Author: Garry Kranz

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Verizon Wireless Gets a Strong Signal on Tuition Reimbursement

tuition reimbursement

Verizon Wireless knows it is getting its money’s worth when it comes to tuition reimbursements.tuition reimbursement

The telecommunications giant based in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, has measured the business impact of tuition assistance on a quarterly basis for nearly six years. The company compares retention rates of employees who participate in a tuition-assistance program against other groups of workers.

“We have reduced our turnover to the extent that the savings we realize pays for the expense” of paying for tuition, program manager Dorothy Martin says. Martin declines to specify exact savings, but says the training benefit is popular with the company’s 82,000 workers. Each year, roughly 20 percent take advantage of the program, dubbed LearningLink, to pursue college degrees, industry certifications and other career-related courses.

Full-time employees at Verizon Wireless are eligible to receive up to $8,000 annually for tuition and textbooks. Part-time employees working at least 20 hours a week qualify for up to $4,000 a year. The tuition funds are available to employees either as a prepaid or reimbursement option.

In measuring the bottom-line impact of its tuition assistance program, Verizon Wireless stands out: most companies do not track the effectiveness of tuition reimbursement benefits.

“We have four goals: to attract motivated employees, keep them engaged and committed, give them opportunities to apply what they learn, and to develop a pipeline of new leaders,” Martin says.

About 600 Verizon Wireless employees are pursuing college courses in 2010, Martin says. That’s in addition to about 700 who completed degree programs a year ago. The company also is helping 45 employees pay to finish their doctorates.

Verizon Wireless does not require a minimum service commitment from graduates. The lenient policy reflects the program’s success in retaining top performers, Martin says. Again, she can point to data: “Whether out of loyalty or to advance their careers, the majority of them stay with us.”

Workforce Management Online, October 2010 — Register Now!

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Planned Cos. Sends Employees to the School of Growth

Career training often is a low priority at family-run companies, whose owners spend most of their time concerned with economic survival. Robert Francis refuses to engage in such short-term thinking at Planned Cos., a real estate services firm based in Parsippany, New Jersey.


Francis is the fourth generation of his family to run the company, whose customers include owners of upscale rental properties, including apartments and high-rise office complexes. Planned Cos. was founded by his great-great-grandfather, Bernard Francis, in 1898 and has survived the Great Depression, two world wars and the death of the Industrial Age.


The company has remained small and independent in an era of mergers and consolidation. But it is not afraid of using new technologies to advance employee learning. Recently, the 112-year-old firm launched the Planned School of Professional Development, which celebrates its first anniversary in May. The learning center provides online career training to employees whose jobs, while unglamorous, are pivotal to Planned Cos.’ success.


It provides guidance and training on more than 3,000 programs and professional development services. The content ranges from tutorials on using basic computer programs to more strategic business skills. People in jobs ranging from janitorial services to customer service are able to pursue courses that could put them in line to grow with the company.


Whether it’s polishing their computer skills, learning a second language or pursuing professional credentials, the objective of the program is the same.


“It’s a retention tool as well as a way for us to tell employees, ‘We value your individual contributions, whether you’re a janitor or a concierge at a high-rent building,’ ” says Francis, the company’s president and CEO.


Planned Cos. provides building management and tenant services to 330 residential and commercial properties in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. The firm consists of three divisions: Planned Lifestyle Services, which provides concierge, front desk and doorman services; Planned Security Services, for residential and corporate customers; and Planned Building Services, a janitorial and maintenance unit.


“We’ve been fortunate to grow year over year, even in these crazy times,” says Francis, whose company posted record revenue of $40 billion in 2009.


The school originally was intended for about 65 employees in operations, administration and managerial roles. The purpose: Supply managers with skills—including change management, conflict resolution, negotiation and leadership—that they’ll need to emerge as effective leaders.


Among the early participants is Shawn Walsh, a regional manager who supervises about 100 employees.


“Employee morale is great, we’re keeping a lot of staff, and I think it’s [all] because of the school,” Walsh says. “The training really guides us on how to become more professional as managers and to help our associates working in the field.”


Those in management are not the only ones to benefit. The program is being rolled out in phases to the company’s 1,250 other employees this year. All employees eventually will be expected to pursue at least one course a month until they satisfy a 12-course core curriculum.


In addition to workforce-wide training on customer service skills, each group of employees will receive content that is specially geared toward their job responsibilities. “They’re going to have courses that are really applicable to their day-to-day activities,” Francis says.


The company this year plans to roll out specialized learning programs for various job families, including concierge and front desk, maintenance and janitorial services, and security.

“Education and training is a daily event in our business,” says Michael Hynes, a project manager with Planned Building Service who joined the company 14 months ago. “Having the resources at our facility will be an asset to our associates, to myself, and mostly our clients, who are paying for our knowledge and experience. This is a large step in the growth potential of Planned Cos.”


Hynes says he plans to pursue management-level classes such as time management, which is a key skill to master when overseeing teams in charge of managing a property. He also points to a longer-range benefit of preparing people to lead the company.


“It also gives the company the opportunity to help, train and groom the ‘A’ players and emerging leaders,” Hynes says.


Learning exercises include video simulations of likely business situations and other interactive presentations. Participants are prompted to answer a series of multiple-choice questions, thus getting instant feedback. Courses typically conclude with a 10-question self-assessment test.


As employees take each course, Planned Cos.’ executive team asks them to evaluate the material. The ultimate aim is to tailor the offerings to ensure people follow a more scripted career path.


Francis credits the school, coupled with other training and employee recognition, with helping Planned Cos. reduce employee turnover by 10 percent during the previous two years.


“Ours is a retention-based business. If you can get people to stay, then you’re winning the game” of client retention as well, Francis says.


Employees are encouraged to learn for their professional enrichment, even though Francis acknowledges that could lead some to leave the company for other opportunities. It is an unusual stance for a CEO to take, especially in an industry where high turnover is the norm.


In fact, the building-cleaning services industry will experience fierce competition for workers during the next decade. By 2018, projected employment will grow by 5 percent to more than 4 million workers, according to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, which is produced by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Most of those job openings reportedly will arise from the need to replace the high number of people who leave the occupation annually.


Employees at Planned Cos. this year will begin putting their learning to practical use. Francis says the intention is to have each employee start working on a career path that includes interim and long-range professional goals.


“First, we want to identify associates who wish to be promoted from within—our ‘A’ players that have a desire to lead or manage different divisions,” Francis says.


