Now in their seventh year, the

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1 BY CHIEF LEARNING OFFICER EDITORIAL STAFF Now in their seventh year, the Learning In Practice Awards were created by the editors of Chief Learning Officer magazine to recognize learning leaders and qualified learning providers that have made a tangible and demonstrable impact on organizations through a combination of outstanding leadership, vision, business acumen and strategic alignment. The awards program has grown in participation and competition every year. This year s winners were selected from more than 230 nominations by a panel of judges composed of past winners and industry leaders. Awards were presented to the three top entrants gold, silver and bronze in more than a dozen categories. The industry s top individual award, the CLO of the Year, was given to the learning executive without peer in developing learning strategies, marshaling and managing resources and achieving distinctive organizational impact. Awards also were given to senior learning practitioners in six additional categories in two divisions: Division 1 for companies with more than 10,000 employees and Division 2 for companies with fewer than 10,000 employees. Learning providers were recognized for their service to learning practitioners in eight categories, ranging from academic partnerships to e-learning and social learning. Winners received their awards at a special ceremony in September at the Fall 2010 Chief Learning Officer Symposium at The Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel in California. ON THE WEB The nomination period for the 2011 Learning In Practice Awards will open in May Stay tuned to for more details. LEARNING IN PRACTICE AWARDS CLO of the Year Award: For the learning executive who is without peer in developing and executing learning and development strategies, marshaling and managing resources and achieving measurable success. The Leadership Award: For learning executives who have demonstrably extended their power and influence within their organizations in the past year. The Vanguard Award: For learning executives who have either launched a new enterprise learning function or completely overhauled existing workforce development initiatives in the past year. The Innovation Award: For learning executives who have successfully applied emerging technologies and/or methodologies to create a stimulating and engaging combination of content and modalities in the past year. The Business Impact Award: For learning executives who have demonstrated measurable business impact of their workforce development programs in the past year. The Global Learning Award: For learning executives who have delivered development initiatives to geographically dispersed and/or culturally and linguistically diverse audiences internally and/or externally in the past year. The Learning Team Award: For learning departments that have performed well as a team to help develop and deliver wide-ranging, effective employee development programs in the past year. PROVIDER AWARDS The Excellence in LMS Award recognizes providers that have rolled out a robust new learning management system for a client in the past year. The Excellence in Simulations and Games Award recognizes providers that have rolled out innovative and effective branching, nonlinear and interactive learning programs for a client in the past year. The Excellence in Content Award recognizes providers that have created superior customized and/or off-theshelf learning content in the past year. The Excellence in Academic Partnerships Award recognizes accredited academic learning providers that have partnered with an organization in the past year to teach its employees about a key business issue. The Excellence in Customer Service have demonstrated a commitment to top-notch implementation, maintenance and support around a client s learning solution in the past year. The Excellence in Outsourcing have taken over all or a portion of an organization s learning and development function in the past year. The Excellence in E-Learning have rolled out an innovative and effective new e-learning program or suite for a client in the past year. The Excellence in Social Learning have rolled out wikis, blogs, communities of practice, social networks and/or any other employee communication and collaboration platforms for a client in the past year. Chief Learning Officer December

2 Leadership Division 2 SUNDAR NAGARATHNAM Vice President, NetApp University VICTORIA RYAN Senior Manager, HD Supply Already faced with a turbulent economy, a tightened budget and a shifting workforce, the learning team at wholesale distribution company HD Supply Utilities was called on to develop and deploy learning for a sister company, HD Supply White Cap. To tackle both challenges, Victoria Ryan created a work plan that mapped to the company s top initiatives; established an on-boarding process; shifted delivery from classroom; recruited and certified functional leaders and team members as trainers; collaborated with other company departments to share costs and expand curriculum; and implemented a learning management system. CLO NetApp has grown from $1.17 billion in revenues in 2001 to $3.4 billion in 2009, and the company s global workforce had reached 8,000 employees. While the company was enjoying robust growth, NetApp University had failed to keep pace. There were pockets of training in the company, but the training organization lacked the systems and processes required to support the development of consistent offerings that could scale to address NetApp s growth. Sundar Nagarathnam tackled the task of transforming NetApp University from a service organization into a strategic part of the business critical to the success of the company. This required a shift in perception, but also a shift in business value delivered by NetApp University. Nagarathnam and his team focused first on building a foundation for enterprisewide training to deliver education opportunities to employees, partners and customers. Under his leadership, NetApp University developed a threeyear plan for transformation to create capability by automating functional processes, fostering a high-performing organization and creating economies of scale. The plan also aligned stakeholder objectives to drive performance and enhance value by creating sustainable governance and a model for effectiveness and efficiency. Priorities were tied to deliverables and metrics that are managed by a cross-organizational team within NetAppU. At the same time that Nagarathnam was establishing the foundation, he built cross-organizational alliances to align with the requirements of key stakeholders, deliver consistent results and make it easier to do business with NetAppU. The results rolled in. In 2009, NetApp University was the recipient of the company s top award: the NetApp Total Customer Experience award. This award is typically given to sales organizations and reflected the impact NetApp University made as an organization under Nagarathnam s guidance. CLO PETE WINEMILLER Senior Vice President, Guest Operations, Oklahoma City Thunder When the National Basketball Association (NBA) announced in July 2008 that the Seattle Supersonics would move to Oklahoma City, Okla., and become the Thunder, the franchise had 90 days to complete the transition before the season. NBA commissioner David Stern called it the most compressed beginning ever in professional sports. The Thunder s Pete Winemiller and his guest relations department laid a foundation for customer service excellence that inaugural season that they vowed to build in the second year. To do that, Winemiller and his team created a three-part customer service formula train, reward and measure to build the skills of all 1,000 employees from the seven different vendor partners who work Thunder home games. The program trained employees, rewarded them for executing, and measured results through fan and personnel surveys and outside analysis by industry experts. The Thunder s model established and sustained a foundation of customer service excellence and created a customer service training program that educates, empowers and motivates front-line arena staff. According to independent researchers, overall operational assessment scores improved by 10 percent; customer service was consistently rated as excellent by fans; and season ticket renewal rates are at 93 percent, second highest in the league. CLO 46 Chief Learning Officer December

