Magazine Articles

Operational excellence and culture transformation are lofty goals. But training can play a big part in an organization attaining them, as Verizon can attest: Verizon Lean Six Sigma (VLSS) helped earn the telecom the No. 1 spot on the Training Top 125 for the second year in a row. Despite some belt-tightening, Top 125ers still dedicated a mean of 4.58 percent of their payroll to the training budget. Some 25 newcomers earned a spot on the list this year, the 13th in a row Training has ranked the top companies of employer-sponsored workforce training and development.

Excelsior, MN (February 18, 2013)— Verizon picked up the No. 1 spot on the Training Top 125 for the second year in a row, earning its induction into the Top 10 Hall of Fame in 2014 after securing positions in the Top 10 for the last four consecutive years. No. 4 Farmers Insurance likewise punched its ticket to the Top 10 Hall of Fame next year. Top 5 newcomers Jiffy Lube International, Coldwell Banker Real Estate, and CHG Health Care Services nabbed Nos. 2, 3, and 5, respectively. This year, 25 newcomers cracked the Top 125 list.

By Dan Carusi, Vice President, Global Education, Deltek

September 17-19, 2013 • Chicago, Illinois Training magazine's Online Learning Conference will provide how-to, skill-building content and showcase how innovators are solving business problems for their organizations by leveraging learning technologies to make their learning blend more cohesive, immediate, intuitive, inclusive, and immersive.

By Bill Treasurer, Founder, Giant Leap Consulting I am a big ’fraidy cat. From my knee-shaking fear of heights to my tongue-stammering fear of authority figures, I live a life that seems imbued with fear. You may find it surprising, then, that I am a professional courage-builder. My personal mission, and the mission of the courage-building company I founded a decade ago, is to help people and organizations be more courageous.

By Soren Kaplan Disruptive innovation and change have become the norm. Most of us know that if we don’t proactively innovate and change the game, someone else will rewrite the rules for us. Just think Blockbuster, Borders, Blackberry, and Kodak. At the same time, business culture reinforces the idea that uncertainty should be avoided at all costs. Control is the goal. No wonder every management book on Amazon that uses the word “surprise” in its title focuses on preventing the phenomenon from occurring.

By Dr. Stephen A. Laser When faced with a potentially problematic hire, organizations must face a difficult decision. They can either reject the candidate outright based on the findings from the initial hiring process or they can bring the person onboard and coach him or her in the hope that the person’s behavior will change for the better.

As part of Brandon Hall’s Analyst Insight program, it received a recent member question concerning leadership development. The member wanted to know the benefits or disadvantages of creating a GE-style leadership program that takes recent MBA graduates and rotates them through the organization for a year or more with a focus on learning an organization’s culture and succession planning. The idea sounds great—but what works for GE may very well be a disaster for a smaller, less global organization.

By Greg Bell, Founder, Water The Bamboo Center For Leadership Have you watered your bamboo today? When I ask that question, I often get some rather puzzled looks. What does cultivating a crop of giant timber bamboo have to do with training, human resources, or even leadership for that matter?

By Jason W. Womack, MEd, MA Here are my suggestions about how to make change last: Look at what you are doing now. Make a decision to change one thing. An excellent way to improve your current situation is to initially accept things the way they are. When you know where you are, you then can make thoughtful adjustments.