Learning and sharing how to be better

The Embassy team here in Guatemala is passionate about learning and developing,; their desire to innovate and to keep improving, both as individuals and together as a team, is as infectious as it is inspiring. They also have a lot of best practice to share with colleagues. So here are some examples of the team doing both from two members of our Corporate Services team who have recently been learning and sharing in Bolivia and Mexico. Over to you Rebeca and Alejandra…..

Job shadowing in Bolivia

My name is Rebeca Ericastilla and I’m the Corporate Services Officer in Guatemala City. Not so long ago I had the opportunity to do a job shadow in the British Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia. I’m still familiarising myself with my adjusted role in the Embassy so this experience was timely and it gave me the opportunity to learn from a more experienced colleague about her role and priorities, and how it fits into the wider work of the Embassy.

During three days I was able to observe a real working day in the Corporate Services Section, for example, we made visits to the Ambassador’s Residence and I attended an all staff meeting. This was very useful as I could understand much better what each section does as all the staff explained the projects that they were working on and what their aims were for the month. Then I had individual meetings with different members of the staff and they were able to explain more about what they do and to share examples of what has worked well for them. La Paz is a small post just like Guatemala and I realised that they also face many of the challenges that we do. One of them is being able to multitask. I learned some good tips on how to wear many hats and how important is to have a culture of team work. Now back in Guatemala, I’ve brought back with me some good ideas on how to do things better that I’ll be encouraging the team here to implement. I am very happy that I had the opportunity to shadow colleagues in Bolivia; it was beneficial for both posts as I learned a lot but I also had the opportunity to share with them some best practices from Guatemala.

Supporting Mexico

My name is Alejandra Gomez and I am the accountant and finance officer in Guatemala City. Recently I provided regional support to our colleagues in Mexico City. They had appointed a new accountant and requested my support to provide some training and to pass on some top tips. I wanted to help Mexico City as I am a strong believer that regional training for Local Staff is one of the most useful tools available for helping development and learning. It provides the opportunity for experienced officers to cascade FCO procedures, guidance and personal experience on how to do things and to avoid mistakes, through some real time training with enough time built in to put into practice what it has just been learnt. This is an important component of the learning process, when the employee can see how their job works in reality instead of just reading some guidance or attending a course. The personal interaction with the new officer also helps them build confidence, but it also benefits the trainer to refresh their knowledge about procedures, but also to practice some skills of their own, such as effective communication. And the most important thing, you create network contacts that will always help you in future situations!

This experience fulfilled my expectations. It gave me a new perspective and provided me with a better understanding of regional work. I can also say that it gave me a fresh outlook on how to do my own job as I brought back to Guatemala some new ideas to improve how we operate. I am grateful to the Embassy in Mexico for making me feel so welcome!