Chief Learning Officer - June 2018

Accenture

2018 Learning Organization of the Year

Accenture’s Shelby Kan and Allison Horn

Leaders of the 2018 LearningElite - Building Trust Through Storytelling Tackling the Quality Leadership Challenge - L’Oréal’s Brandstorm Competition - Measuring Up the Elite

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EDITOR’S LETTER

Taking a Break for Learning

L

iving in a world that is constantly on is tiring. Instead of meaningful milestones, life more often feels like an endless series of appointments.

To add insult to injury, we’re simply not getting enough rest to cope with it all. Fed by flashy smartphones and addictive apps, we are in the midst of a sleep crisis. According to analysis by the Rand Corporation, our collective lack of sleep is costing $411 billion in the U.S. economy alone. We stay up too late answering emails, checking off to-do lists, responding to texts and mindlessly surfing the internet.

The consequence is rising health care costs and higher disengagement at work. But it’s also taking a big bite out of our ability to learn. Research points to a significant correlation between sleep and our ability to wrestle with abstract concepts and retain information.

Companies need mentally agile, lifelong learners who can compete in a fast-paced business environment where knowledge goes obsolete faster than an Internet meme. But those workers are in short supply and their mental bandwidth is shrinking by the day.

Houston, we have a problem.

Effective learning is as much about time off as time on.

Rahul Varma, Accenture’s senior managing director for talent, describes state-of-the-art technology and facilities when he talks about the firm’s new India learning center. But more significant is how the firm infused ancient Vedic wisdom and Zen philosophy with the latest neuroscience to create a place that is as much about learning about oneself as about acquiring skills and knowledge.

Learning needs time and space. I experienced that on a recent visit to 1440 Multiversity.

A few years ago, Joanie Kriens and her husband Scott, the chairman and former CEO of Juniper Technologies, bought the campus of an old Bible college outside of Santa Cruz, California. Their vision was to create a center for learning that focused on the intersection of personal and professional development with health and wellness. The result, a sprawling 75-acre campus set in redwoods near the Pacific Coast, is part hotel, conference venue, spa and nature center. It’s a destination to unplug, reflect and feed our human needs in an increasingly digital world.

That point was brought home after checking in to my room. Shortly thereafter, my colleague texted: “Someone stole my TV.” Sure enough, a look around my room revealed no television or screen of any kind.

It’s a simple but powerful thing. Waking up the next day, I brewed a cup of coffee, opened the doors to the forest outside and took a few moments to start my day in a natural way before flooding it with information.

Lest you think this is all new-age puffery, bear in mind that mindfulness and meditation have gone mainstream. In his book “Stealing Fire,” author Steven Kotler documents how groups as varied as scientists, executives and the Navy SEALs are tapping into alternate states of consciousness to solve complex problems and drive ever higher levels of performance.

Accenture’s not doing it just because it’s nice. It’s part of their “durable” learning model that aims to have a positive long-term effect in an age of change.

What sets companies apart isn’t simply their ability to do more. It’s their ability to do right. CLO

From a learning point of view, it’s natural to respond to a faster pace by amping up content development and putting more learning programs in place. Any spare moment is an opportunity whether it’s a minute on the elevator, the commute home or after the kids are in bed.

A growing number of elite learning organizations recognize that becoming an agile, lifelong learner doesn’t mean ravenously consuming content and knowledge in a constant stream of words and numbers.

Turning off is what’s needed to turn on.

Take Accenture, this year’s No. 1 company of the Chief Learning Officer LearningElite. The Ireland-based professional services firm serves up top-tier content to 420,000-plus employees. They deploy just about every learning and performance technology possible to support consultants from Bangalore to Boston, Dublin to Dubai. From hyperpersonalized content streams to Pinterest-style learning boards, they try it all.

But what stands out most about Accenture’s approach isn’t the content, process or technology. It’s Mike Prokopeak how they think about the whole person, what they call Editor in Chief “being a truly human company in the digital age.” mikep@CLOmedia.com 4 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

A PUBLICATION OF

JUNE 2018 | VOLUME 17, ISSUE 5 CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER John R. Taggart jrtag@CLOmedia.com

EDITORIAL INTERNS Aysha Ashley Househ ahouseh@CLOmedia.com

BUSINESS MANAGER Vince Czarnowski vince@CLOmedia.com

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

PRESIDENT Kevin A. Simpson ksimpson@CLOmedia.com

Mariel Tishma mtishma@CLOmedia.com

MARKETING DIRECTOR Greg Miller gmiller@CLOmedia.com

Michael E. Echols

VICE PRESIDENT, GROUP PUBLISHER Clifford Capone ccapone@CLOmedia.com VICE PRESIDENT, EDITOR IN CHIEF Mike Prokopeak mikep@CLOmedia.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Rick Bell rbell@CLOmedia.com

VICE PRESIDENT, RESEARCH & ADVISORY SERVICES Sarah Kimmel skimmel@CLOmedia.com RESEARCH MANAGER Tim Harnett tharnett@CLOmedia.com DATA SCIENTIST Grey Litaker glitaker@CLOmedia.com

REGIONAL SALES MANAGERS Derek Graham dgraham@CLOmedia.com Robert Stevens rstevens@CLOmedia.com

DIRECTOR, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Kevin Fields kfields@CLOmedia.com

SENIOR EDITOR Lauren Dixon ldixon@CLOmedia.com

MEDIA & PRODUCTION MANAGER Ashley Flora aflora@CLOmedia.com

AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Cindy Cardinal ccardinal@CLOmedia.com

ASSOCIATE EDITORS Andie Burjek aburjek@CLOmedia.com

PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Nina Howard nhoward@CLOmedia.com

Ave Rio ario@CLOmedia.com

VICE PRESIDENT, EVENTS Trey Smith tsmith@CLOmedia.com

COPY EDITOR Christopher Magnus cmagnus@CLOmedia.com EDITORIAL ART DIRECTOR Theresa Stoodley tstoodley@CLOmedia.com VIDEO AND MULTIMEDIA PRODUCER Andrew Kennedy Lewis alewis@CLOmedia.com

EVENTS CONTENT EDITOR Malaz Elsheikh melsheikh@CLOmedia.com WEBCAST MANAGER Alec O’Dell aodell@CLOmedia.com EVENTS GRAPHIC DESIGNER Tonya Harris lharris@CLOmedia.com

David DeFilippo Sarah Fister Gale Whitney Johnson Barry Kaplan Jeff Manchester Jack J. Phillips Patti P. Phillips Michael F. Tucker

Daniella Weinberg dweinberg@CLOmedia.com

RESEARCH CONTENT SPECIALIST Kristen Britt kbritt@CLOmedia.com

MANAGING EDITOR Ashley St. John astjohn@CLOmedia.com

Josh Bersin

DIGITAL & AUDIENCE INSIGHTS MANAGER Lauren Lynch llynch@CLOmedia.com DIGITAL COORDINATOR Mannat Mahtani mmahtani@CLOmedia.com LIST MANAGER Mike Rovello hcmlistrentals@infogroup.com BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION MANAGER Melanie Lee mlee@CLOmedia.com

CHIEF LEARNING OFFICER EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Cedric Coco, EVP, Chief People Of ficer, Brookdale Senior Living Inc. Lisa Doyle, Head of Retail Training, Ace Hardware Dave DeFilippo, Chief People and Learning Of ficer, Suf folk Tamar Elkeles, Chief Talent Executive, Atlantic Bridge Capital Thomas Evans, ( Ret.) Chief Learning Of ficer, PricewaterhouseCoopers Gerry Hudson-Martin, Director, Corporate Learning Strategies, Business Architects Kimo Kippen, President, Aloha Learning Advisors Rob Lauber, Vice President, Chief Learning Of ficer, McDonald’s Corp.

Maj. Gen. Erwin F. Lessel, ( Ret.) U.S. Air Force, Director, Deloit te Consulting Justin Lombardo, ( Ret.) Chief Learning Of ficer, Baptist Health Adri Maisonet-Morales, Vice President, Enterprise Learning and Development, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Alan Malinchak, CEO, Éclat Transitions LLC Lee Maxey, CEO, MindMax Bob Mosher, Senior Par tner and Chief Learning Evangelist, APPLY Synergies Rebecca Ray, Executive Vice President, The Conference Board Allison Rossett, ( Ret.) Professor of Educational Technology, San Diego State Universit y Diana Thomas, CEO and Founder, Winning Results David Vance, Executive Director, Center for Talent Repor ting Kevin D. Wilde, Executive Leadership Fellow, Carlson School of Management, Universit y of Minnesota James P. Woolsey, President, Defense Aquisition Universit y Chief Learning Officer (ISSN 1935-8148) is published monthly, except bi-monthly in January/February and July/August by MediaTec Publishing Inc., 111 E. Wacker Dr., Suite 1200, Chicago IL 60601. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL and additional mailing offices.

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ONLINE EVENTS

CONTENTS J

une

2018

20 2018 LearningElite Organization of the Year At Accenture, Truly Human Learning Pays Off Ave Rio Through its learning-led future-oriented strategy, Accenture positively impacts employees, clients and the bottom line.

60 Case Study L’Oréal’s Brandstorm Challenge Sarah Fister Gale L’Oréal uses an annual competition to teach students about its entrepreneurial culture and find the best new talent.

62 Business Intelligence Measuring Up the Elite Mike Prokopeak Several years of data from the world’s best companies for L&D show a focus on efficiency and high-performance spending.

ON THE COVER: PHOTO BY WILL BYINGTON

8 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

June 2018

CONTENTS

56

48 2018 LearningElite

Experts

18

Finding the Perfect Fit

10 BUSINESS IMPACT

Sarah Kimmel For this year’s LearningElite organizations, custom solutions are the key to making learning work for the business.

20

The Top 10

40

Michael E. Echols Learning Investment in the Face of Innovation

12 BEST PRACTICES

Editorial Staff For the best of the best, L&D practices and modalities are as unique as the organizations themselves, incorporating AI, neuroscience, metrics, analytics, reskilling and more.

Josh Bersin Harnessing Hyperconnectivity

14 ACCOUNTABILITY

LearningElite Ranking

The final ranking of this year’s 78 top organizations for L&D.

Jack J. & Patti P. Phillips ROI Goes to School and Church

16 ON THE FRONT LINE

Features

48

66 IN CONCLUSION

56

Building Trust Through Storytelling Barry Kaplan and Jeff Manchester An organization’s greatest asset is its team members — and their authentic connection.

Dave DeFilippo Learning Through Service

Whitney Johnson Building Your A-Team

Resources

Tackling the Quality Leadership Challenge Michael F. Tucker Boosting female representation can help close the leadership talent gap.

4 Editor’s Letter

Taking a Break for Learning

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9

BUSINESS IMPACT

Learning Investment in the Face of Innovation Looking at learning as an investment that creates human capital • BY MICHAEL E. ECHOLS

T Michael E. Echols is principal and founder of Human Capital LLC and author of “Your Future Is Calling.”

He can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

he importance of investment in value creation has again been affirmed in 2018 financial markets in reaction to the federal tax policy passed by Congress in December 2017. Trillions of dollars of wealth have been created and agreement about the importance of investment in national infrastructure awaits political courage to act.

Looking at learning as an investment that creates human capital is timely and valuable. The why, what and how of learning investment are all important, but for now attention is on the why.

Policies and practices used to manage tangible asset investment can serve as a reference. Accountants have pre-empted investment beliefs and behaviors with a rigorous set of rules, which are applied primarily to tangible assets recorded on the balance sheet. It is agreed that the balance sheet archives assets with enduring future value. The accounting rules require that an enterprise own an asset for it to go on the balance sheet, something that will never happen when it comes to human capital.

But we can state, without reservation, that expenditures for learning all are being made with the expectation of future benefit. No one behaves as though learning done today is expected to disappear tomorrow. We all believe that implicit to true learning is enduring value. Consider a position among learning leaders where one side is arguing that learning is only about the present and not about the future. Absurd? Indeed!

But this is exactly how we treat learning investments in financial reporting.

learning. Enduring principals about created value include depreciation, depletion, obsolescence and risk management. These are largely missing from learning investment planning; however, they become evermore important as increased innovation in turn increases depreciation, depletion and obsolescence of human capital.

Further, low unemployment increases the risk of voluntary turnover, the human capital risk analog to the manufacturing plant being wiped out by natural disaster. With tangible assets, the risk is managed through insurance, a concept absent from learning investment decisions.

The real issue for learning community consideration is what does investment in learning actually look like even though commonly accepted accounting principles do not directly apply? Here are some factors to consider.

One break comes with the learning heritage where content has long been king. The investment value of learning cannot be measured in terms of the scope of content presented in the original learning exercises.

Rich content is ubiquitously available through YouTube and Google searches. It is not that content is no longer valuable, but that it is available everywhere, at zero cost. One implication is that learning how to find is probably more important than how to retain.

The value of learning lies in how well the learning investment prepares the learner to make good decisions in the ever more uncertain future innovation creates. This requires both skills and developed decision-making capacity.

Measuring value created becomes a priority. The world of tangible assets and balance sheets has ruled the beliefs and behaviors of senior executives. In that world, the stated value is the historical cost incurred at the time of acquisition. In contrast, the financial market value is the future cash flows discounted to the present. This break from the past allows a new framework to enrich the future value created from learning investments.

There is an elephant in the room when it comes to For learning, the investment question might even creating future value. The “elephant” is innovation. be framed as “What learning today creates value toIronically, innovation impacts learning investments morrow in the face of the dominant role innovation is even more than historical tangible asset investments, taking in the modern global economy?” Key to this and innovation has assumed a near sacrosanct status in approach is the future value of learning in the face of financial markets. pervasive and continuing innovation. The issues of Unfortunately, the accounting profession rules of in- value created, depletion and risk rise to the top of the vestment have not grafted well onto investments in learning investment priority list. CLO

There is an elephant in the room when it comes to creating future value. The “elephant” is innovation.

10 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

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BEST PRACTICES

Harnessing Hyperconnectivity

How do we use the explosion of technology and content to truly drive results? • BY JOSH BERSIN

T Josh Bersin is founder of Bersin, known as Bersin

by Deloitte, and a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP. He can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

his year the corporate learning market is going through explosive change: microlearning and adaptive learning systems have arrived, there’s an explosion of interest in learning experience platforms and consumer-like learning environments, and video, audio and small chunks of relevant content are available everywhere.

All this change is positive: We are turning the traditional, page-turning e-learning experience of the past into a dynamic, agile, as-needed learning experience that fits into the way we use the internet. But how do we apply all this to the skills development and training needs of business?

A new paradigm has arrived, one I’ve written about before and that I call “learning in the flow of work.”

We all struggle with too much to do. We are working more hours and getting too many emails, and we feel inextricably tethered to our phones, email and other work-related platforms. I call this the “hyperconnected workforce,” and research shows that we are all struggling to deal with this reality, increasing our stress at work.

Additionally, the proliferation of content and new topics to learn has exploded. We need to learn about cloud-based systems, artificial intelligence, new technologies like blockchain and hundreds of other new topics and ideas spanning every facet of our careers. As I like to put it, in today’s economy, “the learning curve is the earning curve,” so we are all searching to learn faster than ever before.

On top of all this, a new market of learning platforms has arrived. Learning experience systems, modern LMS platforms, and adaptive and microlearning platforms are now in the market, and these products publish, serve and recommend content in a consumer-like experience, making learning as easy and enjoyable as watching TV. But how can we use all this technology and content to truly drive results? The answer: learning in the flow of work.

To simplify the concept, think about it this way.

Every employee in your company (from sales person to service worker to senior executive) has a learning curve for their job. Some are going through a steep learning curve early in their role, others may have plateaued and be looking for tips and techniques, and others simply want to reinvent themselves. Our job in

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L&D is to take all this content and insert it into the workflow so each employee can get what he or she needs when it’s relevant, needed and interesting.

Let me give an example. A distribution center worker clocks in every morning. When he arrives, a two-minute learning video appears, asking him to remember a few safety tips or perhaps notifying him about a new process on the production floor. The next day the employee sees something a little different, building on what he learned the day before.

Week by week the content becomes more advanced, useful and relevant.

Learning in the flow of work is here — and I encourage you to jump in as soon as you can.

Our main challenge is design. As learning platforms get smarter, we need to design microlearning and macrolearning programs so they fit into these platforms, bringing us closer to employee needs than ever before. In sales, customer service and technical support this problem is fairly easy to understand — it just takes some design thinking and effort to understand true needs.