Along with the professional development school, Planned Cos. this year is building a 200,000-square-foot educational facility that is slated to open in August. It will enable employees to get training on concierge and front-desk procedures, environmentally friendly cleaning and maintenance techniques and the basic functions of elevators, landscaping, pools and roofs. Employees in relevant jobs will be able to pursue accreditation in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a “green building” practices and principles certification program.


Workforce Management Online, March 2010 — Register Now!

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More Firms Paying Mind to Mentoring

It may turn out to be just a New Year’s resolution, but an increasing number of U.S. companies appear ready to adopt mentoring programs in 2010 as a way to develop up-and-coming leaders.


Nearly one in five companies plan this year to initiate some type of mentoring or coaching to help top employees make the transition to leadership, according to a study by Boston-based Aberdeen Group.


Seventy-six percent of companies surveyed said they have used mentoring in an effort to deliver critical leadership skills. Nearly two-thirds said they find mentoring to be effective. Twelve percent found it ineffective.


The report, “Learning & Development: Arming Frontline and Midlevel Managers to Deliver People and Performance Results,” collected responses from about 500 human resources professionals, corporate directors and business managers. Aside from mentoring, participants were asked to rank various learning approaches by effectiveness, including instructional classes, synchronous and asynchronous learning, online tools, mobile learning, on-the-job training and social networking.


It is not likely that every company will follow through on its stated desire to launch mentoring within the next 12 months, says Kevin Martin, a vice president with Aberdeen’s human capital management practice. But Martin says organizations are very serious about the value of mentoring because it helps to address their most pressing concern: figuring out how to capture and share key organizational information as veteran leaders near retirement.


“Companies are expecting a massive brain drain when the economy rebounds. Mentoring and coaching are great ways to teach people and transfer your intellectual capital before it leaves the organization,” Martin says.


A related concern is keeping younger employees from leaving because they see a chance to advance more quickly elsewhere. Pairing them with senior leaders is a proven way for a company to retain its most promising workers, Martin says.


The latter point is borne out by a December survey from Opinion Research Corp. in Princeton, New Jersey. It found that 25 percent of employees plan to leave their present employer when the job market improves. Employees ages 18 to 34 are the most likely to change jobs.


Aberdeen’s research noted that companies that are using mentoring appear to be doing so almost offhandedly. Although roughly two-thirds of companies use it, only 26 percent of them formally assign mentors to newly promoted managers. That may soon change. Martin says 40 percent of survey respondents plan to put formal programs in place this year.


In February, Aberdeen is due to release a report on onboarding that Martin says affirms the crucial role mentors will play in the future. Each employee can give a finite amount of effort, so expecting them to work harder is not a feasible strategy. As employee effort hits a plateau, so too does business performance.


Martin says mentors will be asked to harness employees’ efforts and steer them in the direction of concrete, measurable business goals. He says it will be the overriding business issue for companies in 2010.


“It’s how companies are going to get incremental business results, without adding incrementally to their workforces,” Martin says.


Workforce Management, January 2010, p. 10 — Subscribe Now!

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Employee Engagement Workers Want Feedback — Even if It’s Negative

employee engagement, managers

The best way to drive employee engagement is for managers to accentuate the positive in employee performance. The second best engagement approach is to focus performance discussions on employee weaknesses. Worst choice: Give no feedback at all.employee engagement

That is the synopsis of “The Relationship Between Engagement at Work and Organizational Outcomes,” by Gallup Inc. More than 1,000 U.S. employees were interviewed for the report. Gallup broke management styles into three categories, based on employee perceptions:

• Managers who focus mostly on employee strengths
• Managers who focus mostly on employee weaknesses
• Managers who focus on neither strengths nor weaknesses

Thirty-seven percent of employees say their bosses concentrate on strengths, while 11 percent say their managers focus solely on negative characteristics. Gallup says 25 percent of employees surveyed fall into an “ignored” category, in which their supervisors address neither strengths nor weaknesses. Twenty-seven percent of people did not express strong opinions about their managers either way.

The differing approaches reflect back varying levels of engagement. Sixty-one percent of employees in the “strengths” group report being engaged in their jobs. Still, 38 percent of those workers remain disengaged despite the positive feedback, perhaps because they believe the praise is not sincere, according to Gallup. About 1 percent of employees whose managers are focused on strengths are considered to be “actively disengaged,” meaning they may act out on their job frustration.

By contrast, engagement is considerably lower—just 45 percent—for employees whose managers focus primarily on negative characteristics. One-third of such workers are disengaged. Most alarming: 22 percent are deemed to be actively disengaged.

The worst engagement scores can be found in the “ignored” category, where only 2 percent of employees are highly engaged. Fifty-seven percent report being not engaged and 40 percent are actively disengaged.

So while emphasizing strengths gives the strongest boost to engagement, even negative feedback is better than no feedback at all, according to Gallup.

“We found that it is better for managers to dwell on some aspect of employee performance—even if it is a focus on negatives—than to avoid the matter altogether,” says Jim Harter, a Gallup research scientist and co-author of the report.

Harter says negative feedback “at least lets people know that they matter,” while neglecting them can be far worse.

Engagement—or lack of it—carries huge implications for how well companies achieve their business goals, especially amid recession, Harter says.

“The growth trajectory for companies with highly engaged workers, on average, looks really good when compared against their competitors. These types of companies are holding their own while their competitors are dropping off” on key variables, Harter says.

Organizations with high engagement scores exceed their peers in nine areas of business performance, including customer loyalty, profits, productivity, quality, turnover and absenteeism. For instance, organizations with the highest engagement scores in Gallup’s database have an 83 percent chance of achieving above-average business performance. By contrast, organizations at the lowest levels of engagement have a 17 percent chance.

The report is based on Gallup’s Q12 Index, which measures a dozen factors that are known to affect engagement.

Workforce Management, February 2010, p. 10-11 — Subscribe Now!

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Downturn Prompts a Change in Learning Initiatives

Faced with shrinking budgets and deep cuts of their training staffs, companies in 2009 continue to scrutinize employee training offerings more carefully, reducing open enrollment and devoting scarce resources to high-impact learning initiatives. Despite the short-term pain, those steps should help companies by strengthening their competitive positions once the economy brightens.


Those are among key findings of a 2009 study by Bersin & Associates, an Oakland, California-based research firm that specializes in enterprise learning and talent management. The research for the Corporate Learning Factbook 2010 was conducted this year in conjunction with Workforce Management. It culled online responses from U.S.-based organizations with 100 or more employees, including for the first time agencies of state, local and federal governments. More than 1,400 organizations participated in the survey.


