MSU-IIT NMPC Trains Its MDOs for Another Year of Member Hunting

A good year to start fresh!

To truly equip Membership Development Officers (MDOs) in their hunt for new members, the Human Resource Department with the collaboration of our HR Consultant, Mr. Arturo R. Maderazo, and the Marketing Department, invests a day of reflective and interactive training to inculcate upon the participants the very core of their role in the coop. The training was conducted to all MDOs of the branches, Head Office Marketing Staff, Property Management Division (PMD) and Cooperative Life Assurance Center (CLAC) last January 23, 2014.

The very foundation upon which the training was created is due to the notion of what is the definition of an MDO as a job description and what are the indicators that separates an efficient MDO from that of its opposite. Mr. Maderazo’s method of achieving the objective of this training is somewhat tricky: it does not need any textbooks and articles on interpersonal skills and assessment but rather it came from the MDOs themselves - their experiences, successes and failures.

The series of activities aims to achieve three main goals. First, it wants the MDOs to express their self-awareness, their personality and the things that they learn from the environment where they belong. Second, it wants to draw out from the MDOs of “what an MDO should look like” through portrayals that are done through group efforts. Portrayals that the groups created are very symbolic and meaningful, often signifying the artistic side of the groups. Lastly, it wants the MDOs to extract from within themselves the characteristics of an MDO that makes them efficient in their job.

Aside from these goals, the training did mention the “weight” of being an MDO. The simplistic notion that MDOs are instruments for growth in membership changed as Mr. Maderazo’s found a direction for these people. Instead of looking at MDOs as the marketing instrument of the coop, they should be seen as the developers of members to become effective and successful cooperators. So, the work of the MDO doesn’t end when he/she is able to reach the monthly target or he/she has recruited a new member. Instead, that’s only the beginning of the MDOs job. Molding members into become knowledgeable individuals in terms of coop products and services and practices is an integral part of an MDO’s life. Because when the coop believes that they have knowledgeable and participative members, the growth of the coop goes upward.

The training did not also put a heavy dose of discussions and workshops. It also gave the MDOs, who came from different places, enough time to mingle, be comfortable around each other and to cherish the time to talk almost about different things. So as for the other part, the training’s other intention is to strengthen the support system the MDOs have started and to establish a solid ground of solidarity.

The day-long training serves as the starting point for another series of trainings that will truly strengthen the way MDOs look at their role in the coop.