I’ve been talking with dozens of companies about this topic and I’m realizing the paradigm is not only useful, but liberating to L&D. Now, instead of building curricula that we “hope” people will use, we can create programs and experiences that immediately fit into work and that we know will add value every week.

My suggestion to you is simple: Take a few minutes to think about your most important employee audience and how you can embed learning into their flow of work. You’ll find yourself building things that are more relevant, valuable and important. Learning in the flow of work is here — and I encourage you to jump in as soon as you can. CLO

ACCOUNTABILITY

ROI Goes to School and Church

Organizations of all types face accountability • BY JACK J. PHILLIPS AND PATTI P. PHILLIPS

W

Jack J. Phillips is chairman and Patti P. Phillips is president and CEO of the ROI Institute.

They can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

hen you think about ROI, you likely think of businesses and service organizations. In recent years, however, there has been a rise of ROI use among nonprofits, nongovernmental organizations, governments and health care. How are these organizations using the ROI Methodology to show the value of their projects and programs?

The Phillips ROI Methodology is a 10-step process organizations can use to show the value of programs and initiatives. It measures six types of data: reaction and planned data (level 1), learning (level 2), application and implementation (level 3), business impact (level 4), ROI (level 5) and intangibles.

Across the United States, school systems are implementing the ROI Methodology in their education programs, departments and functions. Some school systems have evaluated a program offered to sixth and seventh graders called “The Leader in Me,” available through FranklinCovey. This program is designed to help students assume more accountability and responsibility and become better team members. Programs such as these can have tremendous payoff, particularly in student and school outcomes. Demonstrating this value for the money spent increases the likelihood that school system leaders will continue investing.

Religious organizations are also turning to ROI. We are both slated to speak at upcoming conferences on the topic of ROI in the context of spiritual care.

Additionally, we are working with a large Protestant church organization that has adopted our methodology as the framework and evaluation approach for its

To date, 17 U.N. agencies have successfully implemented the ROI Methodology. leadership center. By adopting the model, they hope to ensure leadership development is connected to impact measures from the start, keeping those measures in focus throughout the program using impact objectives and validating the alignment with impact in selected programs.

Church leaders know that by addressing the gaps in performance in their business measures, they can achieve their goal of creating 3 million 14 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

“difference-makers” — people who effect or deliver change (level 3), make improvements and have an impact on those they influence (level 4).

Other types of nonprofits are also using ROI to measure their programs. A provincial government in Canada is asking food banks in that province to show the ROI for counseling services they offer, suggesting that budgets are down and they cannot continue to fund programs unless the monetary value to them is shown.

Through its Impact Hiring Initiative, FSG, a mission-driven consulting firm, is helping organizations implement and demonstrate impact and ROI of second-chance hiring programs, front-line supervisor programs, and upskilling programs for those who need essential work and life skills.

The United Nations System Staff College provides centralized training for the UN system. In 2008, it adopted the ROI Methodology with a plan to implement the system in all of its agencies. To date, 17 U.N. agencies have successfully implemented the methodology to show the value of its various projects and programs.

The Institute of Public Administration in Saudi Arabia has embarked on a program to bring ROI thinking to all government agencies in the country.

The institute is responsible for training for the entire Saudi Arabian government.

Even charitable organizations are being asked to show the value they deliver, particularly at the impact level. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is focusing squarely on impact and ROI issues. In 2017, Bill and Melinda devoted their annual letter to a memo they received from Warren Buffett in which he expressed his desire to see the “ROI” of the contribution he made to the foundation. Buffett gave or pledged about $30 billion to the Gates Foundation to be distributed to a variety of projects and programs throughout the world. Bill and Melinda provided an accounting of those projects and programs, showing impact data on each and the ROI calculation for one.

The impact and ROI scenario is playing out everywhere as organizations of all types face accountability.

When you are asked to show the value for investment in L&D, remember that schools, churches and other nonprofits and NGOs are doing the same. All roads lead to ROI. CLO

ON THE FRONT LINE

Learning Through Service How are we investing in the learning, talent and HR profession? • BY DAVE DeFILIPPO

I

Dave DeFilippo is chief people and learning officer for Suffolk. He can be reached at editor@ CLOmedia.com.

recently had the opportunity to spend two days teaching a group of 13 aspiring chief learning officers during the spring CLO Accelerator program in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, March 24-25. For those unfamiliar with the accelerator, it’s a two-day course for learning professionals who aspire to become CLO for their organization and for business managers new to the role of learning leader. The experience is intended to provide students with the vision and tools to execute in the role.

The evening before the program began, as I thought about spending a weekend in a hotel conference room and then returning to my day job the following Monday, I wondered why I had committed to this seven-day workweek. However, after a few hours on the morning of the accelerator’s first day, as I began to hear the discussion among the highly engaged group of attendees, it became apparent to me that the time I was spending teaching the course, along with other senior practitioners such as Kevin Wilde, Justin Lombardo, Gerry Hudson-Martin and Lisa Doyle, was an important investment into the future of the learning, talent and human resources profession. Here is why.

First, being given the opportunity to be a teacher of corporate teachers gave me pause as I listened to the issues raised and questions asked by the knowledgeable and engaged group. Their insatiable desire to make a difference and contribute to their respective organizations was palpable from the first inquiry — about best practices to create and implement a learning and talent strategy — to their final presentations. Further, their commitment and dedication to their respective firms and employees remained evident throughout the two-day immersive experience.

Second, one of the unintended consequences of teaching is that you learn as much as you impart, which was certainly the case with the accelerator and those 13 curious and talented individuals. As much as the issues spanning learning and talent were familiar to our experienced course leadership, the currency and context brought forward by the group served as a reminder that our learning and development needs to be a continuous, lifelong endeavor. Julia Child once said, “You will never know everything about anything, especially something you love,” which seems particularly pertinent in this context.

16 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

Last, I finished the accelerator program and the weekend thinking that we should all find our own ways to give back as a service to the learning and talent development profession. Here are some questions I ask you to consider: Within our orga-

Julia Child said, “You will never know everything about anything, especially something you love,” which seems particularly pertinent in this context. nizations, how are we preparing the next generation of HR practitioners? Are there early career professionals who should rotate through one of the human capital functions such as learning and development, talent acquisition or even as an HR business partner? Who are the line managers who would benefit from a rotation in one of the people practice areas and would then emerge as even more effective operational leaders as an outcome of that experience?

Outside of our firms, how are we helping to find and cultivate the next generation of HR talent? Be it by participating in professional organizations, social networking or even with our alma maters, are we engaging others and sharing the stories about the work we do?

Thirty years into my career, I closed that weekend in March with a sense of fulfillment and even more confidence that the future is safe given the level of talent among those who I had the good fortune to teach and learn from. CLO

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Finding the Perfect Fit For this year’s LearningElite organizations, custom solutions are the key to making learning work for the business.

A

s Chief Learning Officer’s LearningElite program enters its eighth year, common threads have emerged among the organizations.

LearningElite winners are serious about learning. Their teams carefully craft programs that align learning strategy with business strategy. Their leaders believe in the value learning and development gives the organization. L&D initiatives are delivered through different modalities, often using technology to enhance participation and deliver anytime, anywhere content.

Key performance indicators are built into programs to ensure results are quantifiable. Results are shared with senior leaders to demonstrate the positive impact learning has on the business.

This past March we honored organizations large and small, national and international, at the annual LearningElite Gala during the 2018 CLO Spring Symposium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. From organizations of less than 500 employees to large multinationals, the LearningElite program celebrates those with a passion for lifelong learning.

The peer-reviewed ranking and benchmarking program recognizes organizations that employ exemplary workforce development strategies that deliver significant business results. It uses best practices in evaluation to rank organizations based on their impact, size and industries served. A comprehensive evaluation of L&D, the LearningElite also recognizes individual companies for their efforts in functional areas, including leadership development, use of technology, executive buy-in and content development and delivery.

Of the hundreds of companies that applied, 78 met this year’s benchmark to qualify as LearningElite. Applications were reviewed by more than 400 volunteer judges

18 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

— CEOs, CLOs, HR practitioners and other professionals who are as passionate about learning as the organizations they rated. Judges rate organizations in each of the five dimensions of the LearningElite model: learning strategy, leadership commitment, learning execution, learning impact and business performance results.

To determine the winner, the top five organizations participated in a capstone project; each gave a two-hour presentation exploring the concept of perfect fit — how is learning tailored to the organization? For the best of the best, L&D practices and modalities are as unique as the organizations themselves, incorporating AI, neuroscience, metrics, analytics, reskilling and multilingual job aids.

This year’s Organization of the Year — Accenture — previously won the LearningElite in 2014. They haven’t rested in the years since, however, transitioning their workforce with a “Lead into the New” strategy. Accenture’s forward-thinking L&D practices engage their learners and encourage innovation. Their proactive policies will ensure the company not only survives but thrives in the age of digital disruption.

The following stories showcase how LearningElite organizations use the idea of perfect fit to suit their needs. Every work culture is different and each requires a unique solution. From testing and deploying new L&D initiatives to sunsetting multiple LMSs into a single system, this year’s LearningElite organizations share a common goal: to find a perfect fit between learning initiatives and organizational goals and to maximize the impact of learning investment on the business. CLO Sarah Kimmel is Human Capital Media’s vice president of research and advisory services. She can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

PHOTOS BY WILL BYINGTON

BY SARAH KIMMEL

2018

Best of the best: Shelby Kan, left, and Allison Horn of Accenture accept the 2018 LearningElite award for Organization of the Year.

Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

19

2018

At Accenture, 1 Human Learning Truly Pays Off Through its learning-led future-oriented strategy, Accenture’s research and experimentation positively impact employees, clients and the bottom line.

BY AVE RIO

I

n 2017, the talent and learning organization of global management consulting firm Accenture aided the firm in its effort to help clients with the digital transformation of the world through a future-oriented strategy. With more than 425,000 employees in 120 countries and 40 industries, the sheer scale and scope of the learning efforts at the world’s largest independent technology services provider makes the firm stand out. Accenture also won the 2014 LearningElite competition, with 305,000 employees and $30 billion in revenue. In fiscal 2017, the firm had $34.9 billion in revenue.

Accenture Global Learning Lead Allison Horn said the firm’s leadership and culture of learning — “time away to learn and learning all the time” — have been key to that success. She said culture comes to life in how the firm communicates internally, through activities and learning experiences like hackathons and connected classrooms. “This culture is bred from the very top of the organization by a leadership who regularly reminds employees how critical learning is to the success of our business,” Horn said. She said many leaders recognize they became who they are because of the learning experiences and growth opportunities they have had at Accenture. “They then feel a sense of stewardship in helping others grow and develop — they therefore become advocates for learning,” she said.

Accenture’s future-oriented strategy drives forward the firm’s own business and the businesses of its clients. Horn said the business strategy and learning strategy are so intertwined that they think of them as one strategy. She said this “one strategy” mindset encompasses the strategy of the business, the firm’s vision of the future workforce and the learning strategy needed to shape the future. “Our business cannot succeed without a fine-tuned learning machine building the skills and abilities of our people,” she said.

The company is constantly questioning the way it does things and investing in experimentation and research through its talent research and innovation team. For example, to increase learning retention and return on investments, the team is researching brain science — including neuroscience,

20 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

SNAPSHOT:

Accenture Accenture’s New IT learning platform helps increase capabilities in digital-, cloudand security-related services with bite-sized, expert-curated content on priority technologies delivered via its award-winning, Pinterest-like learning boards.

With 9.4-plus million hits, New IT helped boost related FY 2017 revenue nearly 30 percent to $18 billion.

Company size: 425,000 Location: Ireland

2018

, left, y Kan orn. b l e h H S llison and A

behavioral psychology and social physics — to understand what makes learning effective. “Our people are constantly learning, and in order to do so, they need to be supported in ways that remove learning barriers and maximize learning retention and application,” Horn said. “The learner and the learning experience are always at the center of what we do.”

With the future-oriented strategy in mind, the firm’s learning professionals are designing flexibility into their approaches to ensure they are constantly evolving with the challenges and demands of the workforce. “Our employees have consumer-level expectations of how they should interact with technology,” Horn said. “They expect Accenture to provide a similar learner experience to that which they see in the open market. We work hard to deliver on that level of expectation.”

Another learning philosophy of the firm is embodied through their Truly Human initiative, which focuses on nurturing people’s “whole self” — their mind, body, heart and soul. The guiding philosophy is that mental resilience is key to bringing one’s best self to work and home. With that in mind, in 2017 Accenture globally introduced the flagship Accenture Mindful Performance program.

Horn said the AMP program includes mindfulness training emphasizing mental effectiveness and mental strategies to improve attention and focus. It is five sessions of 90 minutes each over 12 weeks delivered virtually or on-site. There is also an AMP mobile app with daily training sessions and

progress charts. In addition, employees can share their experiences in mindfulness communities and get one-on-one coaching from experts.

Since its implementation, more than 1,000 employees have taken part in the program and there are 20 internal certified facilitators embedding the practice across leadership and HR programs, team events and webcasts. Horn said the program has proven to increase focus, creativity and resilience and reduce stress and distractedness. Further, every single participant of AMP recommends it.

One participant, Jan Emil Kjærgaard Lindhøj, a strategy consultant at Accenture, said the program improved his worklife balance. “I do not mean the number of hours I put into work, but rather the ability to better ‘shut out’ work in my leisure time, enabling me to better spend quality time with my family and friends and recharge my batteries,” he said.

Through their future-oriented strategy in 2017, revenues from digital, cloud and security-related technologies have grown to $18 billion, a 30 percent increase over FY 2016, and accounted for half of the total FY 2017 net revenues. Going forward, the company is continuing research to understand how to equip its people with the skills and competencies necessary for the future in the most efficient way possible. CLO Ave Rio is an associate editor at Chief Learning Officer.

She can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

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2018

2

AT&T: Committed to the Future

AT&T’s future-ready focus and technology integration into learning have resulted in substantial benefits to employees.

BY AVE RIO

M

ultinational telecommunications conglomerate AT&T Inc. is consistently focused on integrating technology into learning. In 2017, the company’s technological investments paid off.

Going into the year, only about 15 percent of AT&T’s content was mobile optimized. The firm set a bold goal to mobile optimize 100 percent of non-leader-led content by the end of 2017 and they completed that goal in September 2017. Further, in April that year, the firm committed to only creating new content that is 100 percent mobilized. This transformation allows learners to access content on any device, from any location, at any time. AT&T Senior Vice President and CLO John Palmer said this mobilization has also had significant payoffs from an engagement perspective.

“We focus on creating a culture of continuous learning,” Palmer said.

“What differentiates us from peer groups is our commitment and our scale of our learning programs.”

Palmer said the firm spends about $250 million on training programs every year, equating to about 19 million hours of learning across the enterprise, which employs about 254,000 individuals.

The firm has also invested heavily in interactive virtual learning studios. Over the past year, the company converted the majority of leader-led courses to an interactive virtual learning delivery system. “Our instructors are in the studios and they are able to broadcast live in a two-way communication form so the learner can give the instructor feedback or ask questions in real time,” Palmer said. “It’s like they are in a classroom environment, but it’s broadcast all over the country or even across the globe.”

Last year, the company trained nearly every new part-time retail hire virtually for the first time. “We proved you can train customer experience

22 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

SNAPSHOT:

AT&T AT&T’s innovative, transformative reskilling effort successfully creates opportunities for employees to reinvent their careers. In 2017, employees who reskilled filled 50 percent of AT&T technology jobs and received 47 percent of all technology organization promotions.

Company size: 256,800 Location: United States

2018

virtually, you can train sales people to sell virtually,” Palmer said. “There was a lot of trepidation from a lot of folks even inside our corporate university. We started slow and continued to gain momentum because we found in this virtual environment we were producing better service and better sellers than in a classroom environment.”

The retail training was originally a two-week classroom program, but virtualization allowed participants to work and train over 90 days. Palmer said the company saved nearly $15 million in travel expenses, and new hire performance at 60 days outperformed those who trained in traditional classrooms.

“It’s been very efficient and effective,” Palmer said. “It’s actually proving to be a more natural way to learn today than having to pack a bag, travel across the country to a learning hub and sit in a classroom for eight hours a day.”