The study also found that following a decline in spending on leadership programs in 2008, companies once again are allocating resources to nurture their managers, supervisors and executives—a sign that the economy may be turning a corner, albeit slowly.


“A lot of good can come out of this recession if companies become more efficient by focusing on high-value learning programs. That’s the silver lining in the clouds,” says Karen O’Leonard, a principal analyst with Bersin & Associates and author of the report.

More on this study
Attend a special webcast on November 10, 2009, to hear Bersin & Associates analyst Karen O’Leonard discuss corporate training budgets, spending, delivery, staffing and trends.

Nevertheless, there’s no getting around the fact that 2009 was a brutal year for training. For the second straight year, companies sliced their spending on learning and development by 11 percent—to $714 per learner. Large companies, which are those with 10,000 or more employees, scaled back the most, by 12 percent. But smaller companies did not escape the budget knife. Small firms, which employ 100 to 999 employees, cut training budgets by 10 percent. Midsize firms, employing 1,000 to 9,999 workers, cut by 11 percent.


Large companies tend to have large training and development functions, and they typically expand their training offerings rapidly during economic boom times. And although they are often slower to curtail training expenditures during a recession, they are assessing—and cutting—now.


“Larger companies have a lot more fat to cut. As they started to tighten their belts, a lot of large companies we talked with have begun using scorecards for their training programs. What they found is that a lot of training was not valuable,” O’Leonard says.


Large companies also are centralizing more of their training using a shared services model. The structure can be especially effective for companies that span multiple lines of business and need to deliver learning to different business units.


“Centralization is another trend we’re seeing with large businesses, to bring resources together to save money but also make sure the most valuable programs are being delivered,” O’Leonard says.


Training priorities change

Gone are massive course libraries and unfettered open enrollment. They are being replaced with a more prescriptive approach that seeks to match high-potential employees with development initiatives that tackle strategic business issues. O’Leonard says companies are more selective about which employees will participate in development programs. Employees on average received 13 hours of formal training in 2009, down from 17.2 in 2008 and nearly half the 25 hours offered to employees two years ago.


Learning organizations also shed jobs in 2009. Median learning staff fell from seven per 1,000 employees in 2008 to 6.2 staff per 1,000 employees in 2009, according to Bersin’s research. Small companies reduced the size of their training staffs by 4 percent, midsize firms cut 5 percent and large companies cut 8 percent of their learning professionals.


The steady erosion of training budgets naturally is affecting spending on training-related products and services, which totaled $48.2 billion in 2009—a slide of 14 percent from last year’s $56.2 billion and the lowest ever recorded in Bersin’s annual report. Payroll for training staff, which accounted for $27.5 billion of all training spending this year, plummeted 18 percent. Nearly $14 billion was spent on training products, consultants and other services, but that represents a one-year drop of 10 percent.


On an optimistic note, it appears companies have begun preparing for life after recession. Leadership development consumed 24 percent of training dollars in 2009, an increase from 17 percent of training dollars in 2008. That indicates companies are beginning to look ahead and getting beyond the “crisis management” stage, O’Leonard says. Bersin estimates that approximately $10 billion is spent on leadership development annually.


Another good sign was the use of online training. Roughly one-third of formal learning was delivered online, up from 24 percent in 2008. Twenty percent of learning occurred via online self-study, up from 16 percent in 2008.


Meanwhile, companies slowly are adapting newer technologies for skills development. In 2009, 13 percent of formal training was delivered through “virtual” classrooms, including technology that enables instructors to present coursework using live remote broadcasts or video. By contrast, 8 percent of formal learning was delivered using virtual classrooms in 2008. The virtual tools can help companies better manage travel and associated costs.


Despite the uptick in online delivery, nearly 60 percent of employee learning took place in traditional instructor-led physical classrooms in 2009. That is down from 67 percent in 2008 but nonetheless remains the dominant training method, O’Leonard says.


Several learning technology trends also bear continued watching. O’Leonard says more and more companies are turning to collaborative online tools, particularly for project work and knowledge sharing across dispersed workforces.


The collaborative technologies enable subject-matter experts and other knowledgeable workers to produce learning material that can be easily shared and disseminated at relatively low cost.


“Collaborative tools that facilitate learning have really taken off. It’s the hottest thing in learning and development,” O’Leonard says.


Wikis and blogs are gaining traction as learning tools, with each being used by 14 percent of the surveyed organizations. Similarly, nearly one-quarter of companies report using “communities of practice” to promote collaborative learning and knowledge sharing.


Many turned to outside vendors to supply their needs as they dispensed with in-house training staff. Nearly two-thirds of organizations used outside professionals for instruction, and 51 percent did so for course development.


Still, with economic conditions bleak for the near term, companies were selective about how they spent their available training dollars. Among small businesses, use of learning management systems fell to its lowest level since 2007 as revenue-constrained companies canceled service contracts. Conversely, nearly four in 10 large companies outsourced learning-support functions to compensate for staff cuts, representing a substantial increase from the 23 percent that outsourced those functions in 2008.


Workforce Management Online, October 2009 — Register Now!

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A Small Government With Big Training Goals

John West doesn’t need much prodding to espouse the value of workplace learning. Broad-shouldered and gregarious, West in 2006 earned a promotion to the job of lead technician in the buildings and grounds department of Chesterfield County, Virginia, a regional government near Richmond. Chesterfield is home to about 311,000 people, making it the fourth-largest county in the state, according to U.S. Census figures.


    West, 53, manages a team of technicians whose job is to maintain the heating and cooling systems for about 70 county-owned facilities. He credits his advancement to intensive leadership training through the county’s Chesterfield University, which is modeled on corporate university programs.


Instruction on how to effectively motivate and lead had a huge impact on West. “It showed me different ways to lean on other people, learn from them and how to think out of the box,” West says.


Now, with evangelical zeal, West preaches the gospel of continuous learning to his six-member team of technicians. It’s important for them to keep abreast of changing industry technologies, although West also stresses interpersonal skills.


“It’s like I tell them: You’ve got the toolbox you bring to work in your truck every day. And then you’ve got the toolbox up here,” West says, tapping his temple for emphasis. “You’ve got to make sure both tool sets are sharp.”


West is one of thousands of county employees enrolled in courses through Chesterfield University. He estimates he has taken about 440 hours worth of training and says he “usually is involved in at least one class.”


