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.
Here are this year's citations in the area of managing the learning function.
National Education—Vendor Partnership Model
- Humana Inc.
- Louisville, Kentucky
The Vendor Partnership Model was developed to support a sustainable, deeply collaborative approach to managing the training of vendor resources as part of successfully outsourcing operational processes.
Prior to 2006, Humana’s educational department served three U.S.-based service centers. By 2010, company plans called for accelerated outsourcing to take advantage of strategic opportunities.
The model is key to Humana’s ability to manage outsourced vendor learning growth, while maintaining team staffing at 2010 levels. The model enabled Humana to:
- establish a standard technical learning infrastructure
- educate and certify an appropriate number of qualified trainers and establish a Master Trainer role at each vendor
- establish an ongoing method of oversight, engagement, and accountability to sustain learning so the performance and quality measures were consistently met by learners
- consistently meet both the aggressive timeline goals of business clients and the need for achieving learning outcomes at lower costs.
Today, the education department serves more than 36,000 people, including 24,000 outsourced vendor employees, across more than 30 locations. Using this model has successfully helped transition over 50 processes to outside vendors, while continuing to meet high quality and performance standards and maintaining team staffing levels.
LIFE Game Plan
- Orange County’s Credit Union
Santa Ana, California
In 2009, the executive team at Orange County’s Credit Union launched the LIFE Game Plan program, a comprehensive program that would support all areas of the business model: associates, members, and the community.
The purpose of the program was to align learning throughout the organization to not only support the strategic plan, but also to support the notion of whole LIFE learning. Whole LIFE learning pertains to holistic skills that benefit a person, both professionally and personally.
Key concepts are selected and trained throughout the organization regardless of the associate’s role. The program teaches core competencies in the areas of leadership, community, product knowledge, and member service. Since each individual contributes to the organization’s success, alignment is very important to helping the organization move forward.
The LIFE Game Plan has resulted in aligning associate efforts to meet organizational goals, mastering key concepts, and building cohesiveness across the organization.
The Innovation of Human Capital in Taiwan Local Governance
- Regional Civil Service Development Institute
Nantou City, Taiwan
The Regional Civil Service Development Institute has been training government officers from local governments in Taiwan since 1956, and they are aware that the quality of government officers is linked to administrative efficiency.
With fierce global competition, rapid changes in society, revolutionary transformation of local administrative systems, and the external and internal challenges placed before the public sector, the Institute’s priority was to strengthen the local government in Taiwan.
Due to the lack of an integrated platform for cross-departmental and cross-regional talks, it was difficult for officers in different departments to communicate and negotiate with one another. In light of this, the Institute innovated training by establishing an integrated platform to enhance local competitiveness, increase the capabilities of local government to engage with others worldwide, make use of the e-learning tools, and strengthen the leadership of senior officers.
The execution of this practice is a major breakthrough compared with old practices in the public sector. The practice set an example for the development of human resources, and reinforced the Institute’s role and value as an exchange platform for local governments.
Sales Training Measurement Program
- SuccessFactors, an SAP Company
Palo Alto, California - Emplay Inc.
Dublin, California
The small but growing learning team at SuccessFactors set out to prove that learning can be a strategic business partner and they used analytics to make their case. They created a measurement program that enabled the sales training organization to both effectively respond to and intelligently influence strategy using data and highly targeted learning interventions.
Coming off an acquisition, there were several opportunities and challenges. Growth potential was significant, but new sales reps were not hitting targets quickly and attrition was high. Reseller partners had become strategically crucial, but got minimal training support and SuccessFactors reps largely overlooked them as collaborators.
Customers too frequently experienced issues postimplementation, turning to call centers for answers instead of the organization’s free WebEx training library. With a measurement consulting partner, the learning team identified and analyzed data related to each challenge, and drove irrefutable results. Some representative outcomes include:
- Pinpointed sales success drivers using CRM, LMS, performance management, and employee data, then attuned training (and hiring) to those skills/behaviors.
- Created a Sales Boot Camp module on the measurable benefits of joint partner sales, which helped increase new hire business won with partners 15 percent; partner contributions to new business overall increased from 68 to 71 percent.
- Customers completing training had a 94 percent lower call volume and 34 percent higher Net Promoter Score.
- Analysis on small average deal sizes prompted a new course on selling to C-suite executives; average deal size grew 65 percent post-training.
