Chief Learning Officer’s Learning in Practice awards were developed to recognize industry leaders who have demonstrated excellence in the design and delivery of workforce learning and development programs.

Awards are given annually in two broad categories: practitioner and provider. Practitioner awards include seven individual awards, as well as the industry’s top honor, the CLO of the Year. Practitioner awards are further split into two divisions: Division 1 is for organizations with more than 10,000 employees. Division 2 is for organizations with less than 10,000 employees.

Provider awards include eight awards for qualified service providers, including vendors, consultants and partner organizations. There are no separate divisions for provider awards.

The CLO of the Year award is a career recognition award and thus is designed to recognize a body of work rather than a single initiative conducted in the past year. CLOs applying for this award may include work conducted on behalf of their organization outside of the one-year period applied to the other award categories.

Inquiries can be directed to Ashley St. John, Chief Learning Officer’s editor-in-chief, at ashley@betterworkmedia.com.

The practitioner awards are reserved for practicing learning and development professionals at for-profit, nonprofit, government and academic organizations. The provider awards are reserved for vendors, consultants and partnering organizations that provide services to client organizations. Note: The award in presented solely to the provider; client companies are not listed jointly as recipients of these awards.

All awards, with the exception of the CLO of the Year award, recognize leaders and providers for initiatives conducted within the past year. So, for the 2020 awards, initiatives conducted anytime in 2019 up through May 2020 are eligible. Initiatives that were started earlier are eligible as long as demonstrable results can be documented in the current award nomination period.

Online applications are filled out through our nomination entry portal. The nomination period for the 2020 Learning in Practice Awards opens April 6, 2020. Download the CLO of the Year, Practitioner Award and Provider Award applications in advance to preview questions.

There is a $195 application processing and handling fee for practitioner categories. Provider categories are $495. When you complete the online application and click submit you will be required to pay the application fee with a credit card. Your application is not finalized until payment.

Judges include senior practitioners, learning and development experts, Chief Learning Officer editors and past award winners. Each nomination is reviewed by multiple judges to minimize bias.

A panel of judges is established for each of the 16 categories of awards to ensure the entries can be judged consistently and fairly. Winners are determined by averaging scores assigned by judges to each entry. In the event of a tie, a select group of judges will review competing entries to determine winners.

The scoring has been set up to be consistent across the award categories and judges will provide numerical scores for each of the following criteria:

Practitioner Awards:

Leadership: The degree to which the practitioner or team led the initiative, demonstrated by behaviors such as setting clear goals, providing guidance, coaching and support, working through obstacles and/or celebrating success.
Challenge: The scope, difficulty and size of the initiative.
Award-specific criteria: See Categories for descriptions of awards.

Provider Awards:

Ownership: The degree to which the provider took ownership of the client’s challenge, demonstrated by behaviors such as helping define outcomes, setting clear goals, providing guidance, working through obstacles and communicating challenges and successes.
Challenge: The scope, difficulty and size of the initiative.
Award-specific criteria: See Categories for descriptions of awards.

Each of the three award criteria is judged on a scale of 1 to 7:

6-7 (Breakthrough and/or role model): For learning practitioners or vendor companies considered “breakthroughs” and/or “role models” for the learning and development industry. The challenge is considered to be extreme (across an entire industry) or global (large numbers of learners, many stakeholders, very difficult to accomplish), and the nominees have demonstrated role-model leadership.

4-5 (Outstanding): For learning practitioners or vendor companies who did an outstanding job, met or exceeded all of the criteria as described and accomplished all goals. The complexity was significant and/or the nominees demonstrated clear leadership.

1-3 (Meets the criteria): For learning practitioners or vendor companies whose initiatives met the criteria but did not or could not provide clear or reliable evidence to identify initiatives as breakthrough or outstanding.

0 (Does not meet the criteria): Did not meet the criteria established or failed to document how the criteria were met.

Judge scores are aggregated to determine the ranked list of LearningElite organizations. The seven Editor’s Choice awards are determined by Chief Learning Officer magazine editors.

Finalists will be announced in early September 2022. At that point, finalists will know which category but not which level of award – gold, silver or bronze – they have received. The final awards will be announced during a special virtual ceremony in October.

The awards ceremony includes the awards presentation and a keynote address from the outgoing CLO of the Year.

Award winners will receive a specially designed award, which will be mailed to them following the virtual awards ceremony in October 2021.