The university’s format provides a uniform model to deliver training to the county’s 4,500 workers, replacing what had been a mishmash of learning programs within individual departments. Courses are segmented into six “schools of learning” that target eight areas of competence deemed essential to carrying out the county’s long-range strategy.


    The curriculum is designed to support the county’s seven strategic goals. The hallmark of the plan is to provide services to Chesterfield citizens, and much of the learning is geared “to improve the actual service delivery, or the processes and procedures that make it happen,” says Kevin Bruny, the county’s chief learning officer and Chesterfield University’s dean.


The competencies are: communication, continuous learning, leadership, planning and organizing, interpersonal skills, flexibility, reasoning and customer-focused service.


“The idea is simple: If you have these competencies, you should be well-prepared to help deliver on that strategy,” Bruny says.


Corporate universities have been on the training scene for a while, but the format remains rare in the public sector. Chesterfield’s efforts have not gone unnoticed, however. In 2008, for the third consecutive year, it was the only local government to receive a best practices award from the Corporate Learning Exchange, a training organization in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The award recognized Chesterfield County’s ability to link learning to its business strategies.


“They definitely demonstrate some exemplary practices: strong governance structure, engaging their leaders in the teaching process, demonstrating the impact the programs have on cost savings and reengineered processes,” among other things, says Sue Todd, president of Corporate University Exchange.


According to its annual report, Chesterfield County invested $3.4 million in employee training and development in 2008, a one-year jump in expenditures of nearly 10 percent. The rise in spending reflects increased hiring in recent years. Nearly 2,250 courses have been offered through Chesterfield University, with cumulative learning approaching 274,000 hours.


On average, individual employees received 61 hours of training last year, roughly twice the average for government, Bruny says. He cites data compiled by the American Society for Training & Development in Alexandria, Virginia, to buttress his point.


Chesterfield University also turned a profit in 2008, generating nearly $68,000 in new revenue by delivering custom training courses to other local governments, nonprofits and small companies. That’s nearly three times its annual revenue target of $25,000.


Still, like state and local governments across the country, slumping tax revenues have forced some difficult decisions. The budget crunch caused Chesterfield to scrap its plans to purchase and implement a learning management system in 2010. As a consequence, an LMS manager hired by Bruny last year was recently let go.


Also as part of a budget-reduction effort, county policymakers decided to merge Chesterfield University and the county’s quality assurance department, creating a new umbrella organization known as the Center for Organizational Excellence.


Despite a tumultuous 2009, Bruny wears a brave face.


“It has been a challenge to get to this point, but I think it will provide a fresh new step in the county’s quality and learning journey,” Bruny says.


Stuck in class
Chesterfield University was officially launched on an inauspicious date: September 11, 2001. It took a while for the university to get on its feet, but in March 2003 it formally became independent of the county’s human resources department. Now, HR provides support as needed. Steering the day-to-day direction of the university is a six-member council on learning, composed of three county administrators and the deans of three of the university’s schools.


The deans include the county sheriff and the chiefs of its police and fire departments. In addition, a volunteer advisory board of about 100 employees helps with governance, instruction and creation of the lessons. Employees are permitted to suggest learning content, but only ideas that advance strategic goals are considered.


“If we can’t find a connection, we’re not going to waste time on it,” Bruny says.


Classroom instruction remains the preference for Chesterfield’s workforce, which has a median age of 42. Getting people to use online and technology-based learning tools will take some time.


“We see it as turning a large ship: It happens very slowly,” Bruny says.


Online instruction increased, albeit slightly, for the second straight year in 2008, in part thanks to its incorporation into several certificate programs. Among the bright spots is the Chesterfield Police Department, which is trying to recruit younger police officers. It has begun creating its own online courses and using podcasts and other technologies to deliver professional coursework.


“They’re really getting on the online bandwagon by creating their own courses and doing lots of podcasting. I would like to see more of that” at other departments, Bruny says.


The inspiration for Chesterfield University comes from a similar effort by the Santa Barbara County in Southern California. Known as Employees’ University, it arose several years ago out of the county’s quest to develop a performance-based budgeting process.


That meant ensuring the county’s 4,000 employees possess certain ethical behaviors and attitudes, says Mike Brown, Santa Barbara County’s executive officer.


“Governments exercise power within society, so it’s very important that people who work in government understand their special responsibility. We’re not selling fizzy water or used cars or insurance. We’re doing things that people really don’t have much choice about,” Brown says.


Practical application
In corporations, the line of authority between executives and employees is usually clear. But it’s not quite so easy to connect the dots in the public sector. Case in point: Santa Barbara County, working with union representatives, winnowed the number of classifications for clerical jobs from 28 to three. That makes it easier for top decision-makers to pinpoint clerical workers who show the potential for rapid advancement, Brown says, and enables those employees to better “control their destiny.”


Chesterfield County’s employees have more than 650 job classifications, so it faces a task as daunting as that of Santa Barbara County. The classifications encompass a broad scope of professionals, as well as the support staff. Included among Chesterfield’s job classifications are engineers, accountants, psychologists, social workers, police officers, firefighters and financial analysts.


The trick is to design learning that is at once narrowly targeted and comprehensive. Certification programs are being developed by the county’s various schools of learning to steer people toward a career path. More than 140 employees graduated from certification programs in 2008, Bruny says.


To earn the certificate, employees often are required to complete a “capstone project,” which they choose with input from their supervisors. It gives them the chance to apply their learning to a specific issue within their departments.


In addition, some departments, with help from HR, are developing apprenticeships for mechanical and technical positions.


“We can’t compete with the private sector for our technicians, so we needed to start developing our own people,” Bruny says.


West, who is the lead technician, tries to blend technical and leadership training. To keep his crew up to date with changing technologies, West rotates his technicians through required training classes. Rather than sending every technician, though, only one is selected to attend each class.


Upon completing the class, the technician is required to give a formal presentation to the others. The trained techs also get involved in creating training booklets, videos and other materials that become a reference archive for use by future technicians. The presentations are part of each technician’s professional development plan.


It saves departmental time to have one person share class content with peers. Although initially wary about making the presentations, West’s technicians seem to have warmed up to the idea.


“Now they come up [afterward] and say. ‘I learned from that experience,’ ” West says.


Chesterfield University also plays a role in succession planning. Three separate needs assessments conducted during the past five years have helped to identify about 120 potential leaders across the upper echelon of the organization, Bruny says.


The process helps individual departments create their own depth charts and target high-potential employees for special training, even though “they don’t necessarily know why they’re being invited to participate” in classes, Bruny says.


