by Lauren Dixon
December 8, 2015
Gold
Joseph Malta
Director of Learning and Development, ABC Cos.
In an effort to develop internal leaders, ABC Cos. needed to create on-site learning resources. It teamed up with new leader, Joseph Malta, manager of learning and development, to identify business needs and skill gaps, then created content for ABC University.
To start, the small organization had to identify an affordable and effective learning management system. Malta helped to demonstrate how future training would work through on-site classes and webinars about its newly acquired email system. This proved successful, increasing employee productivity and reducing frustration, demonstrating how training could be an investment in better performance.
Business leaders throughout the organization were involved in a needs analysis to identify learning priorities. These needs were addressed in the “Webinar Wednesday Series,” that introduced the company’s e-learning library. Employees embraced the series, and a core group of followers grew. The courses were added to an on-demand library to be accessed by those who couldn’t meet the webinar schedule.
By the systems’ launch date, ABC Learning had established credibility, and a larger audience began to participate in sessions. Computers were installed at locations where employees lacked computers, and the user base expanded each month.
Malta and his team established a leadership development program called ABC Academy, and a pilot started with nine emerging leaders participating in three sessions over a six-month period. Feedback on the program was overwhelmingly positive, emphasizing to leadership that formal learning is integral to workforce development.
Feedback on this program was overwhelmingly positive, emphasizing to leadership that formal learning is integral to the development process.
Silver
Adam Hopewell
SBC Director of Talent Management and Organizational Learning, The Savola Group
Expanding talent management from a purely administrative department to a full-fledged recruitment, succession and learning function isn’t easy.
The Savola Group’s Adam Hopewell, SBC director of talent management and organizational learning, faced numerous challenges. For instance, the company is located in Iran, a country few people consider ideal for job relocation. Turnover rates range between 15 and 20 percent for high-level roles, which meant the company had to boost its performance appraisal and succession planning processes.
Hopewell led the creation of the Savola Recruitment System, or SRS, for the recruitment function, with a tool called the Requirement Brief, or RB, built in. SRS maps out phases and steps for the recruitment team, and RB captures data to match candidates to jobs. The Position Appraisal Incumbent Review Session looks at performance and learning gaps to prepare leaders for succession.
He was also lead in designing the Savola Training System to standardize training delivery with three learning outcomes for any given development session and a series of nine steps to enhance conceptual and factual retention.
Bronze
Michael Rosenberg
Director of Learning and Development, CIT Group Inc.
Within only one year, CIT Group Inc.’s learning and development team of five deployed two leadership development programs, added e-learning capabilities to analytics, changed its learning management system, SkillSoft offerings and more. These efforts helped to develop front-line managers, make middle managers new leaders, and ensure contributors are knowledgeable about products and services. Results included a 25 percent increase in sales. —Lauren Dixon