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Better Than
the Rest
We’re often asked “What does it take to be BEST?” It isn’t just one
thing that makes a company a winner of an ASTD BEST Award.
Organizations only make it to the ranks of the BEST if they can
demonstrate excellence in several of these areas: alignment, C-
level involvement, efficiency, effectiveness, innovation, investment
in learning, learning opportunities for employees, measurement
of the effectiveness of learning, and success with nontraining
solutions to business needs. Those characteristics have been
exhibited by BEST winners since ASTD created the award in 2003.
BEST organizations report improvements in BEST organizations strike a balance between
employee and customer satisfaction, the quality training and other kinds of efforts. For the past
of their products, cycle time, productivity, reten- three years, the winning organizations have al-
tion, revenue, and overall profitability. In other located nearly half of their learning functions’
words, they are able to link learning to critical resources to nontraining activities such as per-
business concerns. formance analysis, organization development,
Strategic plans and corporate objectives are talent management, and process improvement.
the root of most BEST organizations’ learning Looking at the BEST organizations, one can see
and performance activities and the winning com- a number of examples of the integration of ac-
panies have clearly defined processes to link their tivities related to employee development at all
learning strategies and initiatives to increases in stages from recruiting through retention.
individual and organizational performance. Many BEST organizations involve their top
BEST winners often report an increase in the leaders, including the CEO, as teachers and men-
number of employees trained as their primary tors. Their CEOs support the corporate university,
achievement in efficiency, followed by improve- viewing it as a way to help prepare the next gen-
ments in time to deploy new learning initiatives eration of leaders designated by the company’s
and to get new employees ready to be productive. succession plan. Companies gain efficiencies too,
BEST winners report that process improvements by developing managers as trainers.
also help them be more efficient. Technology continues to play a growing role in
The winning companies use many approaches BEST companies’ learning activities. They report
to select and design learning initiatives to im- that it has helped them launch learning programs
prove performance. BEST organizations save time in dramatically less time than in the past, increase
on content development, often using technol- the number of initiatives launched, and reduce
ogy to design and deliver the learning in less time development time. Many of the companies use
than in the past. Their greatest gains in efficiency “time to deploy” as a metric for efficiency.
come from the use of technology, as well as from In short, BEST organizations don’t win that
improving existing courses and restructuring their distinction by being effective at only one thing.
distribution. For example, some companies are in- They perform well across a range of activities,
tegrating their learning management systems with work constantly to improve, and can demonstrate
their performance management systems to better that their efforts deliver results. In the view of our
align individual performance with company goals. judges, that clearly makes them the BEST.
Bridgewater,
2 sanofi-aventis U.S. 16,000 Pharmaceuticals 34
New Jersey
Vancouver, British
3 TELUS Communications 28,900 Telecommunications 79
Columbia, Canada
5 Deloitte & Touche USA LLP New York, New York 40,000 Professional services 42
Charlotte,
8 Wachovia 108,000 Financial services 54
North Carolina
Allentown,
10 Air Products and Chemicals 18,112 Manufacturing 68
Pennsylvania
Hopkinton, Information
12 EMC Corporation 30,500 72
Massachusetts management and storage
Financial e-commerce
13 Checkfree Services Inc. Norcross, Georgia 3,600 68
services
Winston-Salem,
15 BB&T 28,900 Financial services 70
North Carolina
17
Ruby Tuesday Inc. Maryville, Tennessee 53,080 Food services 76
Tata Consultancy
18 Mumbai, India 93,000 Information technology 62
Services Limited
Durham,
24 Clarkston Consulting 300 Professional services 72
North Carolina
32 American Express Company New York, New York 65,400 Financial services 80
39 iQor, Inc. New York, New York 7,000 Call center services 75
The result is the new Satyam—an that challenged Satyam’s learning and
organization that consists of more development team. Working with 60
than 2,000 independent, interdepen- senior leaders who each volunteered
dent, full lifecycle businesses (FLCBs). two hours, three full-time workplace
Each business unit has a leader who learning professionals designed and
operates much like the CEO of an in- delivered the learning program known
dependent business, and each unit col- as the SatyamWay to 28,000 associates
laborates with other FLCBs within the in just 75 days.
company for the necessary products Introduction of the change pro-
and services. cess was achieved through a two-part
“Each full lifecycle business is run web seminar. The first part used a
as a small business that aggregates up prerecorded radio talk show format in
to the integrated businesses and ulti- which three senior leaders provided
mately to the enterprise called Satyam. foundational information that was
This takes outsourcing to the next enhanced with on-screen presenta-
level, but all of it is conducted within tions. In the second segment—a live,
Satyam,” explains Ed Cohen, senior synchronous session—associates were
vice president of Satyam’s School of able to ask questions to senior leaders
Leadership. The company evolved via a moderator. The seminars were
from an emphasis on growth to an accompanied and supported by a book
emphasis on balancing assets and out- and website published specifically
comes for greater value creation. This to explain all aspects of the Satyam-
approach has four components: rapid Way. A certification exam to measure
growth, entrepreneurship, innovation,
and quality.
Communicating and explain-
ing the advent of FLCBs generated a
large-scale change management effort
Those Who
Lead, Teach
How do eight full-time staff members oversee strategic
enterprise learning and development for a company of 27,000
employees? By embracing Noel Tichy’s “leader-as-teacher”
model. Tichy argues that all leaders must have a “teachable point
of view” to develop other leaders. This creates knowledge while
simultaneously aligning leaders, teachers, and students around
consistent values, philosophies, and practices.