Despite budgetary issues, Bruny harbors some ambitious goals for 2010. New courses are planned to help the county’s 500 middle- and upper-level managers improve their skills. Expanded efforts at blended learning are on the drawing board, as are plans to improve measurement and reporting of employee learning.


Additionally, Bruny says the county is trying to hammer out an agreement with an undisclosed college. If approved, it would enable employees to gain college credits for courses pursued through Chesterfield University.


If successful, Chesterfield’s credit courses would be similar to what Santa Barbara County achieved. The California county’s Employees University enables workers to pursue degrees in public administration under a partnership agreement with California State University, Northridge, Brown says.

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Training That Starts Before the Job Begins

While some organizations struggle with layoffs, or at best freeze their hiring plans, others are hiring in considerable numbers, and want their new workers to be steeped in company culture, processes and community from day one—maybe even sooner.


One such organization is consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, which is set to add 5,000 jobs by the close of 2009. That’s in addition to a similar number of new workers brought on board last year. All told, Booz Allen’s workforce should top 20,000 people this year, with most of them based in the U.S.


That rapid hiring pace necessitates a new approach to training. Eighteen months ago, Booz Allen began an overhaul of its onboarding processes. It begins delivering training and developmental tools to new employees the moment they accept a job offer, rather than waiting for their first official day at work. It is a process Booz Allen executives refer to as “preboarding.”


During preboarding, new recruits are directed to an internal Web portal to access job information, “early learning” activities and company information, including the company’s 15 business lines and messages from senior executives. It’s also an opportunity for newcomers to begin making professional connections with their Booz Allen colleagues.


The prehire learning exercises set the stage for a first year of filled with mentoring, coaching and peer support. The purpose is straightforward: By the time new employees sit through a required weeklong orientation session, they typically are familiar enough with their new roles to make meaningful contributions immediately.


“Preboarding is all about getting someone engaged and excited about being here, prior to their actually showing up for their first day,” says Aimee George Leary, who is the McLean, Virginia-based consulting company’s director of learning and development.


Vestas Wind Systems is experiencing similarly stunning employment growth. The company, which is based in Randers, Denmark, hired more than 5,000 people in 2008 to meet anticipated demand for its turbines and integrated wind technology systems, swelling its total employment to nearly 23,000 worldwide.


Although most of its employees are in Europe, Vestas is also in the midst of a recruiting binge in the United States. Vestas, which has its U.S. headquarters in Portland, Oregon, had a U.S. workforce of nearly 1,900 people in 2008. Nearly three times as many employees could be on board in 2010, including a horde of technical professionals to support a growing U.S. presence that includes a new factory near Denver and research centers in Boston and Houston.


The resulting “people and culture tsunami” is prompting Vestas to take a more comprehensive approach to training and development, says Helle Bay, the company’s senior vice president of business performance and operations.


Simply hiring people and training them as they came on board—an approach that worked fine when Vestas was a firm of a few hundred people—is proving to be unsustainable.


“We had to focus on our people and our culture: finding out what’s good for them and walking the walk” to help them grow professionally, Bay says.


Booz Allen and Vestas are anomalies against a backdrop of seemingly endless layoffs and shrinking training budgets. Both companies’ surging employment is traced, at least in part, to unprecedented levels of anticipated federal spending.


Steady growth in tough times
With $4 billion in annual revenue, Booz Allen’s growth isn’t really a surprise. Its consultants provide technical expertise in areas ranging from systems integration and intelligence gathering to leadership development and change management. Many employees have backgrounds in the military or defense and national security and were recruited to consult on information assurance, cyber-security and other sophisticated challenges.


Fueled by the U.S. government’s war on terror, the company has been expanding nearly the entire decade. New business seems all but assured. Private contractors, many of them small businesses with limited staff, are seeking advice on how they could snag a chunk of federal stimulus money, underscoring Booz Allen’s need for people with high-level skills.


The company hires analysts to provide advice and technical and professional services to numerous federal agencies. “And what else is the government doing now but trying to solve tons of problems?” says Lee Ann Timreck, a Booz Allen principal who is helping to redesign new-employee training.


Booz Allen chose the preboarding approach to help new employees ease into their work environment. Introductory videos include greetings from senior leaders and a broad overview of Booz Allen’s customers, service lines and corporate philosophies. The breadth of the material couldn’t effectively be delivered in just a weeklong orientation session.


“Previously we just had a one-week training program and that was it. We just trained people on the [functional] skills they needed to be successful, which meant they would go to a client site and maybe not have all the information they need,” George Leary says.


Another new learning tool for new employees is Hello.bah.com, Booz Allen’s internal social network. Embedded within it are user-created wikis, blogs and community forums that enable employees to exchange information about customer projects more immediately. The site serves two main functions: to foster collaboration among Booz Allen’s widely dispersed workforce, and to help new employees build their own personal networks with other employees in the company.


“There’s no value to us in hiring a bunch of people and having them leave in a year” because they aren’t satisfied with the company, Timreck says. “Also, as we get more widely dispersed, it’s really critical to have these social tools.”


There’s more to the strategy than technology, however. The personal aspect is equally important, with new employees paired almost immediately with a “peer sponsor,” typically a Booz Allen veteran who helps them learn the ropes. Within their first six months, employees also are matched with a mentor, while managers face stricter accountability for helping their employees grow professionally. Personal development plans are a standard item for new employees, and are usually in place within six months. The process is being accelerated with the rollout of preboarding. Upon completion of a week of orientation, new employees are encouraged to begin drafting a career plan.

As part of a leadership development campaign launched last year, Booz Allen introduced a series of information and development tools for its 2,500 frontline managers, the people who play a more formal role than in employees’ professional development.


In turn, a new tool called the Leadership Quality Index enables employees to provide anonymous 360-degree feedback on their managers’ performance. The input is being gathered and evaluated as part of each manager’s annual performance review.


Managers at first resisted the new program, thinking it would prove to be just another item on their to-do list. In time, however, they have come to embrace it as a tool to help them accomplish objectives they already have to meet, Timreck says.


Now, feedback from frontline managers “is helping to ensure the process of coaching and developing employees runs smoothly,” Timreck says.


Booz Allen also sought to reduce “classroom size,” winnowing the number of employees under each manager’s supervision. The ideal number of employees is now between 15 and 25, rather than dozens, as was previously the case.


Finally, Booz Allen provides intensive interactive training when employees move into new and very different organizational roles.


