interaction among themselves about everyone's goals. The personal development cycle is alive and well. People involve each other much more in each other's goals and journey. People see that they themselves benefit a lot. Giving feedback was exciting at first. The first time is always exciting, but we are already seeing clear habituation.

Next steps

Now that the CMC graduates have taken the first steps in their personal development journey, CMC is eager to take the next step. 'Our challenge is to take talent development and performance management to the next level. Thus, we aim to make employees more broadly employable within CMC. The more you taste, the more you will like. That's how it works at a company, too. If you can develop yourself within an organization, you tend to stay there longer. We look strongly at individual competencies. If we see that someone excels at a particular task, it might be interesting to take a training course or do an internship in a department within CMC where you can develop that competency further. Feedback from colleagues, which is recorded in Treams, helps us with this. Because with feedback you can substantiate a competency and make it actually measurable," Ravi said.

Treams thinks ahead

About the cooperation with Treams, Ravi is clear: 'They think of things you haven't thought about yourself and are very involved in our organization. Perhaps more importantly, like us, Treams thinks in solutions and likes to go that extra mile.'