CDO Foodsphere, Inc

Joy Maramba

Career Path Leading to CDO Foodsphere

I started my career in the academy as a college instructor in nutrition and dietetics to pursue my love for learning. However, I realized that I needed real-life experiences to become effective in teaching and entered corporate work in the learning and development department of a restaurant group. This started my 14-year journey in training and organizational development, where I started work in technical training and then progressed to leadership training for managers. I transitioned to organizational development by facilitating several change management initiatives, including technology integration in learning management systems and decentralization of HR processes, capability building through competency framework projects, culture change initiatives and succession planning—which were all meant to prepare the organizations I’ve worked for to be competitive in a fast-changing environment, including recent challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, I’ve worked in the restaurant business, construction and infrastructure development and food manufacturing with various growth requirements.

Tailoring Talent for Food Sector Demands

Each organization has different levels of growth in terms of systems and processes and ability to adapt to new technology. As the organization stabilizes or approaches a population size of 500 employees or higher, it tends to be more structured with more defined policies and procedures because various programs become more regulated and business requirements are more defined. Talent management requirements are focused on acquiring and building skills in quality management and continuous process improvements, compliance and innovation that can sustain business growth. It is critical to keep the best-in-class talent, especially for areas that drive long-term strategic initiatives.

For small businesses, it is important to be agile and be open to change as roles and tasks tend to switch or broaden to adapt to customer and business requirements. Processes tend to be more simplified to address day-to-day problems rather than long-term programs. The talent management approach is to build systems that are easy to learn, understand and execute, especially when talents are highly mobile—either within or outside the organization.

Aligning Talent with CDO’s Business Goals

Because the food industry primarily relies on consistency of quality brought about by expertise in processes and continuous improvement, it has become very important to hire and retain talent who are aligned to the organization’s values of integrity, excellence, collaboration, innovation and customer centricity. Each organization has a unique employee value proposition and develops talents differently, and part of the brand that customers see is the differentiating set of values of the management and employees that bring food creations to life from production to delivery. Each talent in the organization is a contributor to the brand’s heritage. Because the brand promise is trust and quality, we make sure that all employees are properly trained and aligned to deliver that value.

Merging Insights: Practice Meets Research

The primary driver for talent management strategies is always a business or customer need, because human resources are meant to fuel effective strategic execution to deliver customer expectations. Academic insights on assessment, performance, health and well-being and engagement and motivation are best applied in standardizing processes or policies related to that create an environment supportive of employee development. For instance, if regular weekly feedback is considered a direct correlate of discretionary effort or employee engagement, then an organization may find it beneficial to create policies that require this activity to be part of the performance management cycle. If there is research showing the optimum number of productive hours of continuous work, then work can be designed to incorporate such limits to avoid accidents related to fatigue. On the other hand, if there are best practices at work that have evolved from the need for efficiency, such as the use of a in improving productivity, it would be prudent for the academic community to study and define correlation to further improve the limits of its implementation in the industry. At the end of the day, academic research has to be synergistic with industry practices if it is to improve the everyday quality of life of workers.

“At CDO Foodsphere, we believe people are the fuel behind our promise of quality and trust. Talent management isn’t just a function—it’s a strategic driver that shapes performance, culture, and long-term success in an ever-evolving food industry landscape.”

Key Metrics Driving Talent Success

The success of talent initiatives is best measured by the number of employees who are competent or skilled at what they do, psychologically and emotionally committed to the organizational objectives and direction, and are successfully performing their respective KPIs at an exceptional level. People provide the fuel and heart to successful strategy execution, and an organization is only as good as its people.

Spotting and Growing High-Potential Talent

High-potential individuals are determined through standardized competency tests, behavioral measurements through actual critical incidents at work and through their personal willingness and ambition to take on new challenges. The main determinant of potential would be learning agility or the individual’s ability to apply accumulated knowledge from past experiences to new and complex situations that may be encountered in a new role or assignment. Strategies to nurture the growth of such individuals are providing them with opportunities for stretch assignments, assigning a mentor for guidance, and avenues for high exposure and accountability. Other support activities include competency-based training and certifications that can provide added knowledge in the execution of new knowledge areas.

Empowering Future Talent Management Leaders

Talent management professionals need to be active in their own learning through professional organizations that promote and publish peer-reviewed research on human development, industrial psychology, behavioral economics and other business-related areas that are aligned to the core competencies of the organizations they represent. An example of this would be understanding the dynamics and integration of AI and other technology tools that improve productivity and learning. Talent management is essentially client-focused, and in as much as employees and the work environment are changing talent management professionals need to be a step ahead with concrete analysis of risks and interventions that may be timely for improving productivity. This requires active curiosity, continuous education and learning, and a genuine passion for improving the welfare and livelihood of others and the organization.