Right systems and people key to success: Carol Bond

Program Manager for the Bachelor of Business (Management) Program RMIT College of Business Carol Bond and Law discusses how crucial energy is for the future.

The benefits of the Future Fuels Cooperative Research Centre (FFCRC) are spreading further than what is traditionally regarded as the energy sector. As part of the partnership agreement, the FFCRC is meant to expand its reach into universities by introducing undergraduates to the energy sector. In fulfilling this requirement, partnerships with a range of universities are producing results beyond the research activities comprising the CRC’s core business.

Energy is at the centre of all our lives, and managing energy is a crucial issue for all businesses, both now and in the future as the transition to net-zero rolls out.

Carol Bond is the Program Manager for the Bachelor of Business (Management) Program RMIT College of Business and Law. She is also the Coordinator of the Organisational Experience Course which is the capstone course for the management program.

This course is designed as a “Workplace integrated learning or WiL course and requires an industry partner. The FFCRC has been the industry partner for 2021-2022 reaching almost 1000 students each year in Melbourne and Singapore.

Many students who take this course are also studying for a degree in engineering, something that bodes well for the energy sector.

“Not all of our students are pursuing double degrees with engineering, but even those who are more interested in tourism, supply chain management, or hospitality - everybody in any sector - has to deal with energy because businesses are a major consumer of energy,” Carol says.

“Domestic use is only 33 to 37 per cent of energy consumption, so a major factor in running any business is managing energy and responding to the energy transition of the future.

“So, if businesses don’t start coming to grips with their energy use, where the energy’s coming from, how much its costing them, what they have to pass along to customers or clients, and then how to indoctrinate through their workforces how they are going to think about energy management and energy use, then they are going to be in a very poor position moving into this energy transition already under way.”

Because the Organisational Experience course is a WiL experience, students are challenged to engage with a real industry problem that’s focused on management issues.

“My well-worn phrase is that you can have all the tech and engineering skills in the world, but if you don’t have systems in place to manage the people in your operation, it’s never going to be the success you want it to be,” Carol says.

“People who are engineers are wonderful and lovely people … but they would be the first to tell you that unless they have taken these business courses, they have not been trained exactly how to manage their businesses.”

In 2021, the real-world problem these students had to deal with was the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain project. This project, then in its pilot phase, aimed to produce hydrogen out of coal in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. If it proceeds to a commercial phase, it will need to include carbon capture and storage to sequester the carbon produced from the coal conversion.

The problem presented a range of challenges: from change management in the shift from coalburning to generate electricity to hydrogen production, the establishment of a supply chain that runs from the Latrobe Valley to Japan by both road and sea and the hopes of a community devastated by the closing down of what many had considered an industry that would provide jobs for life.

The students first did a strategic analysis looking at the project’s stakeholders, both in Victoria and in Japan, and, based on material provided by the project, then analysed what kinds of management challenges needed to be resolved. The students then look at the management theories they have studied in the areas of leadership, ethics, corporate social responsibility and conflict management. As a team, the students then produced a report drawing on the management theories they have studied to suggest how the project can use these tools to achieve project goals.

For example, the Japanese partners are funding the project for only five years. After that, funding is dependent on the project being able to become emissions-free. This means the project must have a plan to achieve zero emissions, to hire the right people to meet the changed needs, and to change the culture to achieve no emissions, rather than lower emissions, among other things.

The final requirement of the students is to write a reflective piece on what they learned about the energy sector. They can choose from a range of topics such as how to manage a business in the energy sector, how they would consider working in the energy sector, or how their approach to the sector of their choice had changed now knowing how important energy would be, no matter where they worked.

“The students love it, the pennies start dropping like rain,” Carol says.

“They say ‘Oh, I had no idea energy was so much more important than whether I could turn the light switch on or charge my phone’.

“It just takes an enormous amount of human effort and a lot of businesses to make that energy come on in your home.”

The FFCRC has been the industry partner for 2021-2022 reaching almost 1000 students each year in Melbourne and Singapore.

When you’re a manager, it’s actually often quite hard to make things work, and businesses don’t always think everything through as far as necessary. Solutions aren’t always straight forward or simple.

“Sometimes the way [businesses] go about solving problems actually creates more problems,” Carol says.

Technology change alone is very often not the complete solution, Carol says. Most solutions require people and managing people, putting systems, processes, and culture in place to enable solutions, which can be difficult for those without knowledge of management theory.

With the exposure to the energy sector the business management students have received via the workplace integrated learning experience, Carol hopes that they end up being motivated to help resolve the management challenges the energy sector is set to face. After taking this course, students are empowered to help businesses establish the human systems needed to support the technical advancements required for the energy transition.

The FFCRC has partnered with a range of universities to expand its research in the energy sector.