In addition to mobilization and virtualization, AT&T is continuing to ramp up its famous reskilling effort. The firm’s skills transformation training has been evolving over the past few years and is the “heart and soul” of the workforce reskilling program, Palmer said.

“As technologies and networks transform all around us, we understand we don’t always have the talent at scale to be able to drive the workforce transformation that we need to be driving at size and scale,” Palmer said. “We didn’t want to hire new talent, anyway; we wanted to invest in our people who have created an amazing culture at AT&T.” The reskilling effort started nearly six years ago and was originally branded as “Workforce 2020.” The program focuses on teaching competencies for the future that have been defined across the enterprise. Palmer said AT&T’s corporate university, TU, has mapped specific curriculums to every one of the 3,000 jobs across the enterprise. “We’ve focused on driving significant engagement and being extremely transparent to our employees,” he said.

The reskilling effort was recently rebranded to “Future Ready,” as the firm plans to keep reskilling well past 2020. Since the firm began the effort, more than 2.7 million courses in skills transformation have been completed and they have awarded more than 100,000 badges and continue to see growth. “We don’t see momentum slowing down, we only see it increasing,” Palmer said.

A Fortune magazine article from 2017 described AT&T’s reskilling effort as “what may be the most ambitious program for retraining workers in the history of American business.” Palmer said the effort speaks to the culture of continuous learning at AT&T.

“Employees understand that there is a significant value for engagement,” Palmer said. “By us being completely transparent about the opportunities for the future, that has differentiated us and driven success into this program. Employees know where the puck is going and exactly what it’s going to take for them to be successful in the future.”

The firm’s commitment to the future and integration of technology into learning is in line with their future plans.

The company has started investing in virtual reality and augmented reality and has launched more than a dozen training programs during the past year and a half utilizing VR and AR. Palmer said their use of this technology will only continue to grow. CLO Ave Rio is an associate editor at Chief Learning Officer.

She can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

n e, Joh rator n. a P a lisk orwi left: E ssa C From and Meli er Palm

Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

23

2018

3

Dedicated to Employee Development at Vi

At Vi, learning and employee development is ingrained in the corporate culture.

BY RICK BELL

SNAPSHOT:

W

hile the human spirit indeed can move mountains in the face of a truly dire situation, hours of preparation, practice and training can go a long way, too.

With a massive Category 5 hurricane threatening to destroy a wide swath of south Florida in the fall of 2017, the executive team at senior living provider Vi was faced with a monumental challenge. It was the company’s 30th anniversary that month, but any celebration would have to wait.

Thousands of Vi’s continuing care retirement communities’ senior-age residents had to be transported hundreds of miles north and out of Hurricane Irma’s destructive path. There were, of course, the logistics of moving 1,600 people from four separate living communities. They also faced finding some 800 rooms to accommodate their residents on extremely short notice. And then there was the uncertainty of when they would return and what they would find — or not find — once Irma had passed.

Although no amount of training replaces actions during an actual disaster, Vi’s Corporate Emergency Response Team was up to the task.

“Our preparedness, our ability to execute, our communications to residents and employees, our service, our care and our leadership are all reasons why Vi remains a leader in the senior living industry,” Vi President Randy Richardson later wrote to his 2,900-plus employees scattered across the United States. “I am grateful and proud of our team’s selfless, compassionate responsiveness to this catastrophic event. I also want to assure you that it is, and will always be, Vi’s number one priority to ensure the safety and security of Vi’s residents and employees.”

24 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

Vi Vi’s one-year Breakthrough Leadership Program is estimated to yield a .98 standardized return on investment, resulting in a total value of an employee’s performance of $123,000 and an upper total cost of training estimated at $5,000 per participant. The program contributed to a $378,000 increase in economic value.

Company size: 2,950 Location: United States

2018

rin nd, E Egela d i v a . left: D ino, From Bill Sciort r y Maslow a r, C e l l d i M an ogers Jill R

No doubt that resident safety comes first for ​Chicago-based Vi. But it’s Vi’s near obsession with corporate culture and employee growth that once again places the company among Chief Learning Officer’s LearningElite top 10 organizations.

Richardson even lauded employees’ commitment to their jobs despite the individual struggles brought on by the hurricane.

“Many of our colleagues have made many personal sacrifices, all in the interest of ensuring our residents and employees impacted by Hurricane Irma are well-cared for during this terrible tragedy,” he wrote. Vi also recognized their employees’ dedication through a donation to the American Red Cross to help those employees and their families affected by recent catastrophes inside and outside the United States.

“We deliberately celebrate our employee success stories,” said Judy Whitcomb, Vi’s senior vice president, human resources and learning and organizational development.

“We’re dedicated to employee development.”

Whitcomb pointed to Michelle Ormond, who works at the Highlands Ranch community near Denver. She started in 2008 as an hourly employee with no formal skills, Whitcomb recalled.

“She was dedicated,” Whitcomb said, “a real learner.”

Ormond enrolled in a management development program, achieved her Advanced Custodial Technician certification and Certified Hospitality Housekeeping Executive certification, and now is director of housekeeping.

“I can give you hundreds of stories like that,” Whitcomb said. “I manage HR and learning, and I can tell you that learning and development is an employment differentiator for us.”

Whitcomb said that Vi polls new hires on several functions, including the hiring and onboarding process.

“Their top choice to work at Vi is employee development,” Whitcomb said. “It came in ahead of pay and benefits.”

It’s a huge plus in their ability to attract candidates to Vi, Whitcomb said.

“Learning is part of our culture,” she said. “Part of the participation in our leadership programs is then going back and teaching others what you learned.”

While commitment to the community may not be in any course curriculum for Vi’s employees, the attitude to take care of each other in tough times is clearly evident in the wake of the hurricane’s $68 billion in damages.

Richardson again took time to thank his staff in Florida, though their service is a reflection of the organization as a whole.

“I am very appreciative of everyone involved in supporting and continuing to support our residents and employees during this difficult time,” Richardson said. “You make me proud.”

Rick Bell is Chief Learning Officer’s editorial director. He can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com. CLO Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

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2018

4

Collaboration, Integration and Leadership at Nationwide

At the insurance and financial services company, building a culture of learning starts at the top.

BY ASHLEY ST. JOHN

T

here are three things that make Nationwide’s learning program elite, according to Kathleen L. Smith, vice president, talent management and development.

“One is that it is a highly collaborative community of learning leaders across the company,” Smith said. “We work together to look to the future, to share best practices, to mature our capabilities. The second thing is the way learning is integrated. It’s an integrated part of all strategic efforts.

And I think last, what makes us elite is the level of leadership sponsorship for the work. Our leaders are highly engaged in learning — they participate, they contribute, they strategize with us, they help define outcomes, and they ensure that the metrics for everything that we do are visible.”

Nationwide’s strategic priorities — Strengthen Our Foundation, Focus on Advantaged Growth and Activate One Nationwide — were unveiled in 2015, and in 2017 the organization debuted a learning suite called the NSuite, which focused on corporate values and four One Nationwide Culture Program behaviors (managing change, collaborating, leaning into new opportunities and conscious inclusion) that supported those priorities.

“Our strategy two years ago was focused on making learning more personalized, engaging, accessible and impactful,” said Diane L. August, Nationwide’s chief learning architect. “And we made sure all of our initiatives aligned to that and demonstrated that. We’ve evolved though, now, to using that more as our delivery strategy.”

A blended learning approach was used to ensure that delivery strategy was met. The NSuite consisted of several modules: Nspire and Nspired Leadership (focused on company culture and values and One Nationwide behaviors), Ncharge (focused on managing change), Nvision (focused on leaning into new opportunities), Nvite (focused on collaborating), and Nclude (focused on conscious inclusion).

One of the ways Nationwide ensures its delivery strategy works is through a shared consulting model and intake process. According to its LearningElite application, the successful link of learning strategy and business strategy starts with the

26 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

SNAPSHOT:

Nationwide Nationwide’s robust leadership development approach includes a yearlong new leader road map featuring Nspired Leadership: a course on leading within a culture of increased innovation and collaboration. Ninety-six percent of leaders believe their direct report has experienced an increase in effectiveness after completing the program.

Company size: 34,350 Location: United States

2018

de t, ugus schro ane A Tish Dam i D : t lef nd From Dennis a d l a n Do

engagement of its human resources business partners as liaisons with enterprise leadership. These business partners help identify knowledge and skill gaps and learning opportunities.

The organization also places strong emphasis on leadership development and commitment. By creating a culture of learning among its leaders, Nationwide ensures this culture flows down to all associates.

“There is an enterprisewide structure of leadership teams that guide the strategy called our Executive Leadership Council,” Smith said. “They are aligned to different topics that are critical to our future. One of them is talent and culture. They guide this and are committed to it, and that does cascade down. That tells [our leaders] that this is important, that the strategies we have are sponsored at the very top of the organization.”

Nationwide also maintains leadership commitment by engaging its leaders. The cornerstone of its leadership development program is a three-day Leadership Essentials class that provides new leaders with the skills to create an engaging culture and position their teams for success.

Additionally, they are given opportunities to participate as coaches and teachers in the organization.

“An example we have is our Leadership Speaker Series forum,” Smith said. “We provide the infrastructure, but they run it. They are the voice of it, they kick those off, they do all of the content design.”

“There’s a strong link to performance management and career development there also,” August added. “There’s no doubt that leaders feel accountability for developing their associates’ learning. Although we say that the associate owns their own development, leaders are positioned and evaluated on the way that they develop their associates.”

With the pace of change in the industry accelerating, three new strategic imperatives evolved from the prior strategic priorities: improve operating efficiency, expanding reach to serve more members and creating more differentiated value. This transition caused Nationwide to evolve its learning strategy from a primarily delivery-focused strategy to a more comprehensive learning strategy as it moves into 2018. The new strategy is focused on capability development across the enterprise aimed at building three specific mindsets/skill sets: (1) lead — energize and share leadership; (2) innovate — solve needs in ways people have not yet imagined; and (3) flex — anticipate and embrace change.

r.

“In 2017, we did a lot of work around culture, but now we’re really ready to tie that to the future capabilities that we know are going to be needed by our workforce in the next 10 to 15 years,” August said. “We’re modifying our learning strategy to make it more modern and more flexible for our workforce — more microlearning, more on demand, more of a pull versus push strategy.”

According to Miller, Nationwide is getting hyperfocused on the future, on the skills that need to be enabled and on modifying their delivery strategy to increase speed and scale.

A Workforce of the Future effort is one initiative that’s on the horizon, she said.

“Traditional learning just isn’t going to work — it’s not going to do it fast enough, it’s not going to be responsive enough, and our associates don’t want it,” August said. “We have a highly millennial organization, and we need to meet them where they are. So, Kathy’s right — not just the content and the focus but also the methods are changing.” CLO Ashley St. John is Chief Learning Officer’s managing editor.

She can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

27

2018

5

Deloitte’s Learning Function Aims to be So Visible, It’s Invisible

Deloitte’s learning strategy aligns with business strategy in its organizational structure, performance management process and formal learning initiatives.

BY LAUREN DIXON

W

hile many learning functions have to prove their alignment and benefit to business strategy, Deloitte’s talent development team purposefully built alignment into the structure of the company and its learning initiatives.

Eight chief learning officers each focus on various segments of the company or the broader learning strategy “to help ensure that there’s alignment in the curriculum to what their specific needs are,” said Nicole Roy-Tobin, managing director of talent development in the strategy and innovation segment of Deloitte.

To determine those needs, each CLO regularly consults with their respective chief talent officer to learn the business goals around client services, market growth, operational performance and talent. These discussions form the basis for defining learning and development priorities, according to the company’s LearningElite application. From there, the CLO determines the learning and development strategies for the year. Additional meetings throughout the year ensure ongoing alignment with business objectives and help adapt to market forces.

These efforts align with the goal of the talent development team at Deloitte, which is to drive business performance. Ultimately, the indicator of the team’s impact is employee engagement.

To measure that success, Deloitte professionals receive a talent survey annually, which includes questions about engagement. Additionally, the performance management process involves regularly checking in with individuals about their performance and is another opportunity to measure team engagement. This is also a time for managers to give feedback, clarifying expectations and sharing learning opportunities. Seventy-nine percent of Deloitte professionals said they use this feedback to improve their work. Additionally, 71 percent indicated in 2017 that someone at work has an interest in their growth; this is a six-point improvement compared with 2015.

The talent development team gathers other metrics of success through its Talent Development Impact Dashboard, which provides leadership with quantitative 28 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

SNAPSHOT:

Deloitte In 2017, Deloitte redesigned its organizationwide onboarding program by leveraging human-centered design to prototype innovative onboarding experience solutions that meet the needs and preferences of the modern learner, support business objectives and help the 25,000 annual new hires feel valued, connected and empowered to succeed.

Company size: 86,000 Location: United States

2018

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data and qualitative proof points to inform their decisions around learning strategies and share the team’s impact, the application said. A variety of survey data, operational metrics, Deloitte University evaluation scores and occupancy, as well as thought leadership and more, also come into play when expressing effectiveness of the team’s efforts.

Going beyond regular meetings, leadership takes an interest through participation in classroom learning as sponsors, overseeing program design, facilitation, evaluation and more. Each member of the Deloitte U.S. board and executive committee has been a facilitator or dean of a program, and 92 percent of programs are led by professionals at the company. “By incorporating this ‘leader-led’ learning approach into all aspects of the development life cycle, senior leaders have become champions of our development culture,” the application said. Leaders at Deloitte also place an importance on developing themselves, Roy-Tobin added.

That development culture occurs through the brickand-mortar Deloitte University, as well as informal learning experiences through coaching, performance management and a suite of online courses and games, leading to an average of 57.4 annual learning hours per person in fiscal 2017.

The most recent effort of the learning function at Deloitte is a revamping of the onboarding process, which sought the insights of the end users: new employees. The Welcome to Deloitte Onboarding Evolution project started with an invitation for volunteers, followed by a selection of a diverse group of 50 relatively new employees, to meet over the course of a weekend to have an “ideathon.”

Teams of these volunteers considered the timeline from

offer acceptance through assignment to a project team, came up with improvements and ultimately created prototypes for their new program. New hires in the Dallas office then tested the ideas and gave feedback, followed by a pitching process to a panel of talent development and business leaders.

Five pilots were then created to determine the best new process. Looking through the lens of the end user informed the new onboarding journey, Roy-Tobin said.

“Overall, this process has demonstrated the importance of learner-centric design in defining learning needs from the lens of the learner, as well as the outcomes and objectives they are seeking from a development experience,” the application said.

That learner-centered design will soon come into play when revamping the New Manager Milestone program. The program develops and onboards new managers and is currently a traditional program, Roy-Tobin said. It will soon be a better experience and will improve the confidence of managers at Deloitte.

Ultimately, the talent development initiatives at Deloitte will be continuous and so deeply embedded in the culture that they become invisible, she said. “People feel it and experience it, and it feels like it’s just a part of the fabric in the culture, versus something that is delivered by the talent development organization,” Roy-Tobin said.

This mindset, alignment to business strategies and the entire suite of learning strategies are what make Deloitte learning elite. CLO Lauren Dixon is a senior editor at Chief Learning Officer. She can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

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2018

6

Agility Leads to Growth at Siemens Healthineers

The company looks for opportunities for continuous improvement in learning.

BY AYSHA ASHLEY HOUSEH

SNAPSHOT:

I

t can be difficult to pinpoint your weaknesses, but Siemens Healthineers doesn’t shy away from looking into areas where they can continuously improve. The medical technology company uses benchmarking as one of the main tools to do this and reinvented its team and management in 2017. They are still in “growth mode” and as part of that growth, the company identified business areas where they needed to improve.

“It’s always good to know where you’re weak so that you can apply your focus and your resources there,” said William Magagna, vice president of Virtual Education Solutions, the learning team within Siemens Healthineers.

The company moved away from the more “safe areas” and realized they needed to work on the commercial operations, marketing and communications aspects of the company, which are not areas traditional educators are necessarily experts in, according to Magagna. They’ve also reinvented themselves by approaching managerial aspects differently.

“We made a decision that we would shift into a much more agile, highrisk, high-reward approach, focusing on productivity and revenue,” Magagna said. He believes it’s a combination of skills and marketing techniques that has helped the company improve.

“It’s a matter of not only being agile, but the cost, quality and effectiveness of how we get our solutions to market,” Magagna said.

