As a support function, training academies (or departments) are usually considered a “back-office” department, rather than a core part of the business. As a result, the topic of aligning learning impact with organizational goals has drawn a lot of attention from many training and learning professionals in recent years—in the hopes of making their department more visible to business stakeholders.

During my session at the ATD 2016 International Conference & Exposition, Training Can Be Shining: Case Sharing, I will share how we tackled this issue and got our training academy recognized as a key component of a major corporation, Volkswagen Group China. We had setbacks, yet as a team we were able to focus on two key business goals:

• enhanced research and development to develop local programs 

• blended learning approaches to satisfy the learning needs of digital natives.

Additionally, the session will address these important questions:

• What are the key success factors for a training academy? 

• How can a training academy establish itself in a big corporate environment? 

• How can you maximize the impact of training and learning on business development? 

• What should you use to measure the success of a training academy?

There will be more details during the session about how we assessed the significance or success of our training department and maximized the impact of training and learning on business development. 

See you in Denver!