DHL Categorical Europe CEO Mike Parra talks like a riled-up coach on the verge of a championship, with the sort of motivational cadence you’d count on from Brené Brown, solely extra pressing. But his management mirrors the corporate’s tradition, with a people-development system that feels extra like that of a college than a logistics large.
Parra’s perspective stems from 4 many years at DHL, which employs almost 600,000 individuals throughout 220 nations. As of 2024, he took the reins of its worldwide courier division, DHL Categorical, which tops the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For – Europe list.
“I always remember that I began sorting mail,” Parra says, which left him satisfied that supervisors want deep preparation and help, not simply technical expertise. “We’ve at all times stated that our supervisors are mainly the glue,” he explains. It’s “and not using a shadow of a doubt essentially the most tough place” within the firm, caught between leaders and groups, anticipated to counsel, coach, and proper in actual time.
To arrange them, DHL constructed an 18-month CIM Supervisory Excellence Academy inside its Licensed Worldwide Specialist (CIS) program. “[It] is owned by us, delivered by us … and managed internally … which is our secret sauce,” Parra says, including that the corporate spends €55 million to €60 million ($59 million to $65 million) yearly on the coaching, now in its seventeenth yr, with a measurable return.
“[More than] 80% of the supervisors that undergo this system are promoted up one stage,” he says, and DHL tracks influence right down to the crew stage through its worker opinion survey. The curriculum blends behavioral nuance with managerial rigor. Supervisors be taught a suggestions framework he calls “AID—motion, influence, do.” They apply teaching “in an enabling model,” guiding teammates to seek out their very own options as a substitute of managers taking up.
“[It] is owned by us, delivered by us … and managed internally … which is our secret sauce. [More than] 80% of the supervisors that undergo this system are promoted up one stage”CEO Mike Parra on DHL’s CIM Supervisory Excellence Academy
Rituals emphasize the significance of studying—graduates put on caps and robes, tassels flip, and the ceremony streams worldwide. “Many are accredited with school credit from a college within the U.Okay.,” says Parra, who even teaches the course. “As a CEO, I facilitate. That offers it validity,” he says, although he advantages immediately, too: “Once I’m coaching, I’m retraining myself.”
The tradition hinges on suggestions. “We name it the five-second rule,” Parra says: reward within the second whenever you see nice work, with “developmental” notes delivered privately. “Suggestions is a present,” he repeats. Given usually, workers ultimately obtain it brazenly, not defensively.
Worker expertise isn’t nearly administration and improvement. Profession mobility issues, too, and right here once more DHL Categorical—and the broader group—engineers its answer, slightly than leaving
it to probability. An inner “profession market” matches expertise to open roles, flags gaps, and gives personalised studying to assist shut them.
As digitization and agentic AI reshape work from customer support to customs, DHL can also be upskilling individuals for digital roles and coaching supervisors to steer the transition. “Crew members who have been dealing with only one name at a time are managing 5 chats concurrently. That’s due to our coaching,” Parra notes.
“Suggestions is a present”
He doesn’t faux the journey is tidy. Some individuals faucet out throughout coaching, selecting a unique function or firm. Management generally slips again into being solely results-driven. However the enterprise stays dedicated to supporting individuals and enhancing. Certainly, Parra traces DHL Categorical’s inflection level as an important office to 2009, when CIS added “respect-focused behaviors” to its coaching. It’s an applicable commentary for a frontrunner who began his profession sorting mail, and ended up operating programs at a company “college”—a recognition that one of the best schooling is the type that by no means stops.
