Each year, Training magazine requires all Training Hall of Famers to submit an Outstanding Training Initiative that is judged by each other and shared with our readers. Aside from ensuring Hall of Famers aren’t “resting on their laurels,” this provides an opportunity for the Learning & Development community to learn from the “best of the best” and see some innovative solutions for challenges many face today.
Each Hall of Fame Outstanding Training Initiative submission could achieve a maximum total of 20 points. Submissions were scored on the following criteria:
- Level of potential business impact
- Level of difficulty of challenges faced
- Project scope
- Instructional design
- Innovation
- Business outcomes achieved/expectations met
The three initiatives that achieved the highest scores are detailed below (Nationwide; McCarthy Holdings, Inc.; and Verizon). The other 11 submissions will be profiled in 2026 print or special focus online-only issues.
NATIONWIDE: BUSINESS ACUMEN (BA) SKILLS-BASED LEARNING
From mid-2024 through mid-2025, Nationwide developed and implemented a transformative initiative that aimed to:
- Accelerate enterprise and business unit impact
- Design and deliver all-associate learning focused on Future of Work, customer experience, and business acumen skills
- Design and deliver role-specific learning on relevant skills in order to increase the speed of claims handling, increase underwriting accuracy, and improve risk assessment and decision-making
This entailed the Enterprise and P&C learning teams working together to deliver targeted solutions that built new skills, strengthening risk management and operational performance. Recognizing every associate’s role in customer experience and performance, learning focused on building business acumen and role-specific capabilities that contribute to goal accomplishment.
Program Details
The teams developed four training initiatives to address the business goals for 2025:
- Business Acumen (BA) Sprint: Four-week experience delivering an understanding of the P&C business mindset/skillset. Each sprint included a research summary, approximately 30 minutes of weekly individual learning using videos/articles, in-the-flow practice activities, a moderated end-of-week one-hour discussion, a sprint reflection, and opportunity for post-sprint reinforcement. Every sprint also included a generative artificial intelligence (AI) activity aimed at encouraging all associates to use the technology in their learning process.
- Underwriting Risk Clinics: Business-scenario-specific clinics aimed at underwriting decision-making. These included a pre-training questionnaire to assess current understanding and identify specific areas of training focus; a self-driven learning module that covered foundational concepts; scenario-based learning/group discussions to apply theoretical concepts to real-world situations; and post-training Leader Guides to help reinforce concepts and ensure ongoing skill application.
- Reconditioning Training Program: Virtual instructor-led sessions and small group labs with coaching/peer review for the underwriting team.
- FINESS Certification: The Foundations of Insurance for Nationwide Excess and Surplus Specialty (FINESS) Certification Program included 10-courses that combined self-guided modules with live-virtual sessions led by subject matter experts. Plus, real-world case studies simulated a day in the life of an underwriter or claims associate.
Results
More than 8,000 P&C associates participated in role-specific training, and 4,000 associates/leaders participated in the Business Acumen sprint. This participation supported the following customer-focused results:
• Increased claims handling speed
• Increased underwriting accuracy
• Improved property underwriters’ risk assessment and decision-making in scenario-based use cases
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Nationwide did provide specific numerical Level 3 and 4 results in the submission form but declined to make them available for publication.)
McCARTHY HOLDINGS, INC.: ERP SYSTEM TRANSFORMATION – FINANCIAL MODERNIZATION
McCarthy Holdings, Inc., modernized and unified four outdated, 17-year-old project financial and tracking systems into one integrated ERP (enterprise resource planning) platform called CMiC. This large-scale transformation standardized financial processes; streamlined payroll-to-project integration; enhanced reporting and forecasting; and created a foundation for accurate, timely, and enterprise- wide financial data.
McCarthy has 19 regional offices and more than 300 active construction jobsites across the country. Training on the new platform needed to reach approximately 2,000 employee partners (75 percent of all professional employees) across McCarthy Holdings, Inc.; five geographic regions for McCarthy Building Companies, Inc.; and 15 stakeholder groups—each with different job duties and regional processes.