Kristine Rohls, a seven-year veteran at Booz Allen, advanced in February to the position of principal in the company’s strategy and organization division. That’s a step up from her previous position as senior associate. She acknowledges being apprehensive about a “principal immersion” workshop that all new senior leaders are required to take within six months of their promotion.


“I thought, ‘Gosh, I don’t have a week to sit and listen to lectures,’ but it wasn’t like that at all,” Rohls says.


The session forces people to work collaboratively and learn the art of persuasion. Actors are hired to simulate the role of clients. Principals have to overcome objections and sell Booz Allen to the would-be “customer.” That includes being able to respond to unexpected comments such as “I heard Booz Allen is nothing but a bunch of old, rich white guys.”


The immersion course also teaches collaboration. Co-workers are given the task of assembling proposal requests for new businesses and persuading a panel of actual Booz Allen partners to pursue the approach they are presenting.


“As a new principal, it’s designed to get me thinking as a business owner. I’m no longer responsible just for my capability area—now I represent the firm,” Rohls says.


Wind-blown training
Like Booz Allen Hamilton, Vestas’ business is booming. The company says it has installed nearly 40,000 wind turbines worldwide, including 10,000 in the United States. In a recent financial statement, Vestas’ executives predicted that 2009 sales will jump at least 20 percent, topping $10 billion. Revenue is expected from several long-term contracts that Vestas signed last year with electricity utilities in Europe, Asia and the Americas.


That rosy revenue projection also is fueled by unprecedented federal spending in the United States. The U.S. stimulus package includes plans to make money available for developing renewable energy sources. In addition, a proposed new federal energy plan seeks to curb toxic emissions, creating more opportunities for alternative energy sources such as wind.


Adding huge numbers of employees poses a number of challenges, says Peter Christiansen, who joined Vestas in 2007 as manager of learning design and implementation. While hiring the right people is crucial, it is equally important to make sure they get up to speed quickly.


Christiansen last year instituted an “induction program” that tests the mettle of employees, whose average tenure is about two years. The star of these animated sessions is “Mr. Butler,” a highly demanding customer with a stream of questions about how and why Vestas is different from its competitors. Employees are thrust into the role of explaining products and services to Mr. Butler, whose facial expressions are enough to let them know if the answer is satisfactory or not.


Known as “One Vestas,” the induction training is mandatory for all employees. It consists of five hours of total training, which employees can do all at once or in smaller chunks. It serves two functions: to develop a culture in which employees make learning a priority, and to help Vestas document the strategic value of learning, Christiansen says.


“Failure is not an option,” Christiansen says, quoting Vestas’ mission statement.


The induction program is part of a broader attempt within Vestas to capture and analyze various employee data. Chief among them is data that shows a correlation between an employee’s job satisfaction, customer loyalty and financial results. The fact-based approach gives top leaders at Vestas a glimpse into strengths and weakness within the workforce, thus providing a rationale for continued training investments, Bay says.


In addition, Vestas is consolidating to one learning management platform that is used to develop job competencies, streamline performance reviews and create a “people development dialogue” with employees. Managers are expected to initiate performance discussions on goals and achievements with their employees two times a year.


The endgame of training is to zero in on highly technical employees who are good candidates for leadership at Vestas, Bay says.

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Spurred by Hiring Binge, Geico Makes Training a Priority

Dan Schechter has a message for job seekers: 15 minutes with Geico could save your career. That’s about how long it takes to apply for a job with the car insurance giant, which has been hiring hundreds of people across the country as its business surges.


Schechter, Geico’s vice president of staff development, is plenty busy these days. Even as U.S. companies across many sectors aggressively slashed jobs, Geico rolled out plans during the first quarter to add nearly 1,000 employees in 19 states, boosting its ranks of sales, customer support and claims professionals. Most have been entry-level positions that require one-on-one interaction with consumers.


That means Geico, known for its quirky TV ads featuring jilted cavemen and talking geckos, will continue to invest in employee skills development in 2009. The newcomers, having gone through up to two months of training, should be in position to help Geico sustain the momentum of a solid 2008.


“Whenever you’re in our niche and the economy gets tough, people still expect low prices and great service. We’re still growing, and the bottom line is we want to make sure we’re staffed to provide the service we promised,” Schechter says.


Geico burnished its bottom line last year with record premium revenue of $12.47 billion, up from $11.8 billion in 2007. That’s according to the annual financial report of Berkshire Hathaway Associates, run by investment tycoon Warren Buffett. Geico has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway since 1996.


The hiring spree is a departure from the horrid unemployment news of recent months, but it’s not out of the ordinary for Geico. The insurer, based in Chevy Chase, Maryland, has hired more than 1,900 people since 2006, and employs 23,000 people in the U.S.


Geico likely isn’t through recruiting for the year, either. Its workforce management process generates weekly, monthly and quarterly forecasts of staffing needs. The routine enables Geico to stay on top of its talent needs, and plan for training accordingly.


“We’re pretty good at [predicting] what we’ll need,” Schechter says. “That helps us avoid getting overstaffed and having to stop hiring or even make cuts.”


Schechter says the majority of new employees are novices in the insurance industry. They spend part of one week taking orientation classes before moving into more targeted learning that pertains to their specific jobs. Geico looks for “hardworking, high-character people” and puts them through four to eight weeks of structured training, he says.


The learning varies, depending on the job, but includes a mix of classroom work and practical exercises that familiarize people with the tasks, business processes and systems they’ll need to know.


“The vast majority will come in not knowing much, if anything, about the insurance industry,” Schechter says. “Our training process is designed to give them several weeks of training, and then a follow-up period of high support from managers to pick up anything that might have been missed” during the formal learning.


Although it has structured and mature training processes, Schechter says 90 percent of learning occurs beyond the initial classroom instruction. Geico managers are expected to serve as coaches, providing continual feedback and working with frontline employees to target learning needs, set goals and chart their progress.


“The goal is to enable folks to get promoted so that they’re at the level that best fits them,” Schechter says.


The cloudy jobs picture for candidates becomes a silver lining for services and support employers: They have an easier time finding good job candidates. The Society for Human Resource Management says in an April report that employment projections have hit a four-year low in manufacturing and services, the two largest segments of the U.S. private sector.


In March 2008, 16 percent of services companies surveyed by SHRM said recruitment of top-tier candidates was getting more difficult, with roughly 8 percent saying it was getting easier. Just one year later, those numbers have been completely reversed. Just 1.7 percent report continuing difficulty in recruiting, while 25 percent say there are skilled candidates aplenty.