BD, a global medical technology the respect of their employees and
company that manufactures and sells peers, and some skills in teaching and
medical devices, instrument systems, facilitation,” says Joe Toto, director of
and reagents, enthusiastically em- leadership development and learning.
braced the leader-as-teacher model “They bring unique value to employee
about seven years ago. The company’s development by providing credible
Chairman, President, and CEO Ed information—but they also model and
Ludwig said, “When we recruit, we live the process that they’re teaching.
definitely want people to know that Further, it’s two-way learning, which
teaching will be part of their success benefits the leaders because they are
factor. They will be expected to take exposed to viewpoints they might not
time to develop people and to get into otherwise encounter. Although there
a formal training mode.” are certainly practical benefits to the
Since the founding of BD Univer- model in terms of cost, it takes a very
sity in 2000 by Ed Betof, chief learn- secondary role to the quality of teach-
ing officer and vice president of talent ing that it enables us to provide.”
management, its staff have identified BD employees can be involved in
and trained nearly 550 leader-teachers teaching as classroom instructors,
across the company’s three major seg- guest speakers, peer coaches, subject
ments in the many countries in which matter experts, or program champi-
it operates. The strategic-level training ons who are responsible for the course
administered by BDU is disseminated content. Ninety percent of the compa-
through five colleges: leadership, busi- ny’s leaders participate as instructors
ness skills, sales, career, and opera- or speakers. In a 2004 interview with
tional effectiveness. Leader-teachers T+D, Ludwig said, “Teaching gives me
BD (Becton, Dickinson &
are both self-selected and recruited, the opportunity to talk to people about
Company)
and can be leaders at any level. where we are going, about our journey
“Our leader-teachers must pos- to become a great company. Frankly, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey
sess the desire to teach, credibility, I don’t think the role of a teacher is
Learning
on the Rise
as the Company
Grows
When Equity Residential completed the rollout of its new,
integrated business information system in 2006, virtually all of
the 4,000 employees at the company’s more than 600 apartment
properties had to learn how to use it.
This included sales, housekeeping, ee, could take a few minutes to several
and maintenance staff who may not hours to complete.
have used a computer in their jobs. The second phase consisted of
The new system incorporated prop- training on the new proprietary busi-
erty management, unit pricing, and ness information system. Pusateri
procurement functions, and is used hired 15 new operational support
for everything from completing a lease trainers and deployed them across
to ordering a gallon of paint. Further, the country with new mobile training
reducing time to employee readiness labs. These labs included 12 laptop
was critical. computers and peripherals packed in
Equity’s national education group, a specially constructed shipping crate
working in Dallas under the leader- from which they can be unpacked and
ship of Tony Pusateri, senior vice set up in any conference room in less
president for education, designed a than 30 minutes.
phased approach that would teach This training effort broadened the
or remediate the computer skills of impact of learning across the company
employees who needed them with- not only because it touched so many
out holding back workers who were employees in so many roles, says Ron
more comfortable using a keyboard Gjerde, vice president for organiza-
and mouse. An online assessment was tional development, but also because
created to determine the learner’s skill “implementing the new system rep-
level, so an online training program resented a fundamental change in
Equity Residential
could be constructed for areas where the way we do business. We had been
Chicago, Illinois there were deficiencies. The resulting using our previous system for many
program, customized to each employ- years, so naturally we encountered
Paving
the Path
to Performance
Management
A recent survey by OnPoint Consulting found that less
than half of HR professionals believe that their performance
management systems add value to the business while only 30
percent believe that the systems achieve the desired objectives.
Clearly, many American businesses are going to be replacing
or radically altering their performance management systems
in the coming years. If so, they can look toward the experience
of Wachovia as an integration success story.
Two years ago, when Dean Wil- “This approach was not only cum-
liams was hired as Wachovia’s first chief bersome and time consuming for
learning officer, he and the company’s managers but also very confusing for
leadership resources group were asked employees,” says Williams.
to look at the approach that the finan- In February 2006, Wachovia ac-
cial institution took toward employee quired a new performance manage-
learning and development, particularly ment system and integrated it with the
the learning management and perfor- existing LMS. This permitted the bank
mance management systems. What the to use a single learning platform and
team found was that different types of integrate it with a single performance
employee performance, compensation, management system, thereby provid-
and learning information were being ing employees with easier access to the
stored in various formats and systems. tools they need to be successful in their
For example, the learning management jobs. With a single login, employees
system (LMS) permitted employees to and their managers now have access
enroll in a variety of training programs to goals, competencies, and planned
but, because the employee performance developmental activities, as well as the
process was largely paper based, there ability to search for and track learn-
was no linkage between an employee’s ing activities housed in the LMS. The Wachovia
developmental goals and her options or new system has resulted not only in Charlotte, North Carolina
attempts to meet those goals. time savings and clearer links between
Walking
in the
Customers’
Shoes
A typical Home Depot store holds about 40,000 products.
Because many of these products, for promotional or seasonal
reasons, have short shelf lives, training employees on their
characteristics and customer benefits must be completed
promptly. To increase the consistency of content and decrease
content development costs, the company partners with its
suppliers to design and deliver product training.
number of hours
codes were called at the same time to ter this new process, customer surveys
familiarize staff with the new codes. revealed that BB&T recorded fewer
of learning per Most notably, the team widened
the scope of the project by soliciting
problems than its large in-market
competitors.
employee for BEST support from two local competitors The bank continues to expand its