For learning executives who have implemented a significant measurement or evaluation program that has demonstrated exceptional business impact from their workforce development programs. Potential results may include measures of employee retention, sales, revenue growth, customer satisfaction or cost reduction, among others.
DIVISION 1
Anil Kumar Santhapuri
Senior Manager, Talent Management, Western Union
For Western Union, the Colorado-based financial service company, the goal is to be a world leader in cross-border, cross-currency money transfer and payments. To achieve that goal, the company’s CEO and senior executives focused on four key areas.
The first was to “grow” by adding shareholders, increasing revenue and requiring talent to learn new skills. Next was to “excel” by advancing the company’s strategies. The third value was “comply,” which would balance the risk necessary to grow business while still enhancing compliance capabilities. Finally to “evolve,” which focused on improving the customer experience.
Anil Kumar Santhapuri, senior manager of talent management, along with the company’s global talent management team aligned with these four identified business objectives by adopting the Talent Development Reporting Principles system to provide line of sight to effectiveness and efficiency of the company’s talent development efforts and build credibility with data and insight. The system measured four areas: satisfaction, knowledge gain, impact and business results. Among other data, Western Union collected learner reactions to facilitators, materials, the learning environment as well as measured administrative support and tracked new knowledge and skills learned.
The conclusions were significant results in 13 areas including talent retention, innovation, product development and customer satisfaction. In particular, customer focus improved 14 percent, profits increased and employee engagement moved upward.
Now in its third year of measuring impact, Western Union plans further refinements to the system, including identifying talent concerns, selecting targeted metrics and sophisticated feedback monitoring and communication strategies.
John Kusi-Mensah
Assistant Vice President, MetLife
For many years MetLife had learning and development programs to address the company’s urgent needs. But as the New York-based insurance company’s global footprint and distribution channels continued to grow, the need for a better connection between sales training and learning and development departments became clear. To fulfill ambitious growth targets, MetLife would need to improve sales associates’ skills and align with the enterprise strategy.
With those goals in mind, John Kusi-Mensah, assistant vice president for global distribution capability center of expertise, developed MetLife’s Sales Learning Curriculum, a global competency-based program. The program provides a road map for development organized by competencies like sales capability, relationship management and customer-centricity among others. The road map spells out the steps for employees to move into higher positions and how to develop expert skills. The initiative also included a continuous learning experience that included mobile and microlearning as well as one-to-one coaching meetings.
Keith Ondra
Learning Consultant, General Motors Co.
General Motors Co., the Detroit-based automaker, was on a mission to increase the ROI of learning, improve employee engagement and tie individual growth to overall business objectives. Led by Keith Ondra, learning consultant at GM Learning, the team updated its training structure to broaden its scale and focus on core business processes by certifying employees in key areas including finance, IT, Six Sigma and project management.
DIVISION 2
Kelley Wade
Sales Training Manager, HUB International
After launching a growth plan aimed at doubling the size of the global insurance brokerage HUB International Limited in five years, CEO Martin Hughes presented company leaders a challenge: Drive growth throughout the company by finding and implementing crucial initiatives.
Kelley Wade, sales training manager, and the sales force development team started thinking of ways to meet this challenge head on. The team, which provides logistics support, design and development and sales trainers and coaches, was tasked with increasing sales while lowering attrition rates of sales professionals during their first two years. At that time, only 60 percent of new hires were on track to validate their salary and the turnover rate was 40 percent.
With those goals in mind, Wade and the sales force development team created the Path to Validation program to combine learning, coaching and peer support into a unified development program. The programs starts with a three-week boot camp that introduces participants to insurance, sales skills and HUB resources and includes coaching support for up to two years. Since implementation, turnover has dropped from 40 percent to 17 percent and 94 percent of attendees validated their salary in the first two years.
Jono Cathersides
Global Product Training Manager, Fisher & Paykel 
As part of its global expansion plan, Fisher & Paykel, an appliance maker based in New Zealand, opened two new consumer-facing experience centers in Sydney, Australia, and New York to raise the company’s profile as a premium consumer appliance brand and attract new customers. But company leaders worried the centers were not reaching their full potential due to lack of training.
The company wanted to create a training program that would drive engagement with Fisher & Paykel products, which would in turn lead to higher sales. That program would also need to be applicable to all talent across the company in all consumer markets.
In answer to that call, Jono Cathersides, global product training manager, developed an interactive development experience called the Global Training Academy. The training program was launched to groups of retail leaders and buyers and included video messages from leaders along with tools for knowledge sharing and applications in regional meetings. The program has driven an uplift in brand preference and sales opportunities across selected markets.
Joan McKinnon
Corporate Vice President, New York Life
Looking to increase engagement and boost the effectiveness of product consultants, New York Life developed the Agency Presentation Skills program.
Led by Joan McKinnon, corporate vice president of agency talent, this yearlong cohort-based training program for product consultants at the insurance and investment firm includes five months of standard classroom learning, five months of hands-on practice, real-time feedback, coaching and an action-learning project, all culminating in a two-month competition of presentations judged by senior leaders.
This allowed product consultants to move into more productive roles with improved skills and efficiency. Product consultants trained through the program directly contributed to record-breaking sales and a 13 percent year-over-year increase.
Devi Swapna S
Manager, Human Resources, L&T Infrastructure Development Projects Limited
Facing a decline in employee engagement and leader readiness, L&T Infrastructure Development Projects Limited, one of India’s largest infrastructure developers, knew it was time for a learning intervention. Along with Devi Swapna S, business leaders rethought their traditional classroom learning and began using the 4E Model (education, exposure, experience and environment). Ultimately, these changes brought their engagement score up 7 percent from 65 to 73 and allowed more managers to adopt higher leadership roles.
Marygrace Schumann is an editorial intern at Chief Learning Officer magazine. She can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.
