Foundations for the Future
The Philippines' National Food Authority, is an agency of the Philippine government under the Department of Agriculture responsible for ensuring the food security of the Philippines and the stability of supply and price of rice. Created through Presidential Decree No. 4 on September 26, 1972, the NFA’s original mission was to promote the integrated growth and development of the grains industry covering rice, corn, feed grains and other grains like sorghum, mung beans, and peanuts. In addition, NFA is vested with the responsibility of developing post-harvest systems and processes.
Since then, NFA’s mandate has had many shifts. To navigate and deal with the shifts, starting 2015, NFA sought to create a Competency Framework that would prepare and ensure that its workforce would have the relevant and responsive competencies for whatever changes the organization would face. In 2018, NFA sought to strengthen this position by looking after key positions in the organization that require ready-now successors in the event that changes bring about vacancies for the said positions.
To enable this, NFA went through an overview of Succession Planning and Management and a simulation of how their Competency Framework, Catalogue, and Position Profiles could be integrated into their process of identifying critical positions and potential successors. Sessions were conducted across NFA locations, with key Regional Heads and Administrative Officers as participants, in NCR, Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The end goal of the sessions were to implement a Competency-Based process for Succession within each of the NFA sites, along with the identification and strengthening plans for the succession benches.
Through the Succeeding in Succession workshops, NFA leaders were able to understand a practical implementation of a competency-based succession system. With the use of the Competency Card Play, key dimensions were associated with critical positions and served as basis for identifying would be potential successors. The Talent Matrix Canvass also helped identify and distinguish Key Talent from High Performers, High Potentials and High Professionals. Finally, the Succession Card Play helped finalize the bench depth and strength of each NFA location and laid the groundwork for succeeding talent as well as learning and development action plans.
In 2019, NFA’s updated mandate was to serve as the custodian of the government’s rice buffer stock, ensuring continuous supply of affordable and safe staple food in all areas of the country at all times, especially during occurrence of natural calamities/emergencies. Moreover, the NFA was designated to establish a manageable buffer stock of rice in line with its function of stabilizing consumer price level. This change was not surprising, but NFA’s Competency-Based approach to Succession Planning and Management made them more prepared and responsive to the new landscape.
