"When you reach the top, keep climbing." —Proverb

This is a perfect quote for this year's ASTD BEST Award winners. Nineteen of this year's 28 winners have won this award multiple times, including this year's top winner, Cognizant. Multiple winners, multiple times proves one thing: These training and development departments don't rest on their laurels. They push the envelope on training, year after year, to find new ways to strengthen their organization's learning culture.

"We're trying to change the mindset of training for training's sake. This is a journey," says Will Sutton, BB&T University's manager, executive vice president, and senior leadership team member. BB&T is a six-time winner of this prestigious honor.

BEST Award-winning organizations continue to demonstrate excellence across a range of areas, are always looking for ways to improve upon results, and can demonstrate that their efforts deliver results.

"Our business is so diverse that we must first align to the corporate goals and strategy. As that strategy translates into each of the business units ... and then subsequently to their learning and development folks, they start looking at what that means to them in their business units to define training," says Anne M. Schwartz, vice president of global leadership and talent development at UPS—a three-time winner.

All of the 2013 BEST Award-winning organizations should be saluted for how they found ways to make their workforce more efficient, effective, and engaged. Whether they are first-time winners or multiple BEST Award winners, they secured executive buy-in for their programs and strategies, garnered support from their employees and customers, created a learning culture that is valued, and became an invaluable partner in their company's business strategies.

The future is bright for training and development. Turn the pages and enjoy the innovative approaches and triumphs from this industry's BEST of the BEST.

Paula Ketter

Editor, T+D

[email protected]