“It’s a domino effect: As employment goes down, it becomes easier to find people,” says Jennifer Schramm, SHRM’s manager of workplace trends and forecasting.


The services sector showed promise of increased hiring during January and February, but Schramm says April was a different story. Although nearly 22 percent of services companies expect to add jobs, more than 27 percent are poised to make cuts—a net loss of 5.5 percent.


More and more companies view training as a way to cope with a smaller workforce. In a separate SHRM survey of nearly 470 HR professionals, 34 percent say their companies are retraining staff for new positions, up from 10 percent that were doing so in October 2008


Training becomes of greater importance to customer support organizations during tough economic conditions, says John Ragsdale, vice president of research with the Sales and Service Professionals Association in San Diego.


“With customers pinching pennies, they are looking for any reason to cancel an account or shop for a cheaper option, so every support call becomes even more critical,” Ragsdale says.


Not all customer support people are created equal. Ragsdale says high-tech companies are struggling to find technically skilled engineers to fill support jobs. The situation isn’t as dire for companies like Geico.


“It should definitely become easier to hire non-technical people for call center jobs, such as the Geico positions, as more workers from service sectors find themselves needing a job,” Ragsdale says.


With a labor market awash in candidates, Geico is going to be selective. Having more people to choose from also requires more careful sorting to identify the best candidates, according to Schechter. Skills aside, there is another characteristic Geico wants in prospective employees.


“We’re not looking for people who’d like to give this a shot for a year and then move on. We want people who want to join the Geico family and be here a long time,” Schechter says.


Advancement is expected, with new employees averaging two to three promotions within their first three years. That mirrors Geico’s preference to promote from within, Schechter says.


It’s hard to know for certain how the promotion track is viewed by employees. Geico officials declined to make employees available for interviews, saying that only top executives are authorized to speak to the media.


A reading of comments on Glassdoor.com, a company that lets people anonymously post opinions of their employers, provides some insights into Geico’s culture. The company generally gets high marks for its pay, benefits and ethical reputation, but some workers clearly find career opportunities lacking.


Notes a Geico claims services representative in Virginia Beach, Virginia: “Unless you are one of the chosen few who are picked by [supervisors] to be promoted, you will spend your years toiling away in an entry-level position without the opportunity to advance.”


Employees who meet performance standards have job security even in a difficult economy, writes a Geico claims adjuster in San Diego. But the same person writes that Geico employees enjoy “little job satisfaction. The management style is very authoritarian and top down. Lots of whip cracking and little real leadership.”


Those aren’t exactly the kind of employee endorsements that woo top recruits. Yet Schechter points out that Geico employs “a ton of people” who have been with the company for multiple decades, including some who advanced from entry-level jobs to greater responsibilities. That includes CEO Tony Nicely, who started as a clerk with Geico in 1961.


Although most of its hiring centers on core customer support jobs, Geico also is recruiting for a small number of corporate positions, Schechter said. That includes jobs for information technology professionals, accountants, actuaries and financial analysts.

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Tutoring Benefits Give Employees Peace of Mind

Pull a regular shift, go home, fix dinner, clean up and then sit down to help your kids with their homework. It’s a routine that working parents like Larry Shoop know all too well. Homework sessions provide important bonding time, but even the most diligent parents can get overwhelmed by the task.


Shoop is lucky. His employer, Santa Clara, California-based Intel Corp., makes homework help available to the children of its 45,000 U.S. workers. The most significant piece is a contract with Tutor.com, an online tutoring service that matches students seeking help with certified instructors.


Shoop says the service relieves the pressure of helping his 16-year-old son learn advanced math or his 11-year-old daughter make the adjustment to middle school. He still helps them whenever possible, but says he no longer feels as if he has to know all the answers.


Knowing his kids are getting help from experienced tutors helps him focus more on work and alleviates concerns about their academic achievement, Shoop says.


“Quite honestly, I’m not current on many of the topics my children are studying, so the online tutoring help is invaluable,” says Shoop, an Intel employee communications manager based in Hillsboro, Oregon.


In a time when many companies are curtailing benefits, Intel says offering tutoring assistance translates to stronger employee engagement and a better workplace. Although the company doesn’t have data, officials point to anecdotes like those of Shoop to illustrate the business value of tutoring.


“We have fathers and mothers tell us they no longer have to rush home from work and jump into helping with homework, because their kids are already on the computer doing their lessons,” says Cynthia L. Del Frate, Intel’s program manager.


Overworked parents have less time to solve the riddle of homework, yet their kids have more homework than ever, says Marylou Fishman, a consultant on child care benefits with WFD Consulting in Newton, Massachusetts. The problem is more pronounced in single-parent households or those in which English is not the primary language.


“Employers also feel the crunch in productivity when parents have to take calls at work from their kids telling them they have a homework assignment due tomorrow,” Fishman says.


Students of Intel employees access the Tutor.com course materials by following a Web link on Intel’s corporate intranet. Once they log in, students are prompted to choose grade-appropriate study material in four subject areas: math, science, social sciences and English. The system then searches in real time for a compatible tutor, among the 2,000 available through the service, says Jennifer Kohn, a Tutor.com spokeswoman.


The New York-based company also works with South American tutors to provide bilingual tutoring in math, science and social studies. They include certified teachers, college professors, graduate students, professional tutors and students attending accredited universities.


Intel officials declined to reveal the cost of providing tutors, but Tutor.com charges corporations a “startup program fee” that includes implementation costs and an initial block of tutoring hours, Kohn says. The fee is based on a company’s number of employees. Once the initial hours are used, participating companies have two options to continue the service: “pay as they go” sessions, billed each month at $25 per session, or purchasing hours in advance. Buying hours in bulk lowers the hourly tutoring fee, which ranges from $21 to $25. The average session last about 20 minutes.


IBM and Texas Instruments have offered after-school programs for children of employees for about 10 years. Although officials wouldn’t comment on the programs, Fishman says that under each of their programs, the employers purchase computer equipment, books and other learning materials, and WFD lines up student tutors through summer camps, local school districts and charitable organizations.


Despite these efforts, it’s difficult to know whether offering tutoring to employees’ children is a growing trend, particularly given the down economy.


“I think everyone would agree that after-school help is a benefit both for employees and employers, but employee assistance vendors aren’t seeing a huge jump in demand by any means,” says Stella Antonakis, a senior consultant with Buck Consultants in San Francisco.