Program Details
An internal subject matter expert (SME) and a team of four instructional designers created a blended learning model combining:
• Self-paced eLearning (awareness modules)
• Virtual instructor-led sessions (process education)
• Artificial intelligence-integrated, simulation-based system training (system education)
• On-the-job reinforcement through more than 40 super users, a custom AI agent, virtual workrooms so end-users could access and get comfortable with the system prior to go-live, and live demo sessions. Customizable Learning Journeys provided personalized paths that ensured training relevance to each learner’s role. SMEs were trained in video capture software and audio recording to produce step-by-step walkthroughs. Raw videos were enhanced with on-screen visuals and closed captioning to improve accessibility. Some 240 training assets (120 videos and 120 simulations) were created in 13 weeks. Materials were continuously updated to align with system changes prior to the platform go-live date.
Training reinforcement included:
• Workrooms in Microsoft Teams staffed by super users (7 a.m.–7 p.m. weekdays, plus weekends during launch)
• Onsite super users who provided in-person support and elevated issues for system enhancements
• 18 live demo sessions over six weeks post-go live
• Job instructions for every transaction available during and after training
• Updated policies and procedures to reinforce new processes
• AI-enabled training assets that allowed end-users to search and retrieve specific “how-to” resources both during and after training.
Results
• McCarthy successfully retired four legacy systems and fully integrated them into one new ERP system within 45 days, producing measurable cost savings.
• In the first month post-go live, employees processed 13,000-plus invoices with 98 percent accuracy.
• Employees achieved 98 percent billing accuracy for both make-up and new bills
VERIZON: PROJECT 104: THE HUMAN-AI PERFORMANCE INITIATIVE
Project 104 is a large-scale mission by Verizon’s Global Customer Operations (GCO) team to transform customer service interactions from a cost center into a value-generation engine.
The goal was broken into three distinct pillars:
• Serve: Provide an amazing customer experience to reduce the need for credits.
• Save: Use smart, targeted offers to keep customers who might be thinking of leaving.
• Sell: Turn positive service interactions into opportunities to grow the business.
To achieve the goal, the business first deployed a suite of new artificial intelligence (AI) tools:
1. Convo IQ: An AI tool that listens to calls and provides real-time summaries and helpful hints.
2. The Right to Sell Tool: A “smart assistant” that gives agents a simple “green, yellow, or red light” indicating the best way to handle a call.
However, the business faced a critical challenge: The tools provided the “what,” but agents lacked the skill and confidence to act. Agents were hesitant to pivot a “Serve” call into a “Save” or “Sell” conversation, and adoption of the new technology was low.
In response, Verizon’s Training Team created the Service+ Skilling Series, whose core formula is: Technology (AI) + Human Skill (the Training) = Business Results
Program Details
Content for the Service+ Skilling Series was developed in-house by a team of three designers over an agile six-week sprint, in partnership with the Verizon Consumer Group (VCG) to adapt its “Elevate” model. The Service+ Skilling Series consisted of two components:
• Service+ Apprentice: This six-hour virtual instructor- led training (VILT) for frontline agents blended AI tool adoption with the human-centric consultative skills (such as overcoming objections and using value statements) needed to act on the AI prompts.
• Coaching to Excellence for Vendor Partners: This four-hour VILT for leaders equipped them to coach to the new workflow, using the new AI tools and the official Customer Interaction Form.
Results
The Service+ Skilling Series was rolled out to 2,578 frontline agents and leaders, achieving a 100 percent completion rate. Results include:
• Impact on Save: Following the launch, the “Survival Rate” key performance indicator (KPI) increased from 33.27 percent (June 2025 baseline) to 37.9 percent (October 2025)—a gain of 4.63 points toward the 45 percent goal.
• Impact on Serve: For the Credit Reduction module, there was a 28.3 percent increase in mean score between the pre- and post-assessments. Furthermore, the primary business goal of credit reduction remains strong, with a $10.1 million run rate, showing the business is successfully managing service costs.
• Impact on Sell: The training has been crucial for activating the new “Right to Sell” tool, helping agents to more proactively retain customers.