The commitment from senior leadership was “fought [for] long and hard,” according to Magagna. An emphasis on revenue helped convince senior leaders of the vision the learning team had and how that vision in turn would help the organization. “At the end of the day, we’re a business,” Magagna said. “You have to be able to show that impact beyond learning objectives, beyond the overall learning, as attained.”

30 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

Siemens Healthineers In 2017, Siemens Healthineers enhanced its PEPconnect experience used by more than 250,000 registered users. The PEPconnect updates helped double the number of daily views compared with 2016.

Company size: 45,000 Location: Germany

2018

ley, e Grim nina n a J left: . a, Ja From Magagn er Chucta m th a a e H Willi d er an Beiln

Siemens prioritizes education for three key reasons: to sell medical devices and, in turn, to increase customers’ interaction with the devices; to reduce their cost and the cost for customers; and to drive revenue and productivity, according to Magagna.

Magagna believes the way the company views education sets them apart from the way other health care organizations may look at education — as something they do for the learner. “I think we have the right vision,” he said.

“Our solution and our vision is based on education being something you can truly do for yourself.

We are an enabler versus a disseminator.”

In 2015, Siemens launched PEPconnect, an app that gives learners access to education at any time and on any device. All its content has a unique URL, which is a more efficient way for users to use the application since no registration or login is required to access it.

PEPconnect was the first platform to bring education, performance support and social networking together for the life sciences industry, according to the learning team. “[To] be able to ask a question, get an answer, connect with others, share your experience — that’s how we operate in the virtual space,” Magagna said.

By using PEPconnect, the company has also been able to contribute to advancing the health care industry by making it available to students. In 2017, Virtual Education Solutions began University Partnerships and introduced the app to Keiser University in Orlando, Florida, which became an early partner. The school uses the app for its Medical Laboratory Technician program. PEPconnect is used to reinforce the material and skills while providing learning activities throughout the program and in their student clinical rotations.

Virtual Education Solutions’ immediate goals include providing an efficient online customer interaction and continuing to focus on the virtual space. The company

hopes to shift from on-site to an online format as much as possible by 2021. Since Virtual Education Solutions believes “education inherently happens individually, localized, at the device,” they’d like to make this move so customers and learners don’t need to depend on a person physically helping them on-site.

“As educators, to deny that [virtual space] is the future I think really misses the mark of where you need to be three to five years from now,” Magagna said. CLO Aysha Ashley Househ is a Chief Learning Officer editorial intern.

She can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

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7

KPMG Puts People First

At KPMG, learning is a process, not an event.

BY AYSHA ASHLEY HOUSEH

L

earning is constant, no matter what industry you are a part of.

KPMG Chief Learning Officer Corey Muñoz said he views learning as “a process or as continuous, not as an event.” The audit, tax and advisory company already values learning but plans to enhance its programs even further.

Muñoz said what sets KPMG apart is the fact that they put their people first, and that’s key to making learning effective.

“Our center of what we do is our people, just like it is in learning,” Muñoz said. “If we’re not facilitating that culture within our organization, we won’t be successful as a firm.”

The company stays involved in the tax industry by attending industry events, conferences and committee meetings and engaging with thought leaders, according to Muñoz. To continue to help their professionals, KPMG is also changing up the type of learning it offers, moving from individualized to personalized. They are looking into how different people like to learn depending on style, such as with video for example.

“If we’re asking our professionals to continue to evolve and grow their capabilities, we have to do the same thing with learning,” Muñoz said.

One way KPMG has evolved is by adding a CLO role. In November 2017, the company created the position Muñoz now holds, which he believes shows “a commitment to learning.”

KPMG is also upgrading its classroom experience. The organization has reaffirmed its belief in the value of traditional classroom training — provided it maximizes the power of the live experience. Creating that experience required adaptable physical space and state-of-the-art technology, and the firm has broken ground on a new Learning, Development and Innovation Center in Lake Nona, Florida, that will support these needs. The 800-bed hotel and learning facility will provide a consistent physical space for training and development needs of professionals and partners of the company.

In the meantime, it is enhancing its current use of classroom space. Increasingly, programs use innovative classroom layouts to enhance engagement and flip the classroom to empower participants to drive learning for themselves and their colleagues. KPMG also has taken an immediate step

32 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

SNAPSHOT:

KPMG When pre-course tests for a core technical course for staff-level employees revealed that today’s participants were entering the program more knowledgeable than their predecessors, KPMG recalibrated the course, enabling faculty members to teach participants more challenging content and increase normalized knowledge gain to 37 percent.

Company size: 38,695 Location: United States

2018

toward creating a more consistent learning environment by reconceiving its Advisory University Live, which provides core training for all advisory professionals. The program is now held monthly in the same location, and participants experience more consistent classroom support and KPMG branding.

The organization’s history and traditions are important to them, Muñoz said. When using an outside facility, the environment cannot be controlled; with the new learning center, management falls to the company and how they would like to run things.

Being able to focus on both learning and culture is something the new space will offer.

“We view learning as not only building capability and development of our professionals to be the best and brightest; we also believe heavily in our values,” Muñoz said. “[The center] allows us to build in our history, our tradition.”

The learning center will also be used as part of the company’s onboarding process. “It’s a huge talent attraction for us in the marketplace. And we’re really looking at it for all levels of our professionals,” Muñoz said.

The company is also investing in technology to help learners find and consume information more easily.

“Our hope and our goal through this technology investment is we’ll be able to reach that personalized learning in addition to creating a really simple and easy-to-use experience for them,” Muñoz said. CLO

obert left: R i Bruce From nd y ne, C am.

Perro hele Grah c i M and

Aysha Ashley Househ is a Chief Learning Officer editorial intern. She can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

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2018

8

HPI, Kaiser Permanente Flourishes in Face of Uncertainty

Thanks to a robust learning strategy, HPI is prepared to manage the uncharted territories of health care in the U.S.

BY ANDIE BURJEK

W

ith the American health care environment in flux, for an insurance company to not only maintain but improve excellence over the past several years is truly an admirable feat. The Health Plan Institute, the learning and development arm that supports the sales, marketing and business development staff of major health insurer Kaiser Permanente, managed to do just that, rising through the LearningElite ranks even as the future of U.S. health care grows increasingly uncertain.

HPI took the No. 43 spot in the 2015 LearningElite competition. It’s only improved since, taking No. 26 in 2016, No. 21 in 2017 and now No. 8.

HPI has been able to rise in the ranks for several reasons, according to David Livingston, executive director of sales, account management training and performance support at Kaiser Permanente. HPI has the support of an engaged executive leadership team, which rewards and recognizes the importance of the sales department’s expertise. It also keeps a departmental business strategy consistent with the overall corporate strategy. Finally, though HPI’s 30 employees originally supported Kaiser Permanente’s sales account management population of about 2,000 people, its learning has extended beyond to the overall organization.

“We have a very rigorous process for analyzing learning needs and priorities each year,” Livingston said. HPI meets with business leaders and key stakeholders to understand what the enterprise’s needs are. “By doing so, we come to the table with a greater understanding of what the business needs are, and we translate that into how we as a learning organization could impact those business needs,” he said.

Also valuable is the “Learning Strategy and Business Impact” survey that HPI distributes to all its stakeholders, which allows them to provide their input on HPI’s communication/delivery methods, solutions and outcomes. Finally, on an individual level, HPI uses a tool called the Self-Directed Learning Engine to assess employees on where they are and where they need to be. It helps HPI create individualized growth plans.

One major challenge in the health care space for the sales arm is how dynamic the industry is. HPI must keep track of what takes place on the national level as well as what takes place regionally based off state requirements, Livingston said. When it 34 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

SNAPSHOT:

ealth Plan Institute, H Kaiser Permanente In 2017, HPI launched its completely overhauled onboarding program for new employees, expanding enrollment from 150 to 600. The program leverages content across all regions, is mobile friendly and drives manager involvement, enabling new employees to contribute effectively after the first 90 days in their role.

Company size: 180,000 Location: United States

2018

ft, on, le ingst v i L David aughter.

Sl Kevin

comes to the sales staff, “One of the attributes we look for is learning curiosity, because you can’t be stagnant in this business. Your success depends on your knowledge base and things are always changing. What we have to do is make sure they have access to information in a timely manner.”

By the time the organization publishes information about health care it’s often outdated, thanks to the dynamic nature of health care, Livingston said. To solve for this and make sure its employees were learning the right information at the right time, HPI offered them a series of opportunities.

It had doctors on call once a week, and sales managers could call in and get their questions answered immediately as part of the learning track. They also had access to live webinar sessions of health care updates.

“We focused on the managers because they have the greatest impact on the people they work with and they could be the rally champion for that education,” Livingston said.

Kaiser Permanente’s response to the Affordable Care Act has seen impressive results. In the 70 years the company has been around, it has gained 20 percent of its current membership since 2014, “demonstrating our readiness to go to market effectively in the complex ACA environment,” according to HPI’s award application.

Another significant program HPI has improved is its coaching program. There wasn’t a structured framework to consistent and effective coaching, and they did not have a way to receive feedback, Livingston said. So HPI adopted a model called PAUSE developed by the Corporate Executive Board. PAUSE — which stands for prepare, affirm, understand, specify and embed — is a framework that helps coaches instill long-term behavior change in their employees.

and

Formalizing this coaching process has allowed HPI to develop a solid coaching culture that the Corporate Executive Board’s Coaching Effectiveness Survey has deemed “best in class” for the past two years, putting Kaiser Permanente’s managers in the top 25 percent of organizations.

Livingston is especially proud of a new program that has expanded the reach of the sales arm’s learning content. When HPI did an analysis of its learning content, it found that Kaiser Permanente employees in the organization outside of sales account management underwriting were actually taking HPI’s online onboarding program.

“Although it was very sales focused, there was still enough content that met their needs,” Livingston said. HPI revamped the onboarding program and built a new platform.

It made time for social interactions in between learning sessions so people could discuss what they learned, and it began to include guest speakers from throughout the enterprise.

“This program has become so robust and so well-known in such a short time,” Livingston said. “We’ve gone from the initial 100 folks that went through last year to 600 this year. And we’re excited about what we’re doing in terms of making an imprint.”

Looking forward, the organization plans on continuing to focus on tools and processes that help employees do their best job, Livingston said. It’s invested in many new technologies like career development platforms, online coaching tools and personalized learning, and it’s looking into virtual reality and augmented reality to see how it could potentially be useful to its workforce. CLO Andie Burjek is a Chief Learning Officer associate editor. She can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

35

2018

9

Janssen: Relentless Measurement Powered by Passion

Utilizing serious engagement and measurable results leads to more relevant lessons and better patient care.

BY MARIEL TISHMA

I

n an ever-changing biotech industry rife with competition, Janssen has had to jump through a lot of hoops. Considering the industry is also highly regulated, Janssen’s program has had to remain both robust and active to meet standards that are higher than most.

“We’re going to have to make smart, effective decisions in this highly complex, competitive marketplace,” said Michelle Lynch, senior director of sales, learning and development and immunology for Janssen.

“There will always be trade-offs, but if we’re keeping the learner at the center of what we’re doing, it will drive us as our north star.”

Thanks to its guiding star, Janssen hasn’t let the pressure stop it from providing elite-level learning and effective products. The best way Janssen has found to meet both goals is through its highly passionate workforce. Lynch said that from sales reps to C-suite, Janssen’s core focus is doing the best it can for patients, and the learning program’s goal has been to enable that.

“We’re really empowering the learner to be the glue, to make sure that our patients get access to the products in the end,” Lynch said.

She added that when on the job, “People only have a tendency to apply what’s relevant to them.” To remedy that, making learning “stick” has become integral to the program at Janssen. “We’ve really taken the approach to stage our learning along the way through high levels of engagement through gaming and creativity,” Lynch said. This engagement has helped lessons feel more pertinent to the individual learner and thus reduced scrap learning overall.

Once information is presented, the learning team at Janssen goes to great lengths to check in with employees and ensure they can execute what they have learned. Technology and role-play activities have proved especially helpful in this endeavor. “We do a lot of case-based learning, like decision simulations where we really need to make sure they can apply it,” Lynch said.

36 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

SNAPSHOT:

J anssen: Pharmaceutical Companies for Johnson & Johnson Janssen’s CVM New Hire Journey is a nine-month blended learning experience for all new sales representatives. Participants develop expertise in disease state, clinical knowledge and competitive selling. In 2017, the program exceeded benchmark data for ROI (6.42/7), business results (6.3/7) and job impact (6.4/7).

Company size: 6,211 Location: United States

2018

Those efforts have paid off, and Janssen has the measurements to prove it. Measuring results against peers using Metrics That Matter and against return on investment has allowed the learning team to capture proof of their worth and inspire confidence in teams across the board.

“At the end of the day it all really goes back to that measurement and how we’re ensuring that we’re closing the loop,” Lynch said.

Using Metrics That Matter after one learning event before a product launch, Janssen found that it scored in the 97th percentile for employees self-reporting that they believed they would use what they had learned on the job. That number is well above the average and is something that senior leadership has learned it can count on.

Lynch said that the learning team is closely involved with the leadership of the company and learning shapes the strategy Janssen uses for each coming year. “You have to make sure the learning organization has a seat at the leadership table.”

In that same vein, high-level leaders actively engage with learning programs. Lynch explained that senior leaders often participate in activities with sales reps, in essence becoming models of the behaviors and skills the sales team needs to succeed.

At all levels, Janssen’s workforce pursues learning for their own improvement. Lynch offered the finance team as a specific example. “People in finance want to come into the classes and learn about the products,” she said. “They want to really understand — how can they be better in their role, by the more they know about the breadth and depth of product.” Knowledge of the product, she said, leads to more effective patient care, which in turn leads to better business.

Janssen’s unique combination of learning and business is always driven “for the betterment of the patient.”

Janssen holds quarterly meetings called “town halls” to keep employees up to date on overall business changes.

Often patients are brought in at these events to speak with employees about the process of acquiring products and treatment.

With that in mind, the learning team at Janssen is looking toward the future dedicated to improvement with the patient and the learner at the forefront. This includes a dedication to all employees understanding the

importance of technology and how to use it, regardless of previous experience. “You need to have every generation and every worker engaged in the importance of technology and learning,” Lynch said.

With regard to their overall mission, she added: “We will continue to evolve to ensure that we are being effective.” CLO Mariel Tishma is a Chief Learning Officer editorial intern. She can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

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nd

Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

37

2018

International 10 Paper Grows Learning at Home A focus on integration, collaboration and safety have transformed International Paper into a global powerhouse for learning.

BY MARIEL TISHMA

SNAPSHOT:

“W

e’re not a sexy industry. We are an industry where people say, ‘Oh, there’s that plant down the road, you don’t really want to go work there,’ ” said Jeannine M. Siembida, director of the Global Manufacturing Training Initiative at International Paper. With low desirability and aging employees, IP has faced massive losses to personnel.

“We had to put together a program to get ready to lose about half of our workforce in a pretty short span of time,” Siembida said.

The first step toward improvement has been bringing in new talent.

To do that, IP had to make manufacturing into a desirable field. The general public may not see it, but, Siembida said, “In fact, these are very, very good jobs.” To showcase that fact, IP teamed up with communities in its mills and used education to inform potential employees about what IP has to offer.

Bringing in new talent was only part of the problem, though. With many of IP’s older, experienced workers walking out the door, incoming workers were filling jobs previously held by employees who had gained their knowledge throughout 30-year careers. Even employees who started in entry-level jobs would likely reach upper positions at unprecedented rates.

“We recognized that we really have to give them a good foundation of knowledge and safety in order to get to those levels of performance in a shorter time,” Siembida said. In 2014, the team added a New Hire Integration program to the global training standards to ensure new employees have the base skills they need before they even begin work.

38 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

International Paper International Paper made the strategic decision to identify best practices and skills requirements and created the vision of model operations and maintenance employees for 2020, creating a challenging learning system to develop the workforce to those higher levels with engagement of leaders within the organization.

Company size: 55,000 Location: United States

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Coug Mike

In the past, IP mills with similar workforce turnover but without a strong training program in place faced significant downtime and reliability issues that created setbacks for the company. But this year, thanks to the NHI program and the GMTI, IP has continued to outperform. In fact, 2017 was the company’s best year ever for safety.

At IP, learning gets plenty of leadership support. Bimonthly meetings with senior leaders allow the learning team to confirm that the program is still meeting the needs of the company. Additionally, at its inception, the GMTI itself was sponsored by a senior leader within IP, according to Siembida.

