Each year the American Society for Training & Development recognizes individuals and teams who advance the knowledge of the workplace learning and performance profession and contribute to workforce capability and organizational competitiveness through their exemplary practices. Their work inspires and informs us all, and their accomplishments demonstrate how learning drives the performance of businesses and organizations worldwide.  

The Excellence in Practice category recognizes organizations for results achieved through learning and performance solutions. Awards are presented for proven practices that have delivered measurable results, and Citations are presented for practices from which much can be learned.

Here are this year's citations in the area of integrated talent management.

**Accenture Services Private Ltd.

****Bangalore, India

**BPO Top Talent

High performers are a critical segment at Accenture and need to be engaged early to increase retention and development of future supervisors. The BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) Top Talent practice focuses on the high performer talent segment at the entry level supervisor role and below.

The program structure has a strong alignment with the learning styles of high performers and develops skills that are relevant to the needs of the employees and clients. The program has several innovative leaning methods such as learning through corporate social responsibility, learning over social networks, and a credit point system that incentivizes learning. Learning through collaboration during brain storming sessions, white board sessions, and presentations are other innovations spearheaded by the program.

Increased retention of high performers has been one of the main results of this program. Greater retention of high performers accrues several long term benefits for the organization such as greater client satisfaction, retention of institutional memory, and up-skilling of new joiners.

**Accenture Global Services Ltd.

Dublin, Ireland

Talent Supply Chain – Supply/Demand Management**

During the past decade, Accenture has rapidly grown and diversified its global workforce by more than 200,000 people. To keep up with the demand for talent, the geographic Human Resource (HR) teams needed to hone processes that would decrease delivery costs and operate more effectively across geographies and HR functions.

A new, common practice for managing supply and demand was defined and put into place. The process delivered key business outcomes such as getting people to new, revenue generating assignments, while using and deepening their skill sets. The practice seeks to optimize the supply/demand balance and achieve productivity. The new practice relies on common processes and common roles to achieve these outcomes, yet allows flexibility appropriate to different geographies and businesses. It is also highly integrated—to the overall Talent Supply Chain, other HR areas, and other business functions. Real benefits and effort reductions have been realized, and the stage is set for ongoing improvements.

**Accenture Services Private Ltd.

Bangalore, India

The Catalyst Program**

To support and drive the unprecedented growth in India, Accenture needed to form a structured plan to prepare future senior leaders to take on larger roles in the organization. They would need to go beyond being delivery or technology experts, to being able to take on diverse assignments, locally or globally.

The Catalyst program aims to develop and groom the next generation of leaders for the organization. The objective is to focus on high tenure and high performing emerging leaders and provide them the tools, training, and exposure to accelerate their professional development. The practice—through various interventions such as workshops, action learning projects, leadership connects, teaching opportunities, and collaboration activities—builds on the competencies required to transition into an effectual, results-oriented, and sensitive leader. At the completion of the nine month program, 20 percent or more of participants improved proficiency in client centricity, delivery excellence, living the core values, passion for innovation, networking and collaboration, and versatility and adaptability.

**IBM Corporation

Armonk, New York

Technical Leadership Exchange Program**

The Exchange was originally designed as a Face-to-Face (F2F) annual conference to recognize and increase the skills of the top technical talent in the company. In 2008, due to the economic downturn, IBM established financial limitations that meant F2F meetings were unsustainable. This situation coincided with large-scale growth in the Asia-Pacific (AP) region.

The program was adapted to meet business needs in an economically sustainable format. The Exchange now combines face-to-face with virtual broadcast to reach a global emerging leader population in 64 countries in a cost effective manner. This enabled global teams to form and work on business challenges across organizational units and geographies. As a key secondary outcome, it provides technical leaders the opportunity to grow skills in critical areas. The program achieved other business objectives, from retaining top technical talent to fostering global collaboration to cost reduction.

**MTR Corporation

****Hong Kong SAR, China

**Building a Leadership Pipeline from the Top: The People Development Initiative

Global economic instability and a pending retirement wave meant MTR Corporation needed an effective and impactful leadership development plan. The People Development Initiative (PDI) was launched as a leadership development program to build a leadership pipeline for the top level. The objectives of the PDI program included succession planning, leadership capability enhancement, building organizational bench strength to increase MTR’s competitiveness, and increasing the engagement level of high-potential staff to contribute to business success, sustainability, and growth.

Using an integrated talent management approach with the leadership development-system, the program has been able to grow leaders in alignment with the company’s goals. The PDI program has contributed significantly to grooming internal leaders to meet succession and business needs. In 2011, all Director appointments and about 70 percent of Executive appointments were filled by PDI participants. A ROI of 200 percent was recorded. Motivation and behavioral changes were reported. Staff motivation and engagement levels were increased.