By Rosy S. Santos

Every company, regardless of its business, strives for excellence. MPTC, having excellence as one of its core values, wants to have outstanding practices in managing its organization and achieving quality results. It aims to strengthen the systems and processes to improve company performance. We strive to be better, with an eye to delivering a quality output.

As one of MPTC’s initiatives to achieve excellence, the Human Resource – Center of Expertise (COE) has been established. Its ultimate purpose is for HR to become a more strategic and effective partner of MPTC employees and develop focused areas in (1) Talent Acquisition (2) Talent Development and (3) Talent Engagement which are vital functions of HR. Other benefits of the new structure are organizational development and customer and employee satisfaction.  

Get to know more about the COE leads of each HR function:

PRINCESS MORALES (Talent Acquisition Manager)

Princess Morales, most known to people as “Cessa” is currently handling COE for Talent Acquisition  She started her career journey as a Trainee in HR 15 years ago. Right after graduation, she applied for a position at Tollways Management Corporation (TMC), landed a job in HR, and has stayed in the company since then.

She loves painting, doing sketches, and cooking. Her weekends are mostly spent with the kids, watching TV, playing, and listening to endless stories of her kids.

Most people think that Talent Acquisition is just Recruitment. While recruitment is an action, a strategic process to solve a manpower requirement, Talent Acquisition is a more modern, strategic approach to hiring.

In addition to traditional recruitment activities, talent acquisition also entails hiring planning, developing a recruitment strategy, recruitment marketing, employer branding, and onboarding. The COE for Talent Acquisition ensures the team has the capability to identify, build and deliver a pipeline of candidates to the organization. They build strong relationships with business partners to influence, guide, and drive the recruiting process. 

The COE for Talent acquisition formulates strategies that focus on long-term human resources planning. They position MPTC as an attractive company for our target talents. They look for ways to source, assess, employ, and onboard those talents efficiently. It plays a strategic role in collaborating with HR Business Partners and Hiring Managers in building best-in-class candidate experience.

They envision the whole organization embracing new strategies aimed at creating a better overall talent experience. They aim to get everyone involved in creating a positive experience for candidates and employees.  Because, while the world around us changes daily – elevating, promoting, and sustaining a quality candidate experience is not just HR’s responsibility, but everyone’s, most especially, the Hiring Manager’s. Candidates not only look for the benefits packages, or the salary, but they also look for the work environment, they want to know the people they will work with and the culture of the organization.

The new setup is different because now, there will be a team looking at the overall plans for Talent Acquisition.  The Talent Acquisition COE can now establish the right Recruitment metrics, develop plans based on Data Analytics, come up with Employer Branding initiatives and promote and campaign Positive Candidate experience.  Together, the COE Recruitment and HR Business Partners will work together to build talent acquisition strategies and programs to support the current and future needed capabilities of MPTC.

GERRY ESPIRITU (Talent Development Manager)

HR Talent Development Manager Gerry Espiritu shared that his interests include running, joining obstacle course races, and working out. He also enjoys doing yoga. Fun fact, he is a registered yoga teacher. Due to the pandemic, he also became a certified plantito.

Gerry Espiritu has been in the field of L&D for around 15 years now. He is a Political Science graduate and took his master’s degree in the same course. His first job was at the university as a professor. He shifted his career and entered the corporate world when he transferred to a Training Consulting firm as a training consultant. After that, he moved to the airline industry as a training specialist. He became a manager when he transferred to a global elevator company. His function was also a COE catering to the Philippines but working with colleagues across the Asia Pacific region and even globally.

COE – TD centralizes the different corporate pieces of training into one. While the technical training belongs to each BU and function, the competencies that may cut across all BUs are handled by COE-TD. These courses are those that may enhance support and leadership competencies. For example, COE-TD conducts a Coaching course across all BUs to ensure that the leaders/participants speak the same coaching language. COE-TD is in charge of the overall competency development not of one BU, but of all BU’s group-wide. This may include competency assessments, development plans, and most especially training.

One of Talent Development’s targets is to strategically partner with Divisions/Departments.  COE Talent Development also aims to measure the effectiveness of training. Do the participants behave the learned skills (level 3)? Do the skills lead to desirable results (level 4)? This includes identifying key metrics/goals and designing L&D programs to assist in the achievement of business objectives. These activities are tedious, but they can be done.

MACKY VITUG (Talent Engagement Manager)  

A breadwinner and the only son, HR Talent Engagement Manager Macky Vitug shared his passion for organizing, hosting, and doing events making him the newest addition to the HR team. Last July 2022, we welcomed Macky as part of our growing family. Aside from the MPTC-wide events, Macky also handles the account of MPTC, MPT Digital Inc (MPT-DI), Internal Audit, and HR as a business partner.

He finished Nursing at Manila Central University (MCU) and joined the corporate world in 2011 at Sun Cellular, Smart Communications, and PLDT. After his stint in the telco, he moved to The Penshoppe Group, a fashion retail industry where he handled employee events and internal communications.

“My average screen time on my phones would be 6 to 7 hours” making Macky very fond of social media. Out of the office, he loves to try local foods and loved playing indoor games such as Scrabble. During rest days, Macky watches K-drama shows on Netflix and Viu. Revenge drama is one of his favorite genres.

As employee engagement head, he ensures programs and activities for the company and dreams of more inclusive, more participation, and high-impact events for MPTC. “With the ease of restrictions and increase in face-to-face interactions, we’re looking on leveling up our in-person events but still adapting to hybrid set-up”.

Talent Engagement for MPTC is a breath of fresh air. From our milestone events in different business units, we want to ensure that for the coming years, our people programs are anchored in our IIP Certifications, MPTC’s revitalized corporate values called I-CARE, holistic approach to wellness, diversity, and inclusivity, and more family-friendly.

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