Due to close involvement from leaders at all levels, the GMTI has a “homegrown” feel. “All parts of the program were developed by people who had been working in the manufacturing organizations,” Siembida said. That meant the program could be laser-focused to address the specific learning needs of manufacturing positions.

When new mills require GMTI integration, IP works to maintain that homegrown touch by working in concert with existing learning programs. GMTI team members visit new mills and assess the learning strategy already in place to find areas where the program as a whole could improve before raising standards to meet the current ones.

The program is rooted in collaboration, which naturally lends itself to continuous renewal. Across the company the GMTI team is devoted to “pulling together the best of the best in the facility and looking at what across all of our facilities is the best practice,” Siembida said.

Even among its currently operating mills, IP is not content to let learning fall behind. Each year, IP’s facilities hold self-audits, and every three years formal audits are conducted to ensure programs are on track.

“We have the standard learning process in place, but we know if we don’t check and adjust our process, we’re never going to get better,” Siembida said.

To continue that practice on a wider scale, IP hosts a Global Mill Learning Leader Summit at its headquarters each year. This allows individual programs to share successes and struggles and seek input from each other, ensuring teams are moving toward the best possible strategy. The summit serves as an important part of maintaining IP’s culture of learning and collaboration.

Although the GMTI was launched in 2014, in 2017 IP began the rigorous work of ensuring the program is integrated into all 41 of its mills, including those that are located internationally and those newly acquired. Looking forward, Siembida said that IP has “a lot of energy and work that’s going in to find out what’s going to help the learners be more effective in their positions.” This means new investments in technology like video libraries and augmented reality to make training more engaging.

And the GMTI team plans to continue to improve so they can better address their changing industry.

As Siembida said, “We reserve the right to get smarter.” CLO Mariel Tishma is a Chief Learning Officer editorial intern. She can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

39

2018

11 Sidley Austin

17 New York Life Insurance Co.

During the past year, Sidley Austin offered more than 1,300 educational programs to its lawyers, staff, alumni and clients around the globe. In keeping with the firm’s culture of learning, 85 percent were developed and delivered by Sidley personnel.

Company size: 3,808 Location: U.S.

12 Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Blue Exchange is BCBSNC’s mentoring program, which enjoys considerable leadership support and commitment. In 2017, 132 mentors and mentees participated in one-on-one sessions, which were supplemented with small group discussions and activities with guest leaders.

Company size: 7,150 Location: U.S.

13 Mindtree Ltd.

Company size: 16,910 Location: India

14 IHG

Company size: 116,000 Location: U.K.

15 EY

Company size: 250,000 Location: U.K.

16 Enterprise Holdings

In 2017, USAA revised an old credit-card course resulting in a program length reduction of 15 days, a shortened average handle time and a decrease in calls to the help desk. The new program contributed to $215,690 in labor productivity gains and a gained net present value of the course of $2.5 million.

Company size: 30,350 Location: U.S.

Live webinars and e-learning courses prepared Mountain America’s employees to promote a revised checking product and confidently answer questions for members about how the changes could affect their account. As of September 2017, MACU has exceeded its annual new checking account goal by 12 percent.

Company size: 2,006 Location: U.S.

In 2017, CareSource launched new business in Georgia, adding nearly 250,000 members. As a result, CareSource University onboarded 287 employees in less than six months and supported the development of a provider network totaling more than 80,000 providers.

Company size: 3,741 Location: U.S.

MHS provided education to registered nurses regarding central line-associated bloodstream infections, which extend hospital stays and increase mortality and costs. Ninety-six percent of nurses attended the course, contributing to a decrease in the CLABSI rate, saving $168,000 and improving patient outcomes.

Company size: 7,200 Location: U.S.

22 ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Ltd.

Enhanced training for sales consultants in Enterprise’s Car Sales division contributed to the business by selling 12 percent more vehicles in FY17 than in FY16. Sales consultants are immersed in training their first two weeks on the job and have scheduled training throughout their first year.

Company size: 100,000 Location: U.S.

18 USAA

21 Memorial Health System

EY offers a global curriculum to develop purpose-driven leaders, including its Milestones programs, which touches every EY employee at some point in their career. Milestones accelerate transitions at key career junctures, from joining EY as a new hire through promotion to manager and other ranks.

Company size: 22,000 Location: U.S.

20 CareSource

IHG fielded its fifth annual Crowne Plaza Performance Series learning event in 2017. More than 100 directors of sales trained on brand priorities, performance and initiatives. Participating hotels experienced improvement in year-over-year revenue per available room — five times greater than hotels not attending.

19 Mountain America Credit Union

To make digital real for customers, Mindtree embarked upon a comprehensive program to develop a talent pool in digital technologies. It created expertise-building programs in niche skills to create talented full-stack engineers, leads and architects who would work across projects from initial requirements to deployment.

Through Million Dollar Round Table mentorship, experienced agents mentor junior agents to help them achieve MDRT status. With 2,500-plus New York Life members, New York Life has led MDRT membership for the past 63 years and added members every year — including 58 first-timers in 2017.

In a first for the industry, ICICI Lombard held a joint learning-engagement program for internal employees and external partners together, where business expertise was leveraged to harness the SME potential in the Indian market. This led to an increase of 30 percent in new SME business.

Company size: 6,453 Location: India

23 Emory University Chief Learning Officer recognizes the following organizations for Best Small Company, Best Midsize Company, and the highest scorers in each of the five dimensions considered:

After redesigning its leadership development suite to better align with its talent management strategy, Emory University began implementing a formal process.

Starting at the senior leadership level, the talent management process was strategically deployed both down and across the university.

R’S EDITO E CHOIC DS AWAR

Learning Strategy: Accenture Leadership Commitment: KPMG Learning Execution: AT&T Learning Impact: Janssen: Pharmaceutical Companies for Johnson & Johnson Business Performance Results: Nationwide Best Small Company: Sidley Austin Best Midsize Company: Memorial Health System

24 NIIT In 2017, NIIT’s award-winning Boot Camp — a blended learning program with a residential component for new hires recruited directly after college — was expanded to include all verticals. The program has resulted in reduced time to productivity and higher engagement levels for new hires.

Company size: 2,688 Location: India

25 G4S Secure Solutions (USA) Inc. G4S’ Safety Starts with Me campaign promotes the importance of safety, not simply at work but also at home and play. The new SSWM Video Training Series targets four areas that can reduce safety incidents: slip, trip and falls; vehicle safety; proper lifting; and personal protective equipment.

40 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

Company size: 31,477 Location: U.S.

Company size: 59,000 Location: U.S.

2017 Organization of the Year: Defense Acquisition University 2016 Organization of the Year: Vanguard 2015 Organization of the Year: Qualcomm

26 ATB Financial The learning team at ATB Financial leveraged 483 team members to support more than 5,300 in successfully undertaking a massive transformational change.

The power of the community to support learning is just one example of how ATB is transforming learning, from content creators to experience architects.

Company size: 5,501 Location: Canada

35 UST Global Inc.

27 Bankers Life Bankers Life launched a completely new sales model and new agent training program for 2017. Using new techniques and technologies, the program has saved the company more than $1 million, while significantly improving key new agent sales (12.4 percent) and retention (8.7 percent) metrics.

Company size: 1,361 Location: U.S.

MTM Training strategically partners with executive leadership to achieve organizational goals. MTM Training has successfully aligned its goals with those of the company to significantly decrease attrition, increase quality scores, boost morale and grow business, leading to a net revenue gain of $71 million year over year.

Company size: 2,597 Location: U.S.

Erie Insurance developed and implemented a training program titled Producer OvERdrIvE. This yearlong program created production goals for agents who received coaching, classroom training and advice from high-performing agents, and produced 119 percent above their target during the pilot program.

Company size: 5,318 Location: U.S.

BKD’s L&D team coordinated a 90-minute World Café session for more than 400 conference attendees. Eighty firm leaders facilitated guided discussions at 80 tables on self-management, business acumen, career-life balance and building strategic relationships. The session earned a 97 percent approval rating among participants.

Company size: 2,602 Location: U.S.

Aon is changing expectations of what it means to be a successful leader by asking leaders to participate in a three-day session, which takes them through a highly personal leadership development journey. Aon will see 1,000 of its top leaders complete the program by 2018.

Company size: 50,946 Location: U.K.

In 2017, the FDIC launched an Executive Transition Experience focusing on four key areas to each new executive’s success. When an executive job vacancy is announced, FDIC Corporate University works to create a one-day immersive session tailored to set the new hire on a path to success.

Company size: 6,363 Location: U.S.

In 2017, Hewlett Packard Enterprise revamped its onboarding program for executives. One of the success metrics was the 2.9 percent decline in voluntary attrition, which refers to hiring cost savings of nearly $1.5 million.

In 2017, AAA’s team of 129 L&D professionals served more than 15,000 unique learners and delivered on average 55 hours of formal learning per employee. This was done through support and guidance from AAA University’s Advisory Board, made up of executives from around the organization.

Company size: 13,449 Location: U.S.

In 2017, DaVita combined three onboarding initiatives into a single program: STAR (Select Train and Retain). The STAR program has contributed to a streamlining of training time for new clinical teammates. The current training time is nine weeks, down from 12.7 weeks before the program launched.

Company size: 75,456 Location: U.S.

OptumRx implemented the Vendor Relations Oversight program to drive training quality and consistency with the department’s internal standards and practices at 23 vendors and four offshore sites saving 15 percent in travel expenses and improving level one survey results by 4.4 points on a 7-point scale.

Company size: 230,000 Location: U.S.

Ingalls’ Enhancing Personal Leadership program yielded 93 percent of participants applying safety concepts 60 days after program completion. The program contributed to the business by reducing its total case rate by 16 percent and the lost-time case rate by 11 percent.

Company size: 11,500 Location: U.S.

Company size: 50,000 Location: U.S.

In 2017, Xilinx adopted a companywide social learning platform (Degreed for Xilinx), which was embraced widely by employees. Within 10 months, more than 88 percent of employees had adopted Degreed, completed more than 48,000 learning items and made more than 108,000 recommendations to their colleagues.

34 TELUS International In 2017, TELUS International began to prepare for 20 percent year-over-year business growth. The readiness program is designed to prepare high-potential team leaders and supervisors to become leaders of managers in advance of promotion, creating ready-now leaders.

Company size: 1,733 Location: U.S.

41 Xilinx Inc.

33 Hewlett Packard Enterprise

40 Ingalls Shipbuilding

32 FDIC Corporate University

In 2017, Buckman evaluated its sales onboarding program to decrease time to proficiency as well as time to first sale. Where previously sales associates had to wait until the biannual New Associate Orientation to be onboarded, the new Sales Associate Orientation allowed them to join in within their first 30 days.

39 OptumRx (Learning Services division)

31 Aon

Company size: 16,500 Location: U.S.

38 DaVita Inc.

30 BKD

37 AAA/Automobile Club of Southern California

29 Erie Insurance Group

The PM L3, a five-day program conducted with a high-reality simulator, has exponentially improved the skills and situational leadership of UST Global’s project managers, enabling them to identify new revenue and margin-improvement opportunities in their projects to the tune of $13.37 million last year.

36 Buckman

28 MTM Inc.

ERS WINN E CIRCL

Company size: 30,000 Location: Canada

Company size: 3,900 Location: U.S.

42 OptumRx (Quality Control and Monitoring division) In 2017, OptumRx Quality Control designed a new training program that improves the quality of training developed and delivered. This resulted in a 23 percent reduction in trainee cycle times while raising trainee process accuracy by 1.3 percent to 96.4 percent.

Company size: 13,099 Location: U.S.

Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

41

2018

43 ConServe

52 Visa Inc.

ConServe University delivers a unique and methodical training program encompassing a detailed curriculum for new hires, comprehensive continuous training for all employees and career development instruction. In the past year, ConServe has delivered more than 55,000 hours of training to its employees.

Company size: 780 Location: U.S.

44 Alamo Colleges

Company size: 4,683 Location: U.S.

45 PJ Lhuillier Inc.

Company size: 15,000 Location: U.S.

In 2017, Paycor launched its Ascent New Hire Sales Program, which has since seen a 61.7 percent increase in closed/won deals within the first three months of hire compared with the previous sales onboarding program.

Company size: 1,455 Location: U.S.

54 CVS Health

In 2017, PJ Lhuillier welcomed its ninth batch of employees into the Officer Development Program, a succession initiative to train employees for managerial roles. The program takes a year and includes a mix of on-the-job training, classroom training and experience as an officer-in-charge.

Company size: 7,542 Location: Philippines

46 Mariner Finance

Keeping Learning Alive activities are short (five- to 10-minute) informal trainings and provide ongoing refreshers to colleagues in a fun way that helps them retain what they’ve learned. To date, CVS Health has delivered more than 200 KLA activities with more than 100,000 completions.

Company size: 246,000 Location: U.S.

55 Department of Veterans Affairs Acquisition Academy

In 2017 Mariner Finance integrated and trained 152 new branches. The training consisted of systems, policy and cultural training resulting in more than 20,000 materials and hours completed. A staffed virtual help center eliminates new headcount and resource strain.

Company size: 2,000 Location: U.S.

47 Siemens

In 2017, the VAAA developed and delivered 193 classes (13 percent virtual), nine independent learning courses and 52,720 hours of training to more than 6,200 VA logisticians. The courses address supply chain challenges and have achieved a 4.52/5 course satisfaction rating.

Company size: 360,000 Location: U.S.

56 Qatar Airways

To better support 52,000 employees across diverse business units, Siemens Learning Campus U.S. transformed into a self-funded organization. The result was greater speed, agility and scalability to support business needs, which led to increased employee development and business stakeholder satisfaction.

53 Paycor Inc.

Implementing four disciplines of execution empowered employees to engage and focus on the wildly important goal of increasing degrees and certificates awarded. Results were outstanding, increasing by 244 percent over 10 years — the highest number of any two-year college system in the state.

In 2017, Visa completed the launch of Visa University Digital Campus, which brought together its learning ecosystem and launched its core Leadership and Payments curriculum. Visa attained a utilization rate of 95 percent with more than 13,000 employees engaging in learning activity.

Company size: 351,000 Location: Germany

48 FIS

Company size: 53,000 Location: U.S.

49 Lincoln Financial Group

Company size: 9,000 Location: U.S.

50 Tennessee Valley Authority

Company size: 11,000 Location: U.S.

51 Kimberly-Clark

42 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

Company size: 1,000 Location: U.S.

In 2017, ManTech undertook a strategic initiative to renovate HCM functions.

The project automated more than 35 manual processes previously done on paper. ManTech University led the change management, training and user adoption for more than 7,500 employees.

Company size: 7,500 Location: U.S.

The top 20 percent of users realized a twofold sales increase compared with centers only using the e-learning platform on a limited basis. AAMCO made participating in the e-learning platform a requirement for participation in their national sales contest. Participation was up nearly 20 percent as a result.

Company size: 3,100 Location: U.S.

60 Red Roof Inn Inc.

Kimberly-Clark’s Culture of Coaching program, released in 2016 and continued in 2017, delivered an increase of engagement scores by 3 to 4 percentage points per question within the first 12 months of implementation. This exceeded K-C’s goal of increasing engagement by 1 percent.

In 2017, Procore Technologies moved from a two-and-a-half-day new-hire orientation to a five-day, product and industry-specific orientation program.

Ninety-eight percent of new hires from this new program pass the Procore certification examination at the end of orientation.

59 AAMCO Transmissions and Total Car Care

In FY 2017, TVA implemented a program for high-potentials for director/ general manager-level roles. The program lasted approximately one year with various weeks focused on leadership effectiveness and TVA-specific business acumen. The program also had significant executive sponsorship.

Company size: 43,113 Location: Qatar

58 ManTech International Corp.

In 2016 Lincoln Financial launched its first holistic curriculum for management development, resulting in a 21 to 25 percent increase in critical competency ratings with a NPS score that exceeded the vendor’s benchmark, as well as a 97 percent retention rate of participations and overall higher proportion of promotions.

57 Procore

In 2017, FIS identified 65 employees to take part in Lead, Explore, Aspire, Develop, a global leadership experience that equips future leaders with the transformational skill set required to lead FIS in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world with a dual purpose of creating value for the business.

In 2016 and 2017 the Qatar Airways Talent Development team designed and implemented a professional development program for more than 900 professionals across the group. The complimentary design of a peer observation system and subsequent benchmarking has led to a 12 percent increase in customer satisfaction.