3 Innovation Division 1 BRADLEY SAMARGYA Chief Learning Officer, CA Technologies Software company CA Technologies management team wanted to institutionalize a culture of innovation and collaboration that would enable employees to get the right information and contacts easily, thereby increasing efficiency and productivity. The challenge was to merge three disparate needs into one vision that would enable employees to find, access and store certain information; find and interact with each other; and allow the company to effectively communicate to its employees. To accomplish this, the company created OneCA. OneCA leverages social and Web 2.0 technology, combining a redesigned intranet with networking and collaborative Web portals under one umbrella. Search functionality within OneCA reaches across all documents, articles, employee profiles, communities, posts BETTY COTTON Assistant Vice President, AT&T University Management Development, AT&T In 2008, AT&T University launched its first strategic leadership development program to help achieve a culture that it has named One AT&T. The program, Leading with Distinction, focused on enhancing leadership capabilities to achieve business alignment. Delivered first to officers, then executives, the program now has been successfully delivered to all of the company s senior leadership. While this program was successful, a full-scale program was needed to change the management culture at AT&T. In 2009, the AT&T University management development team, led by Betty Cotton, realized that reaching AT&T s management population of 105,000 front-line managers would not be possible with an in-person program. However, a virtual program with a similar design could achieve the same desired result. Such a solution had to be launched and completed in 2010 and address alignment to One AT&T. The Virtual Summit program expanded AT&T s ability to reach and engage leaders and managers. Cotton and her team designed and delivered a flexible and rich program to ensure that managers at all levels are moving toward the One AT&T culture and finding value in learning and collaboration with colleagues in other regions and business units. CLO and blogs. Employees can conduct searches based on skills, location, expertise, products or roles. They also can join communities, participate in discussions, post a blog or contribute to a wiki. OneCA developed an approach for learning delivery that focused on these specific business needs: Continual innovation: Deliver on current customer requirements in an engaging and stimulating way. Adaptability: Embrace change in requirements and processes to successfully deliver value as business needs evolve. Improved time to market: Deliver while there is value and maximize ROI. Catherine Connolly accepted the award for Bradley Samargya. Reliability: Support the business needs by constantly adapting to meet goals. Upon release, OneCA was received positively. This was largely attributed to a team effort that focused on getting the people part right and giving people what they need to be successful. CLO MICHELLE M. YOUNG Learning and Development Consultant, Microsoft Faced with the uncertainty, ambiguity and complexity of today s business environment, Microsoft Finance determined that its worldwide team members needed to grow from being finance professionals to become value-added business partners. Michelle Young, a learning and development consultant at Microsoft, recognized that this transformation of individuals into business leaders had to be highly efficient. Professional development classes were available to finance employees on Microsoft s campus in Redmond, Wash., but the challenge was to extend top-quality learning to all finance professionals throughout the world. Young partnered with TRI Corporation, a company that specializes in experiential learning, to transform a threeday in-residence class into a virtual classroom offering that enabled online distance learning. CLO 52 Chief Learning Officer December

