DIRK VOLSCHENK

Dirk Volschenk began his career as a clinical psychologist with a focus on learning and has progressed through a 30+ year career spanning the public sector, oil and gas, petro-chemical, manufacturing, and as a management consultant.

He has been successfully engaged in a broad range of roles including human resources management, new business development, information management, project development support, project management, construction support services, and process operations in both steel and chemical production environments. He is the founder and principal consultant at Actura Performance Inc, and is pleased to join forces with a great team of expert colleagues to create WorkForce Strategies International – a new brand, but the same tight focus on finding practical solutions to address skills gaps and drive productivity and competitiveness.

Dirk has extensive international training and proven track record in the analysis of work systems to identify inefficiencies and to design and implement interventions to improve work process productivity and quality whilst reducing operational cost.

Dirk has successfully led project teams and executed projects driving large scale change – often ‘first of their kind’ initiatives. Some examples include:

  • Establishment of multi-company trust to fund an education center to enhance the teaching of math and science to prepare students for technical careers
  • Piloting the first zero-based budget, shared services center to provide organizational design and leadership training globally to support Sasol’s globalization drive. The shared service model was later adopted as the global services model corporate-wide.
  • Founding team member in establishing a chemical industrial park to act as an incubator for downstream chemical businesses
  • Acted as global change manager for the implementation of a corporate wide SAP system
  • Establishment of a training shared services leadership development and organizational design unit within Syncrude and reducing the cost of duplicated services by 45% in year one
  • Assisted in the design and development of the Petro-Canada Oil Sands Major Projects division that introduced and negotiated first-of-kind agreements with the federal and local governments to enable a temporary foreign construction worker strategy aimed to reduce workforce shortages

Helping organizations grow and prosper through a focus on competency is Dirk’s passion. Click here to get in touch, and let’s start growing your business by growing your people.