Company size: 43,684 Location: U.S.

In 2017, Red Roof Inn renovated its manager-owner/operator training program in response to attendee feedback. With the new RED Advantage training, franchisees have options in how they complete their training to best fit their organization’s needs.

Company size: 2,500 Location: U.S.

2018

70 AbbVie

61 Caterpillar Financial In 2017, Caterpillar Financial launched a leadership program with three defined pathways to continually develop emerging, existing and experienced leaders. The L&D team took a consistent approach to learning by developing job-role based curricula on a global basis, delivered in the local language on one global platform.

Company size: 2,000 Location: U.S.

In 2017, HP reinvented its leadership development by implementing five new programs, each grounded in growth mindset and new leadership principles.

During 2017, approximately 4,000 out of 5,600 leaders attended an immersive face-to-face development experience.

Company size: 750 Location: Australia

In 2017, Sysco’s L&D team created and launched the MA Accelerator training program, impacting 948 associates and resulting in 3.7 percent sales growth, 3.5 percent GPS growth and 3.1 percent piece growth for associates who attended.

Company size: 65,000 Location: U.S.

In less than 12 months, SWA University successfully trained more than 20,000 Southwest employees on its new Reservation System to replace an outdated (but familiar) technology. This new system allowed additional functionality and required comprehensive online, classroom and on-the-job training for multiple work groups.

Company size: 54,451 Location: U.S.

The sales force development team was formed to support new hires to reduce attrition and increase productivity. The Path to Validation program the team created has reduced attrition by 31 percent and can boast an ROI of 60 percent based on attributable revenue.

Company size: 9,600 Location: U.S.

In 2017, LaSalle Network redesigned its onboarding program with a focus on behavior and performance learning. During the two-week intensive new hire onboarding training, each employee spends 100 hours learning and practicing the hard and soft skills to be successful working at LaSalle.

Company size: 236 Location: U.S.

68 United Nations Development Programme In 2017, UNDP’s Talent Development Unit launched 10 leadership development programs, offering development opportunities to more than 1,200 people working for UNDP around the globe at all levels, most of them based in hardship locations where they need development the most.

Location: France

In 2017, Sachse launched a program combining lecture, presentation and roundtable discussion around the concept of leaders opening doors of opportunity. Participants evaluated their leading skills, and Sachse benchmarked four areas: staff development, customer service, role specific and leadership.

Company size: 161 Location: U.S.

BAYADA needed a new onboarding program for directors. Home Health directors previously attended a live two-day event and returned to the office to put best practices into action. The new blended program combines virtual classrooms, mentor meetings, experiential learning and performance discussions over five months.

Company size: 3,913 Location: U.S.

The USPS converted its Vehicle Maintenance training curriculum to a blended program, incorporating hands-on activities, virtual learning and on-demand access to schematics and tutorials through a virtual interface. The new program format shortened the number of training days from 23 to 13.

Company size: 640,000 Location: U.S.

77 PVH Corp.

In the past year, PVH Corp. has designed and launched three new leadership development programs, including one for front-line leaders, one for midlevel leaders and one focused on leadership coaching skills.

Company size: 35,000 Location: U.S.

Company size: 18,000 Location: U.S.

78 Penske Motor Group

69 T-Mobile U.S. Inc. In 2017, T-Mobile revamped its operation leader readiness program. The new program combines a five-week HiPo program, a one-week intensive boot camp and a four-month, job-embedded continuous development program, all of which is managed through The Hub — a social learning platform based on Pathgather.

Company size: 67,000

76 U.S. Postal Service

67 LaSalle Network

Essilor is committed to acceleration of digital learning by ensuring 67,000 employees have access to its Internal LMS-EssilorU by the end of 2018. It moved from 11,000 in 2015 to 43,000 in 2017. It also aims to add learning hours through blended learning programs.

75 BAYADA Home Health Care

66 HUB International

Company size: 2,400 Location: U.S.

74 Sachse Construction and Development Co.

65 Southwest Airlines

In 2017, SWBC revamped its 3-year-old Emerging Professionals Program, adding professional development opportunities. This program brings early career professionals together to generate ideas and represent SWBC in the community.

As a result, managers reported significant improvement in seven key areas.

73 Essilor

64 Sysco

Company size: 304 Location: U.S.

72 SWBC

In 2017, Data#3 launched a leadership program that started with the 35 most senior leaders in the company. This program hones the emotional intelligence required to lead people effectively through having better conversations, developing a coaching approach to performance and encouraging consistent leadership practices.

In 2017, American Eagle CU rolled out organizational, leader and employee competencies to all employees. There was 100 percent participation in the rollout and inclusion of competencies in all courses.

Company size: 50,000 Location: U.S.

63 Data#3

Company size: 29,000 Location: U.S.

71 American Eagle Financial Credit Union

62 HP Inc.

In 2017, AbbVie launched a global initiative designed to create a deliberately developmental organization in support of driving performance and increasing engagement. More than 46 percent of employees voluntarily engaged in development events and 61 percent of vice presidents participated in teaching roles.

Company size: 55,000 Location: U.S.

In 2017, Penske College had more than 400 optional learning items requested by team members through its learning management system, Penske College Online. This is twice as many as the prior two years combined.

Company size: 1,250

Location: U.S

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industryinsights Future-proof your corporate learning strategy: 4 simple steps to cut through the clutter

By Blackboard

Learning and Development (L&D) leaders know the challenges facing corporate trainers today: shrinking budgets, a dispersed and mobile workforce, evolving business demands, and shifting employee expectations.

Equally daunting is all the research on learning, new teaching methodologies, and endless technology.

Rather than empowering leaders, it can lead to information overload. Employees suffer the same fate.

While access to the information they need to perform their jobs delivers clear benefits, it also has its downsides: distraction, poor time management, and burnout. It’s therefore imperative to cut through the clutter and assess the best path forward.

Here are four simple steps to help you find the right partner and develop a successful learning strategy for your company.

1

Make professional development job one.

It’s not enough for today’s workers to be complimented for “a job well done”. They also value continuous learning and professional development. Centering a training program on this will not only benefit businesses by increasing productivity, it may also reduce turnover.

Workers know that to stay relevant, they’ll need to reinvent themselves constantly, and will look to their employers to help them. It’s important to regularly assess employees’ job satisfaction and align them with solutions that further their companies’ objectives.

• Identify skills gaps and evaluate if graduates have the skills to succeed at your company • Poll supervisors for insights, and jointly develop skill assessments • Ask workers if training meets their needs, what changes they’d like, where they currently go for information, etc.

• Determine the average tenure of your workforce, assess if certain departments have higher attrition, and how you’ll manage future openings

2

Focus on core competencies.

Competency-based education (CBE) is a win-win for both employees and organizations. It enables workers to train at their own pace, while empowering companies to assess mastery and establish quantifiable benchmarks. It offers the personalization that workers demand, and the scalability that businesses need.

Hallmarks of a CBE program include easy access to learning regardless of time, pace, or place, as well as dashboards and visualization tools that allow learners to track their progress. And the benefits to companies are

For more than 20 years, Blackboard has pioneered the way learning is delivered, from K-12 to higher education to the business world. We understand the unique training needs of businesses, supporting more than 1,600 corporate, healthcare, and government clients and 10 million employees worldwide. Blackboard can help you deliver effective content that will have a direct impact on your organization. Learn more: Blackboard.com/business.

clear — from increased proficiency and savings on travel expenses, to reduced productivity loss due to employee absence and more time for coaching and mentoring.

• Determine what learners need to know, think, or be able to do after training • Assess how your program supports desired outcomes, and identify gaps • Evaluate trainee performance, identify strengths and areas for growth • Choose a partner that possesses both a technological platform to support CBE, and L&D expertise

3

Create engaging experiences.

For today’s learners, it’s all about tailoring experiences to their interests and needs. While it can be tempting to go with an exclusively online solution, studies show that a blended approach is more successful. Develop a comprehensive program that includes online, mobile, and in-person training, and create “engaging experiences” that span all forms of learning.

• Design content that can be immediately applied • Use real-world scenarios to allow people to practice what they learn • Leverage peer-to-peer learning by connecting mentors with more junior employees online • Incorporate multimedia elements (such as video and gamification)

4

Choose a partner, not a piece of technology.

L&D leaders shouldn’t be bogged down with connecting “this system” for content, “that system” for delivery. They should be free to focus on the information and skills required for employees to succeed, and let their partner do the heavy lifting.

Consider the benefit of a partner that offers leadingedge technology, and understands the intricacies of education and your industry. They understand the needs of both learners and instructors, are well versed on new learning strategies, offer a customizable platform, provide a wealth of resources, and may even be familiar to your workers (e.g., Blackboard’s experience within the university sector means employees may have already used our solutions).

Choose a scalable, platform that:

enterprise-grade

technology

• ensures consistency, permitting updates from a central control point.

• provides access from anywhere with an Internet connection.

• integrates tools into a single portal.

• provides blended learning with experiential practice, group collaboration, learner preparation, and instructor feedback.å • enables scheduling and managing courses, classrooms, and webinars outside the learning management system (LMS).

• tracks learner progress.

• improves reporting process.

Working with an experienced partner who offers a comprehensive solution, understands the business of learning, and demonstrates a commitment to customer service, frees up L&D leaders to focus on their core mission: training and retaining a productive workforce.

Blackboard can help.

Learn more: blackboard.com/business

industryinsights DeVryWORKS on Meeting the Challenge of Digital Fluency CEO of DeVryWORKS Joe Mozden Outlines the Intersection of Business Strategy and Talent Development

By Adina Sapp

Research from Forrester shows that 50 percent of CEOs expect that by 2020 nearly half of all revenue will come from digital business. This is up from 20 percent just a few years ago. The report projects that: “As risk to existing revenue streams becomes apparent, companies will begin making a panicked effort to attract digital talent.”

a solution to business problems, rather than something to be bolted on as an afterthought, Mozden says.

Expanding on this research and the theme of a panel discussion from DeVryWORKS titled “Digital Fluency in the Workplace,” Joe Mozden urges L&D leaders to not delay in kicking off digital strategies and digital methodologies. Technology is integral to the current business landscape, and we must act rather than getting bogged down in overplanning. “The most important thing is to start,” he says, “and then modify as you go.”

When we think of digital comprising 50 percent of business going forward, it’s important to recognize this isn’t just hard skills like coding and programming; digital will be engrained in all business. Universities need to prepare to meet this need.

Kick Off and Lead a Strategic Plan Often, overplanning holds people back from implementing digital strategies and methodologies.

“There’s an obsession with planning, and I say this as a former engineer,” Mozden says. “But the desire to have the ultimate plan that accounts for all aspects of what’s going to happen can be self-defeating; as soon as you have your plan, it’s outdated.”

Instead, Mozden suggests developing a one- to twoyear view that gives the workforce a common vision and set of goals. “The execution of that overarching strategic plan, however, is where you just need to kick the ball and start the game.”

Fear of making a poor investment in technology is another thing that holds leaders back. “They worry that what they buy today will be outdated in six months. But that prevents them from making decisions and getting involved,” Mozden says. Good leaders must be willing to take risks in the service of a desired end state.

Going forward, leaders who are best equipped are those who have digital fluency engrained in the way they think and operate. Technology is a toolset to leverage as

On the other hand, a successful plan doesn’t necessarily mean revolutionary change. Sometimes it just means incrementally improving something that is already good.

Revolutionize the Learning Modality

Seventy-five percent of all hiring managers feel that digital skills are a competitive differentiator, Mozden notes. DeVry is working to integrate these skills to prepare students for what employers need.

For education to be useful, it must teach students how to use and learn new technologies, rather than simply teaching a specific set of software and hardware. Skills are outdated as new technologies arrive on the scene, so it is the ability to learn that is important, along with being able to analyze data and utilize digital tools to solve business problems.

Also, digital fluency must be incorporated into all disciplines. DeVry integrates digital, experiential learning so graduates have the necessary business skills and digital fluency, regardless of the field. The focus is on people, processes, data and devices, along with the core competencies that bring those elements to life.

The modality of education must also be conducive to the workplace and client set. Classroom learning won’t resonate for many students and employers going forward. For many of those who are already in the workplace, learning new skills through evening coursework is unrealistic. “That modality, though effective, is not conducive to the workplace, where people have five- to 30-minute chunks available. Historically, content

At DeVryWORKS, we understand that some of the biggest challenges for any business are related to the workforce—hiring skilled people, retaining strong talent, and developing the leaders of tomorrow. DeVryWORKS seeks to truly understand your company’s talent strategies and goals, so we can help you build a brilliant workforce and drive success across your organization. Look to us as the resource you need to support your talent development, skills gap training and talent acquisition initiatives.devryworks.com

is organized by program and course. What employers (and students) are telling DeVryWORKS is that they want building blocks of content that are more consumable in smaller bites and more applicable to the business,” Mozden says. “Think of it like Lego blocks. For the most part, content doesn’t yet exist in this format, so this has been a big focus at DeVryWORKS. We’re providing employers with these little bites to fill their skills gap needs.”

DeVry is in the early stages of enabling employers and students to work together on this career-pathing, and the collaborative approach is something employers want and are working toward.

1

Fenwick, N. (2015). The State of Digital Business 2016 to 2020. Forrester.

Partnership As L&D leaders and business leaders, we are working together on this exciting journey. As we progress, the goal is not to become digitally fluent, but to make better business decisions leveraging digital fluency. The skills gap can only be bridged by organizations and universities working to marry digital skills with business acumen.

Learn more at devryworks.devry.edu. Check out the panel discussion from DeVryWORKS, “Digital Fluency in the Workplace,” hosted by Chief Learning Officer at http://player.clomedia.com/watch/ dS7XNLdkEYQGpYrPa99ghQ?.

48 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

An organization’s greatest asset is its team members — and their authentic connection.

BY BARRY K APL AN AND JEFF MANCHESTER

M

any of our coaching engagements are what we call “well work” — with teams that are performing well, getting along and highly functional. Why are we consulted when something isn’t broken? There is significant potential for teams beyond being highly functional.

We’re invited to get them to the next level of their development and growth — to become an authentic team. Our secret code is simple: Share a bit of humanity so your teammates see you as a real person, not just someone who fills a role.

To connect on a human level, being able and willing to express emotion and vulnerability is paramount. Colleagues may admire your intellect, appreciate your experience and rely on your expertise; however, they will trust you when they connect to your humanity, the part of you that lies beyond your professional skills.

Let them in to the fragile, even raw, parts of yourself that you have learned to keep intimate. Yes, it’s awkward and scary: That’s the point. Your head tells you to hold back. So, why take the risk? For the opportunity to forge a bond of trust and a deep, authentic connection. By showing your vulnerability, you demonstrate the courage to be a whole person — someone who stretches beyond the limits of aptitude and productivity.

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Most of us do our best to compartmentalize the different aspects of our lives. But the truth is, compartmentalization creates isolation — we isolate ourselves with our challenges. You never feel supported or deeply connected with other team members because they don’t have a clue what’s going on with you.

We recently led a team offsite for a regional sporting goods firm, and one of the team members revealed that they had gotten engaged six months ago. The team didn’t even know. As it turns out, people withhold all kinds of information, not just their struggles but also their joys.

The gift you bring to your team is you. And what makes you different from every other person sitting in a room with you is your story. For us to truly know one another, we have to understand each other’s stories. We’re not talking about what’s in your résumé or your company bio. We mean the life-shaping experiences that have formed your values, inspired your sense of purpose, fueled your determination and created the unique matrix from which you evaluate choices and make decisions.

Sharing Your Story Without exception, everyone’s story has been shaped by positive and negative events. Often, our most poignant experiences are the challenges that have forced us to grow.

At the team offsites we lead, we begin with a simple, though-provoking request: share five life-shaping experiences that have made you the person you are. We then share our own lifeshapers, which serve as a model for the kinds of experiences to share and help the participants connect with us as real people, not just coaches.

Our sharing helps them find the courage to delve into their own stories.

The exercise is an invitation for others to see you through your unique lens. It rarely unfolds without tears, jubilation, inspiration and, most important, appreciation of the human condition.

Everyone’s stories are sacred.

Have you ever sized up another person in 30 seconds? Are you certain you’re on target? What’s amazing is how listening to someone’s story often replaces the old version of the story you may have told yourself or made up about that person.