4 Innovation Division 2 BARBARA GROSSMAN, Director, Citywide Organizational and Executive Development, New York City Government In the face of reduced funding, employee layoffs and decreased employee morale, uncertainty had become the watchword of the day for many New York City public managers. Facing eight rounds of budget gap-closing actions since early 2007 with a cumulative value of $4 billion, city managers had to make tough choices to meet service delivery goals in a leaner manner. This, coupled with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg s mandate to continue to provide exceptional service to New York s more than 8 million residents and 46 million visitors, made the need for new strategies clear. In response, Barbara Grossman crafted Nexus Leadership, an intensive and dynamic executive education program presenting a newly developed framework and paradigm. In fall 2009, Nexus Leadership was launched with a curriculum that included neuroscience and leadership; insight FACT The Nexus program and seminar series reached 300 managers in its first year. and intuition; management by discovery; positive organizational scholarship; the arts of inquiry; facilitating insight and participatory leadership; and contemplative and reflective practices. Though still in its infancy, Nexus is already a proven enhancement to leadership capacity. Using participants satisfaction and application as a measure of impact and potential, nearly all participants have reported that the insights gained from the combined topic areas have helped them understand themselves and their colleagues better and work more effectively and creatively. Their focus on collaboration, coaching and goal discovery has resulted in a net gain of talents and skills from staff not evident or accessible before. Nexus leaders are successfully building resilience, engagement and productivity within the current community of practitioners and likely will continue to do so for those to come. CLO STEPHANIE WALSH, Vice President, Agent Acquisition and Learning, LiveOps LiveOps provides on-demand contact center services to enterprise and direct response sales customers through a community of 20,000 at-home independent agents. The LiveOps model enables operations for a dispersed workforce across the U.S. Certification, defined as a learning opportunity, is intended to increase independent agents performance and productivity. Certification is offered to all independent agents, but for some programs completion is not mandatory to accept calls. Stephanie Walsh pioneered a collaborative partnership between the learning organization and other internal independent agent community support teams. They devised a portal solution to manage the creation, maintenance and overall strategy for related resources pertaining to various agent groups or functions. The learning solution for enterprise programs consisted of a blended approach combining unique self-paced e-learning design strategies with virtual classroom learning sessions. The learning solution for direct response programs created and implemented a needs-based business development library to provide learners with a wide range of tools to meet their individualized learning and homebased business requirements. CLO PATRICIA CROWELL, Director, Global Education Services, LSI Corp. In 2008, LSI saw a growing need for solutionsbased training. The company s move into a higher-volume market would require a huge shift in training. Patricia Crowell, LSI s director of global education services, predicted that a more solution-based rather than product-based environment would drive the need for more advanced configuration training on its products. Using a new content management system as well as its current Web-conferencing tool, LSI designed a completely blended online venue to deliver hands-on lab-based courses using remote systems over the Web and remote instructors. As a result, during the economic downturn, LSI saw continued growth in training numbers rather than a decline. CLO Chief Learning Officer December

5 Global Learning Division 2 DAVID DEFILIPPO Chief Learning Officer, BNY Mellon Asset Management With more than $1 trillion in assets under management, the stakes are high for BNY Mellon Asset Management s network of 20 worldwide boutique investment firms. The company views talent as the source of future strategic advantage, but prior to 2007, there was no historical focus on or investment in the professional development of employees. Given the risks associated with losing top talent, the company embarked on a mission to attract and retain the best talent. In 2008, BNY Mellon Asset Management started its journey to build a world-class talent strategy to roll out across all 20 investment firms. As the financial crisis hit in late 2008, that focus shifted to leveraging the leadership ability of emerging leaders to navigate the storm. The company remained committed to developing this group of rising leaders to prepare for the future, but the company s structure of 20 distinct investment firms created a structural challenge to cultivate a shared leadership culture. Under the direction of David DeFilippo, BNY Mellon Asset Management conducted a worldwide needs assessment to identify the most appropriate strategy and model for the company s structure and culture. That assessment was incorporated into a three-year plan, and the associated leadership development program focused on alignment, leadership capability, best-practice sharing and long-term retention. The program also goes beyond simple implementation of a leadership development program by combining a nine-month, multifaceted leadership development experience for nominated senior executives with coaching and 360-degree feedback. Progress is measured after each leadership program module and then reviewed with participants and managers to gauge feedback and make adjustments to leadership development process, content and criteria. Despite the turbulence of the financial services industry, the CEO and executive committee support the program and have funded it for three years in a row. CLO PAUL MAILHOT Senior Director, Worldwide Education Programs, Autodesk At software maker Autodesk, the company s 3,075 distributors and resellers account for more than 90 percent of sales and generate revenue on every continent and in nearly every country in the world. When a series of major product releases challenged the resellers, the company turned to its learning and development team to meet the demand. The global economic recession and shrinking training budgets meant that partners had to do more training with less money and Autodesk s learning organization had to find a solution to reduce classroom time and maximize selling time. Under the direction of Paul Mailhot, the company created a social learning platform called Autodesk Learning Central that supported a diverse, global audience with content delivered in 13 regional views and 10 languages. The platform integrated training from four enterprise systems into one centralized environment and provided on-demand access worldwide to virtual training and e-learning. The social elements of the system allowed resellers to share opinions and collaborate with other Autodesk partners. Despite an aggressive timeline that was less than four months from start to finish, Autodesk delivered a flexible and scalable global reseller environment that allows the company to share new product information and personalize training plans and content under one platform. CLO Chief Learning Officer December