It’s human nature to fill in the blanks. We bring closure to things that are open because we dislike uncertainty. Although this survival skill is useful in certain circumstances, it is harmful when you are trying to build relationships and trust with co-workers. To truly connect, you need the real story from the only person who can tell it.

50 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

When you share your story, connect to the narrative through emotion — express your feelings with both words and nonverbal energy. Share how your story impacts you, your family and your vocation. When you speak about your life-shaping events, your emotional connection to those events and why they have been significant in informing who you have become as a leader and person, your listeners will be attracted to the “real” you.

What Success Looks Like Andre, one of our coaching clients, built a successful auto parts distribution business he started from his garage while working two jobs. He lost his father at age 11 and worked his way through high school and college while staying close to home, as he was a surrogate father for his three younger siblings. He skipped most of his boyhood and found it difficult to connect with many people. He preferred to keep his nonwork life private.

When we met Andre, he was single and chose to live near his elderly mother.

By showing your vulnerability, you demonstrate the courage to be a whole person who stretches beyond aptitude and productivity.

We worked with Andre one-on-one for six months before he asked us to help develop a new leadership structure at his company intended to help the team come together to meet the growing needs of his business and fulfill its potential.

Based on our coaching work with Andre, we knew his story and were acutely aware of his discomfort in opening up about it. The organizational structure was the easy part. He had solid people who filled the slots. Helping the team come together was the challenge. We had earned Andre’s trust, so he gave us the green light to facilitate a three-day leadership retreat in the mountains.

We left the city early in the morning and kicked off the retreat before lunch. We used the first few hours to gently and slowly create a feeling of safety among the team members. We opted

When the industry evolves, so do our people.

At AT&T, we put our people first. We’re proud to receive the Editor’s Choice – Learning Execution Award as a top five CLO LearningElite finalist for our dedication to reskilling our employees.

Our steadfast commitment to employee learning equips our people with the skills to thrive in an ever-changing industry.

Learn more at att/jobs.

© 2018 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved.

All marks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

for an early, informal dinner outside and then gathered around in a circle with a roaring fire.

We asked each person to share five life-shaping experiences and then modeled our stories for the group. There was immediate awe, appreciation, connection and anticipation.

“Who’s next?” we asked.

Seth, the operations chief, raised his hand. His story was about losing his twin brother in an accident just before high school graduation; it brought all of us to tears. Amazingly, no one on his team had known about it. What was equally amazing was how relieved he was to share the story.

This information helped the team understand why Seth never misses his twin sons’ hockey and baseball games.

To our surprise, Andre stepped up next and shared — for the first time — his story about the sudden loss of his father and how it informed his growing years. He cried. Everyone cried. We sat for 20 minutes. Then, Andre accepted warm hugs from each of his team members.

In all, it was a breakthrough night of connection and sharing that catalyzed a major shift in how the team would coalesce.

After connecting with everyone’s life-shaping experiences, teams form a bond that forever changes how they see one another. You might begin to understand your colleagues’ decision-making processes and the motivations behind their ideas and positions. This doesn’t mean you won’t have differences of opinion. On the contrary, taking trust to a much higher level allows for more expression of dissenting opinions.

Sharing stories also allows you to feel seen as a real person in addition to the function you perform or role you play at work. You are no longer isolated or alone. You may recognize that others have struggles similar to yours. Before sharing stories, our field of vision is limited; we see only the function someone has behind a desk, performing tasks. The work flows and the goals are met, so all is good. Yet you are leaving enormous capacity to create and energy to collaborate on the sideline.

By inviting people to share their whole selves, with all their experience and wisdom, the team can be better than “good.”

Sharing life-shaping experiences is one tactic that will take your team to a deeper level of trust. But trust isn’t an event — it requires ongoing commitment.

Creating Connection Don’t wait for an offsite. You can create shared experiences every day in simple ways.

Consider a daily huddle as the first opportunity 52 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

Have you ever sized up another person in 30 seconds? Are you certain you’re on target? in the morning, even if it’s a five-minute standing connection. End the huddle with a team mantra that becomes a ritual and, ultimately, a shared experience. Utilize weekly meetings to include something personal, like a quick story or update, so you continue to reinforce the holistic nature of the relationships you’re cocreating.

Sure, it’s business. But part of business is getting to know the people you work with. So, find ways to keep connections alive. The more you connect and the deeper you explore together, the greater the return on building trust and, ultimately, your power as a team.

Andre, Seth and the rest of the team left the mountain retreat connected and energized. They started more or less as strangers, merely working together, and left appreciating each other as individuals with unique stories.

Understanding leads to support and empathy for one another. The marketing executive may be quicker to get the accounting executive the information she requested because he views the task as being helpful to a teammate rather than as a chore.

You are no longer merely co-workers in a functional workgroup; you are teammates on a winning team. Rather than completing a task simply because it is in your job description, you are more likely to go above and beyond because you want to help your teammate succeed. Chances are that teammate will reciprocate and others will follow suit. The power becomes generative.

The exciting news is that this is low-hanging fruit for most management teams. The team doesn’t have to look for more investors to make it happen. You don’t need ideal market conditions.

All you have to do is make the commitment to mine this extra fertile turf. The true power comes from the authentic connection of your team. CLO Barry Kaplan and Jeff Manchester are partners at executive coaching provider Shift 180 and co-authors of “The Power of Vulnerability: How to Create a Team of Leaders by Shifting INward.” They can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

COMPREHENSIVE. CONNECTED. CONVENIENT. WORKFORCE DATA FOR YOUR NEEDS

TALENT TRACKER: AN ANALYTICS SERVICE FOR TALENT

thetalenttracker.com

W

hat lessons can we learn from the world’s greatest entrepreneurs? Fall 2018 CLO Symposium Keynote Guy Raz is uniquely qualified to answer this question. As host, co-creator and editorial director of three NPR podcasts, including two of its most popular, “TED Radio Hour” and “How I Built This,” Raz is heard by more than 14 million people around the world each month. He joined NPR in 1997 as an intern and has worked virtually every job in the newsroom from temporary production assistant to foreign correspondent to breaking news anchor. In that time, through interviews with more than 6,000 personalities, Raz has met some of the most successful storytellers, politicians and innovators of our time.

ARE THERE CERTAIN QUALITIES THAT SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEURS SHARE? There is a lot of mythology about the entrepreneur as superhero.

What I try to do on my program is to demystify that narrative.

Every single person has the capacity to take risks, to believe in an idea deeply, to maintain optimism, to pivot when necessary and to fail fast. The only difference between a successful entrepreneur and anyone else is making the attempt. Successful entrepreneurs say “I will” rather than “I wish.”

as few ingredients as possible and experiment with a new energy bar. She went home, took out her food processor and processed cashews and dates in that Cuisinart. She shaped that gooey mess into a bar. For two years, she quietly worked to perfect her recipe. In order to learn the natural foods biz, she got a job as a checkout clerk at Whole Foods. Eventually, she convinced the store manager to let her demo her “Larabars” and the rest is, well, it’s the story of Lara Merriken and Larabar.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BIGGEST OBSTACLES PEOPLE FACE WHEN IT COMES TO BEING INNOVATIVE AND TAKING RISKS? The single biggest obstacle is psychological. Yes, there are practical obstacles (children, savings, finances) and these are very real. But being innovative and taking risks doesn’t mean throwing everything you have on the line. Risk mitigation means starting small and having a back-up plan. Innovation is the product of experimentation and failure. Failure and innovation are two sides of the same coin. And in order to innovate, you have to be willing to make mistakes and fail.

IN YOUR INTERVIEWS AND PROFILES, YOU’VE NO DOUBT HEARD MANY SUCCESS STORIES. HAVE YOU HEARD ANY INSPIRING “FAILURE STORIES”?

Almost every episode contains examples of failure. Joe Gebbia from AirBnb thought his business was a major failure in 2009 when only one person signed up to stay at an AirBnb in Austin at South by Southwest. He went back to San Francisco feeling pretty miserable until he received feedback from that one customer. The user complained that he had to pay the apartment owner directly and it felt awkward. But from that one complaint, Gebbia and his team pivoted and decided to make AirBnb transactions frictionless.

WHAT IS YOUR NO. 1 PIECE OF CAREER ADVICE? Find mentors, learn from them and then pay it forward. My No.1 criteria for who I work with is this: are you kind? That matters more than any other attribute.

HOW CAN AN ORGANIZATION AND ITS LEADERS ENCOURAGE “ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT” IN THE WORKPLACE? By giving up on wanting to control everything. Big companies (and even small ones) are afraid to give their employees the kind of freedom that breeds creativity and innovation. And once leaders take the decision to let go, innovation almost always follows. And employees who are trusted to make decisions without asking for permission are more motivated, loyal and creative.

DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE ANECDOTE OR LESSON SHARED WITH YOU BY AN INTERVIEWEE? I have so many but I’ll leave you with this one: Lara Merriken was 32, unemployed and broke. She loved hiking but hated the sugary “trail snacks.” So one day, she had an epiphany — take

Register today at www.CLOsymposium.com

56 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

TACKLING THE

QUALITY LEADERSHIP

CHALLENGE Boosting female representation can help close the leadership talent gap.

BY MICHAEL F. TUCKER

C

ompanies throughout the world feel the pressing need for more effective global leadership. Studies show organizations do not have the global leaders needed to keep up with the speed of business, nor are they satisfied with the quality of their leaders.

In short, they do not have current leadership or the bench strength to meet future business needs.

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One way for learning leaders to help close this gap is to include more women more quickly in leadership roles. Yet, this is not happening to the extent required to meet demand.

While the number of female CEOs at Fortune 500 companies is rising, they still only constitute 5.4 percent. A recent study by Grant Thornton, “Women in Business: Turning Promise Into Practice,” showed that one-third of global businesses had no women in senior management roles as of 2017 and that this had not changed since 2011.

A 2016 comprehensive study by Mercer, “When Women Thrive, Businesses Thrive,” showed that women make up only 35 percent of the average company’s workforce at the professional level and above and that female representation declines as career level rises.

How can CLOs help leaders — both male and female — develop at a deeper level, personalized to their specific needs?

Additionally, a 2012 McKinsey & Co. article, “The Global Gender Agenda,” reported that, “While the vast majority of organizations in developed economies are striving to unlock the potential of women in the workforce, many executives remain frustrated they have not made more immediate and substantial progress.”

One obstacle to this progress may be the assumption that women do not have the same level of competency as men in leading across cultures.

According to the Mercer study, “Leadership competencies are often more closely aligned with the relative strengths of men than women.”

What follows is strong evidence disputing this global leadership competency assumption.

Global Leadership Competencies That Matter Most In 2014, my organization, Tucker International, published a peer-reviewed study of 1,880 global leaders representing nine nationalities titled “Leading Across Cultures in the Human Age: An Empirical Investigation of Intercultural Competency Among Global Leaders.” One-third of these leaders were women. Nationalities included 58 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

American, Australian, Belgian, British, Canadian, Chinese, French, German and Indian. These leaders were screened to only include those with top executive responsibility for their organizations; profit and loss responsibility; and responsibility for a group of businesses or top executive responsibility for their business function.

Global leadership success among these leaders was measured by their ability to drive performance, build team effectiveness and network globally. A set of nine intercultural competencies were measured, which successfully predicted leadership success over time. These competencies were grouped into three broad categories — world view, situational approach and social/interpersonal style.

World View • Open-Mindedness: Being receptive to and nonjudgmental of the ideas and ways of other countries, cultures and ethnic groups and demonstrating respect for diverse spiritual and political beliefs.

• Lifetime Learning: A pattern of learning over time, including reading newspapers and periodicals (in print or electronically), viewing national and international news broadcasts, and attending formal learning sessions.

Situational Approach • Patience: The ability to be patient in the face of unanticipated delays or frustrating situations and with people who do not meet expectations of time.

• Even Disposition: The ability to remain calm, exhibit a good sense of humor, not be too critical of oneself and learn from mistakes.

• Navigating Ambiguity: The ability to see through vagueness and uncertainty, not become overly frustrated and eventually figure out how things are done. Taking the initiative and leading through difficult situations.

• Locus of Control: The belief that one’s own actions and abilities play a direct role in the process and outcome of the events in life instead of relying on fate, luck or circumstance. Taking responsibility for actions.

• Demonstrating Creativity: Enjoying new challenges, striving for innovative solutions to social and situational issues, and the ability to see around corners, predict outcomes and act despite uncertainty.

Social/Interpersonal Style • Adapting Socially: Being comfortable in new and unfamiliar social settings, seeking out and enjoying diverse groups of people and showing genuine interest in others.

• Instilling Trust: Valuing trust, being seen as

FIGURE 1: THE HORIZONTAL/VERTICAL MODEL This model originally appeared in “Horizontal and Vertical: Meeting the Global Talent Challenge” by Michael F. Tucker and Lori Tucker-Eccher.

1. Behavior goals 2. Behaviors which work against the goals 3. Hidden competing commitments 4. Big assumptions Vertical behavior change mapping

Open-minded Lifetime learning Patience

Even disposition Locus of control Navigating ambiguity

Demonstrating creativity Adapting socially Instilling trust

Horizontal competencies

someone who can be trusted and building trusting relationships.

Significance tests were conducted on these competencies between the men and women leaders. Women scored higher than men in Open-Mindedness and Adapting Socially. Men scored higher than women in Even Disposition.

There were no differences among scores for the other six competencies.

Based on these results, the argument that women may fall short of the level of global leadership competencies demonstrated by their male counterparts falls flat.

Targeting Select Competencies How can CLOs help leaders — both male and female — develop at a deeper level, personalized to their specific needs? This often begins with a horizontal competency assessment, where a leader is assessed against specific competencies deemed essential for success. However, horizontal development only goes so far.

Enter vertical behavior change mapping. Once a leader’s horizontal competency assessment has been conducted, a behavior change map can be created. The full process is represented by The Horizontal/Vertical Model shown in Figure 1.

Consider the following case study to illustrate how this model works by focusing on the Even Disposition competency.

Adriana, a leader with the European Space Agency, completed an assessment as part of her participation in the International Project Management Program at the Kennedy Space Center.

She was surprised to see her score was below the norm on Even Disposition. She had assumed her leadership style, which emphasized technology and achieving project plans on time and on budget, was successful and appreciated by her international team.

Adriana discussed this issue with several close members of her team. They were reluctant to explain how her disposition had negatively affected team effectiveness given her outstanding capabilities in the important technologies of the project.

After assuring them that she truly was concerned about how she appeared to them in critical times of urgency, they explained that she sometimes overreacted and showed frustration, which interfered with team effectiveness.

Working with a coach, Adriana created the behavior change map shown in Figure 2.

QUALITY continued on page 64 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

59

Case Study

L’Oréal’s Brandstorm Challenge

BY SARAH FISTER GALE

I

n March 2018, more than 31,000 students from across the globe uploaded video pitches to Brandstorm, L’Oréal’s annual competition to disrupt the beauty industry. This year’s challenge: Invent the professional salon experience of the future.

The $32 billion global cosmetics giant has hosted Brandstorm for 26 years as a way to introduce students to L’Oréal’s culture and way of working. But it’s more than just an elaborate and expensive recruiting tool. Brandstorm has become a vital learning path for both students and employees, according to Carole Pasco-Domergue, L’Oréal’s chief marketing officer for global HR in Paris. “One of the key objectives of Brandstorm is to contribute to the development of young talent,” she said. “There are multiple learning touchpoints throughout the entire experience.”

Kicking Off the Competition Every January, L’Oréal posts a new Brandstorm challenge and invites teams of three students to create a pitch for an idea, then upload it to the site in March. The company promotes the competition at campus events, in classroom talks, on its website and via social media. L’Oréal leaders review the submissions and the top 10 to 12 teams in each country move on to the semifinals.

The winners of that round spend April honing their ideas with support from a L’Oréal employee mentor and through access to more than 70 online courses specifically designed for Brandstorm that cover everything from marketing and speaking techniques to relevant industry trends.

The online courses and coaching are essential to the students’ experience. “They all come to Brandstorm with different skills and expertise,” said Sumita Banerjee, head of talent acquisition for L’Oréal USA in New York. Providing them with a variety of training options on the skills they need to deliver a winning presentation that is relevant to the company ensures every team has the same chances for success. “It levels the playing field.”

In 2016, Cookie Guck was one of those students.

Guck first learned about Brandstorm as a junior at the University of Texas in Austin when a L’Oréal representative and some of the company’s recent hires spoke in 60 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

SNAPSHOT L’Oréal uses an annual competition to teach students about its entrepreneurial culture and find the best new talent.

one of her marketing classes. She put together a team to address the 2016 challenge — to create a marketing strategy targeting millennials.

Guck’s team came up with an idea for an artificial intelligence app named Claire that would introduce young consumers to L’Oréal products through interactive AI bots representing three target customers: a high school student, a college student and a young adult.

“AI was still science fiction back then, so we had to figure out how to explain it in a way that was meaningful,” Guck said. They put together a five-minute pitch, which they presented to a campus recruiting rep (the digital pitches began in 2017).

Their idea helped them make it to the semifinals, where they had a month to expand it into a 15-minute pitch that they presented to L’Oréal executives in New York. April acts as a mini accelerator program, where students flesh out their ideas and get ready to pitch them to the executives, Banerjee said. “It’s amazing to see how the students come to life.”

Mentors and Champions In April, the mentoring moves into full swing, and Banerjee makes sure all of the mentors are well prepared to guide the students to success.

Every year, each country chooses six to 10 mentors from the department that is aligned with that year’s theme. Banerjee’s team works with managers to identify the best candidates based on their demonstrated willingness to help others and to be a brand ambassador. Those employees receive informal one-on-one training from her staff on how to be a good coach, what’s expected of them and how to guide the students in delivering the best presentation they can. They also receive a brief on each teammate and what skills and education they bring to the table.

Being chosen as a mentor is considered an honor

among employees. “It is an opportunity for them to share their own story and experiences with someone else,” Banerjee said. “It’s a big part of what makes Brandstorm interesting for participants.”

Banerjee also makes sure all of the judges in each country get training on how to judge the presentations based on very specific weighted criteria, including presentation skills, originality and relevance of the idea, and how it aligns with the goals of the theme. “This ensures all the best teams make it to Paris,” Banerjee said.

The Final Round Guck’s team was assigned a L’Oréal mentor along with a coach from a partnering ad agency to help them refine the pitch. In the original presentation they focused on the mechanics of the idea — how consumers would interact with the app via different touchpoints — but their mentor encouraged them to focus more on storytelling and demonstrating how the app would engage with consumers. “She also helped us think about the questions the judges would ask and how we could fine-tune our presentation by going into more detail,” Guck said.

Her team also took advantage of the online courses to better understand L’Oréal’s specific skin care market and to learn how to deliver better presentations. “The e-learning was really beneficial in helping us understand what the leaders would look for from us,” she said.

Their pitch was selected as a finalist, and in May 2016, Guck’s team, along with hundreds of other winners from 58 countries, was flown to Paris for the Brandstorm finals where three teams would be named the winners and awarded prizes for business innovation, digital innovation and CSR innovation. In Paris, students continue to receive support from their mentors and through workshops — also introduced in 2017 — that cover beauty trends, techniques for pitching ideas and how to create a digital strategy.

“The workshops are designed to help them answer questions they will be asked in the pitching process,” Pasco-Domergue said.

This final prep ensures the students can confidently present their ideas to the L’Oréal executives who make the final decisions. It’s also the ultimate culmination of the learning process, Pasco-Domergue said. “By the end of the program the students have essentially learned how to launch a new product.”

Guck agreed. She said that working with a mentor and immersing herself in the L’Oréal culture and way of doing business helped her hone her marketing skills and prepared her for life in the workplace. “Participating in Brandstorm made me a better presenter and more confident speaking off the cuff,” she said.

While her team didn’t win, in November she was invited for a job interview and ultimately landed a position at L’Oréal as a marketing associate in the management development program. Even though her role is in fragrances rather than skin care, where she did most of her Brandstorm research, she said that her first months on the job felt like a repeat of the competition.

She was put on a team and given six weeks to develop a marketing strategy for that division — and this time she knew exactly what to do.

“It gives them great exposure to what it’s like to work at L’Oréal.”

— Sumita Banerjee, head of talent acquisition, L’Oréal USA “Brandstorm taught me how to find the information quickly, and to understand what I needed to know right away and what I could learn later on,” she said. “I really felt prepared.”

The ROI of Brandstorm Many Brandstorm participants are eventually hired

by L’Oréal — though many more take the experience to other companies, which begs the question: Is it worth the time and money to host this annual event?

L’Oréal leadership think so.

“These aren’t just your average recruits,” said Pasco-Domergue. The pitching process helps identify top talent from a diversity of schools and immerse them in the L’Oréal experience, where they learn about the company and connect with employees. “It gives them great exposure to what it’s like to work at L’Oréal in an authentic way,” Banerjee said.

For those who are hired, Brandstorm acts as a new-hire boot camp, teaching them about the entrepreneurial approach to work at L’Oréal and ensuring they have a baseline understanding of market trends.

“It’s like they have been working for us for years,” Pasco-Domergue said. “They are already engaged and happy to be here.”

Even if students aren’t hired, Brandstorm is an incredible learning experience and gives students the opportunity to learn about who the company is and how it works. “That turns them into advocates for the brand,” Pasco-Domergue said. “You can’t achieve that from a campus recruiting fair.” CLO Sarah Fister Gale is a writer based in Chicago. To comment, email editor@CLOmedia.com.

Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

61

Business Intelligence

Measuring Up the Elite Several years of data from the world’s best companies for learning and development reveal a focus on efficiency and high-performance spending.

M

oney matters when it comes to a high-performing learning organization. Getting the budget to analyze needs, develop programs and seize opportunities shouldn’t be underestimated as a key to success.

But the size of the learning budget matters less than the precision with which L&D deploys it.

A look at several years’ worth of data from the Chief Learning Officer LearningElite, the magazine’s annual list of high-performing learning organizations, reveals that the best learning organizations focus on efficiency.

(Note: A full report of these findings is available at www.learningelite.CLOmedia.com.)

Since 2011, the LearningElite has ranked and benchmarked organizations that employ effective workforce development strategies to deliver business results.

Developed under the guidance of a group of experienced chief learning officers, the program evaluates organizations based on learning delivery, business impact, executive support and leadership development.

According to that data, the majority of companies with a high-performing learning organization spend less than 1 percent of their operational budget on learning (Fig. 1). This level of spending has been consistent since 2012, with some fluctuation in actual spending levels.

In 2017, the number of companies spending more than 5 percent of operational budget on learning sank to its lowest level yet (12.8 percent), showing just how important efficiency in spending is to organizations.

That focus on efficiency carries through when examining the average amount spent per learner (Fig. 2). The majority of learning organizations (61 percent) spend less than $1,000. Only one quarter of companies ranked on the LearningElite spend more than $2,000 per learner. This level of spending has remained remarkably stable over several years with only slight variations year over year, indicating this level of spending as a benchmark for 62 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

high-performing learning organizations.

As might be expected, organizations with a larger learning budget are more likely to score high on strategic competence. Organizations that had a budget of more than $100 million for learning scored highest on a 5-point scale for learning strategy. Getting the learning organization funded, especially on a large scale, comes through a demonstration of solid business acumen and a commitment to delivering value. That credibility can take years to build.

Increasingly, that credibility also comes from looking at learning as a valuable business asset that can be deployed beyond the confines of the organization. A growing number of elite companies for learning and development (73 percent in 2017) also deliver learning to an extended enterprise of customers, suppliers and business partners. One in four high-performing learning organizations engage with clients and deliver learning to customers.

Regardless of the audience and end user for learning, what remains consistent is a focus on delivering against key indicators of business impact (Figs 3 & 4). For example, the ability to recruit and retain essential employees remains as a top driver of impact as the job market continues to tighten and organizations compete for workers with in-demand skills. Other key performance indicators include operational efficiency metrics as well as customer indicators such as Net Promoter Score.

That relentless focus on delivering what is valuable to the company is what sets elite learning organizations apart. Money isn’t everything. It’s what the learning organization does with it that matters most. CLO Mike Prokopeak is vice president and editor in chief at Chief Learning Officer magazine. He can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.

Figures’ Source: 2017 LearningElite Best Practices and Benchmarking Report

BY MIKE PROKOPEAK

FIGURE 1: AMOUNT OF BUDGET SPENT ON LEARNING

Percentage of respondents

> 5%

1–5%

< 1% 51.7%

61.2% 55.3%

52.0%

55.3%

28.9%

26.0% 22.0%

25.9%

23.4%

24.1%

12.9%

2013

29.8%

24.1%

21.3%

15.8%

2012

57.4%

2014

12.8%

2015

2016

2017

FIGURE 2: SPENDING PER LEARNER

Percentage of respondents

>$2,000

$1,000–$2,000

$500–$1,000

< $500 51.4%

49.2% 32.0%

27.7%

26.0%

23.3% 23.3%

21.0% 21.0%

2012

46.3%

41.7%

36.2%

24.6% 15.4%

26.4%

25.4%

13.9%

14.9%

19.1% 17.0%

11.7%

10.8%

8.3%

2013

2014

2015

2016

13.4%

2017

FIGURE 3: KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS FOR BUSINESS IMPACT (A) Net Promoter Score

Cycle time reduction or improvement

Percentage of respondents

Ability to recruit essential employees

Increase in overall profitability

Increased quality of products or services 80.6%

68.3%

70.4%

60.0%

60.6% 60.6% 56.3%

56.7% 55.0%

68.7%

65.8% 60.3% 58.9%

58.2%

56.2%

56.7% 46.3%

43.8% 39.4%

33.3%

2014

2015

2016

2017

FIGURE 4: KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS FOR BUSINESS IMPACT (B) Increase sales or revenues Increased customer satisfaction

Ability to retain essential employees

Productivity improvement

Employee satisfaction with the organization

Percentage of respondents

95.9% 86.7% 81.7% 81.7% 78.3% 73.2%

90.1% 84.5% 81.7% 80.3%

79.5% 79.5% 78.1%

73.2%

85.1% 80.6% 80.6% 76.1% 68.7%

60.3%

2014

2015

2016

2017

Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

63

QUALITY continued from page 59

Behavior Change Map: Even Disposition Successful global leaders can maintain an even disposition under a variety of conditions. In difficult or confusing situations they remain calm, exhibit a good sense of humor and allow for mistakes by themselves and others.

Adriana and her coach confirmed that she was indeed engaged in the behaviors present in row 2.

They then decided on the behavior goals listed in row one. However, just listing these goals (as is done in so many other development programs) does not achieve lasting behavior change. Addition-

al steps of mental complexity are required.

Adriana’s behavior in row two was being driven by her hidden commitments in row three, and these, in turn, were based on her assumptions in row four. The circular nature of rows two, three and four are what authors Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey call an “immunity to change.”

Immunity was built up over time as Adriana’s disruptive style was reinforced by what she thought was consistent with her assumptions and hidden commitments. Only by deep introspection, working through the mapping process and committing

Figure 2: Adriana’s behavior change map 1 Behavior goals (visible commitments)

I need to display a calm demeanor during difficult or stressful situations.

I can do this by: • Recognizing when I am feeling anxiety or frustration and learning and applying various relaxation techniques before taking action.

I need to enjoy and utilize humor during stressful situations. I can do this by: • Enjoying and laughing when others bring humor into stressful situations.

• Bringing humor into difficult situations and lightening the mood for my team.

I need to create an environment where mistakes are allowed. I can do this by: • Admitting my own mistakes with a sense of humor.

• Not overreacting to other’s mistakes.

2 Doing/not doing instead (behaviors that work against the goal)

• When things go wrong, I can overreact.

• I can get frustrated when others use humor during times of great stress.

• I am hard on myself and get angry when I make a mistake.

• My work demeanor is very serious and I intend for it to be that way.

• I don’t use or enjoy humor often.

3 Hidden commitments that compete with goals

• Utilizing a relaxation method will distract me from addressing the problem at hand.

• If I smile or enjoy humor people will think I am not serious about my work and therefore won’t take me seriously.

• I don’t react to humor because I often do not understand the joke or what people are laughing about.

• I hold myself to a high standard and don’t allow myself to make mistakes so that others won’t find fault in me.

4 My big assumptions standing in the way of goal achievement

• If I make a mistake people won’t respect my authority.

• If I allow for people to make mistakes, people will think it is acceptable to make mistakes.

• If I react quickly the problem will be resolved more quickly.

• Anxiety management techniques don’t work.

• Laughter and humor have no place in the work environment.

64 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

to experimenting with the new goals could this immunity be overcome. As these goals were achieved, her assumptions underlying the old behaviors were proven false and the process resulted in a lasting, more even disposition.

Achieving Leadership Roles With a Growth Mindset This mapping process, preceded by careful measurement of all nine competencies, can help all leaders become more successful in their roles. For organizations striving to unlock the leadership potential of more women in their workforce, the mapping process also can be a useful tool.

Using the Horizontal/Vertical Model gave Adriana the opportunity to develop what author Carol Dweck calls a “growth

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According to Dweck, “the exciting part is that the growth mindset can be taught.” Adriana, for example, was able to move away from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset while simultaneously developing a more even disposition CLO

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65

IN CONCLUSION

Building Your A-Team

Three team-building lessons from the world of athletics • BY WHITNEY JOHNSON

S Whitney Johnson is an executive coach, speaker and innovation thinker.

She is author of “Build an A-Team” and host of the critically acclaimed “Disrupt Yourself” podcast.

ports provide a window into effective team-building. What promotes team cohesion and what can sabotage it? How do coaches “manage” their teams to build units that are greater than the sum of their parts?

John Calipari, head coach of the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team, is famous for his high level of recruiting. Year after year he acquires top players, many of them “one and done,” meaning they attend only the single required year of college before declaring for the NBA draft. Despite the short tenure of many athletes in this program, Kentucky is almost always a national title contender.

To consistently attract talent at this level requires a powerful reputation for talent development. Recruits anticipate that the single season they play at Kentucky will maximize their abilities and showcase their skills in order to realize their objective of an NBA career.

Key to the ongoing success of the team is Calipari’s investment in players who stay for their full four-year college careers, strong players who may develop more slowly or who will never rise to quite the level of stardom achieved by the “one and done” players. Developing these program-stabilizing players is essential to maintaining Kentucky’s winning reputation, which keeps the top collegiate — and professional — basketball prospects revolving through its doors.

Calipari’s model demonstrates the success that can be achieved by focusing on talent development even when the talent doesn’t stay for very long, as is often the case in the modern workplace. Calipari understands that his top players will move on, and he embraces the disruptive momentum this brings to his team.

On NBA draft night in 2015 he tweeted, “One of my absolute favorite nights of the year, when our guys have their dreams come true.” The lesson: When you focus on talent development and envision the next step for your employees, capable, ambitious, high-potential people will want to join your A-Team.

Some of the most successful coaches and managers know a secret about hiring: The best candidate isn’t always the one who perfectly fits the job description.

Nick Saban, head football coach at the University of Alabama, is universally acknowledged as one of the top recruiters in college football. But his methodology is nontraditional. Saban focuses on finding a combination of physical size and prowess, along with men-

66 Chief Learning Officer • June 2018 • www.CLOmedia.com

tal resilience: How does a player respond to opposition and failure?

Most university teams pursue high school athletes with the most honed skill sets. Saban thinks long-term, envisioning what his players may accomplish over their

How do coaches “manage” their teams to build units that are greater than the sum of their parts? college and professional careers. Rather than recruiting the best defensive back in the high school game, Saban may onboard a wide receiver who he can coach into becoming a top-notch defensive back — eventually.

When we hire the most qualified candidate for a position without thinking beyond that role to what might come next, we are investing resources in an employee who may quickly become bored and move on. The lesson: Engagement requires scaling new learning curves. The best bosses provide new challenges, hire for potential and envision future roles for their people.

Alison Levine is an extreme sportswoman: She has summited the highest peak on each continent and skied to the North and South Poles.

Levine long believed that the “weak links” on a team should be cut loose — they were a drag on the effectiveness of the whole. But on her trek to the South Pole she discovered that she was the weak link. Far from an expert skier, and not physically built to haul a heavy sled, Levine required support from her teammates. But she also found that being short made it easier for her to shovel snow to build barricades around the tents than it was for taller members of the expedition.

The lesson: A successful team is a collection of strengths and weaknesses. When we manage our people as a collection of learning curves — with people at various stages of proficiency and expertise — we can become deliberate about matching strengths to weaknesses, creating an A-Team that is greater than the sum of its parts. CLO

Our employees make a difference in people’s lives.

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