Even companies that ardently believe in its value aren’t sure.


“It’s something we’ve struggled with,” Intel’s Del Frate says. “But as long as the service ratings and utilization rates remain high, we’ll [evaluate] tutoring as a benefit we’ll want to continue.”

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Aetnas Odyssey Comes Full Circle

Staying in business for nearly 160 years requires endurance and the ability to adapt. That need is acute in the ever-changing health care industry. Few U.S. health insurers have weathered more storms, or arrived at their destination more circuitously, than Aetna Inc.


Launched as a small regional insurance company in 1850, Aetna grew into a behemoth and a bellwether of the U.S. economy. In 1990, Hartford, Connecticut-based Aetna was listed as one of Fortune magazine’s most admired companies.


But after plunging into the murky confluence of financial services, insurance and health care, Aetna practically sank of its own weight. By 2000, the insurance giant was nearly out of business.


Aetna had miscalculated its market, loading up on acquisitions of HMOs in the late 1990s at a time when the country’s managed-care landscape was dramatically reshaping itself. By the end of the decade, Reagan-era HMOs had fallen out of favor with the public, leaving Aetna with a slate of products and services its customers no longer wanted.


“Aetna was in a heap of trouble,” says Deborah Kelley, Aetna’s director of learning services and a 25-year company veteran. “Our customers were mad at us, our member [hospitals] were mad at us and the doctors were mad at us.”


But the low point actually proved to be Aetna’s start on the road to recovery. The journey began in 2001 after a new team of top executives, led by current CEO Ronald A. Williams, was installed to engineer a turnaround. High on the priority list: bringing order to Aetna’s scattershot approach to learning and development.


The new regime issued a mandate: Employees would be required to maintain a yearly performance scorecard, developed in partnership with their managers. It helps determine whether an individual is competent to handle the job and provides a guidepost for development.


Although unaware of it at the time, Kelley says Aetna was embarking on a radical, if profoundly simple, path: Clarify expectations and hasten peak performance. In hindsight, she jokes that had company leaders realized the painstaking work involved, the project might not have gotten off the ground.


“We did it in the days before people knew how hard it really is,” says Kelley, who gets invited to speak about Aetna’s sojourn at business conferences. “If I were in the audience listening to us explaining how we did what we did, I’d probably want to run away and hide.”


Hiding isn’t an option for Aetna. Although its work is far from complete, the 35,000-employee firm boasts a sophisticated set of processes for evaluating people according to “the Aetna way,” including performance and behavior.


It’s not the only reason for Aetna’s revival, but renewed appreciation for employee skills is credited with helping Aetna regain its stride. After seven years spent developing competencies, instituting performance scorecards and forcing people to confront their career goals, Aetna is back in contention. Despite the global economic slide, Aetna in 2008 posted revenue of $31.6 billion, a one-year jump of 14 percent.


And despite healthy revenue growth, Aetna is not immune to economic pressure. Shortly before Christmas, the company said it would cut 1,000 jobs—about 3 percent of its workforce—in response to continued turmoil in U.S. financial markets.


In terms of market capitalization, $11.5 billion Aetna is the third-largest U.S. health insurer, behind UnitedHealth Group Inc. ($26.68 billion) and WellPoint Inc. ($18.95 billion).


Like many marquee companies, Aetna is engaged in a Darwinian struggle to survive. To remain among the fittest, the company plans to ratchet up the pressure on managers in 2009, including a new “dual rating” strategy that assesses their leadership and business skills, Kelley says.


Compliance breeds commitment
Aetna has roughly 1,300 distinct jobs, with each one mapped to a list of specific competencies. Scorecards are used to analyze whether people are competent to perform their job tasks. The idea is to help people take stock of their skills and see how they measure up.


Although the scorecards are mandatory, Kelley says employees have come to embrace them. But it wasn’t always that way.


“For the first couple of years, employees were identifying their own behaviors. When we introduced competencies [for each job], it was a relief to them. Now they have help thinking through which behaviors are critical,” Kelley says.


That in turn leads to more meaningful conversations between employees and managers. As a result, employees are moving from “compliance to commitment” in the scorecard process, with managers playing a key role.


“We have managers asking [how] to identify not only an employee’s performance, but also the potential for role change and retention risk—conversations that managers would normally avoid having with employees. But this approach not only makes those conversations possible, but expected,” Kelley says.


Tamara Pinckney, a payroll services manager, aspires to be an executive at Aetna. Having a full set of competencies to work on makes that lofty goal more attainable.


“Competencies have provided me with a clear direction on the expected roles and responsibilities of my position. It ensures that I am successful in my role and assists me with setting expectations for my team,” Pinckney says.


Longing for learning
Aetna’s past trials and tribulations led to its increasing reliance on technology systems to deliver training and manage performance. All formalized learning comes through Aetna Learning Center, a learning management system provided by Mountain View, California-based SumTotal Systems. Kelley says that this ensures “consistent processes” and avoids duplication.


“If it’s not through the learning center, it doesn’t count,” Kelley says.


Likewise, employees are “intrigued” by Aetna’s talent management system, which is provided by Authoria Inc. of Waltham, Massachusetts, Kelley says. It enables employees to search for jobs within Aetna and be notified by e-mail when a position matches their qualifications.


Leaders face a pair of new requirements in 2009: completing leadership curricula with two levels of certification. The first level, known as foundations, focuses on performance management, with an advanced level on talent management.


The certification training is designed to ensure that managers obtain baseline sets of skill, Kelley says. Roughly half of Aetna’s 5,400 managers have attained certification, with the remainder expected to complete the work this year.


“I think it helps us much more effectively identify, select, motivate, develop and move talent across the organization,” Kelley says.


Pinckney has earned certificates in talent management and performance management, along with Aetna’s Performance Improvement certification, “which is equivalent to a Six Sigma Yellow Belt,” Pinckney says.


Like most organizations, Aetna has a system for rating the business performance of managers. Aetna this year is implementing a second score for leadership, separate from the foundation and advanced certification programs. The two scores won’t be averaged, thus giving Aetna a clear snapshot of which areas individual managers need to address.


Changes to performance rankings typically make employees nervous, and that’s probably the case with some Aetna managers. That’s not so for Crystal Baldwin, who is manager for call-center operations at Aetna RX Home Delivery.
“I believe this approach will assist in my professional growth by providing a bird’s-eye view of my strengths and areas of opportunity [to improve], as it relates to my coaching and mentoring skills,” Baldwin says.


Aetna started the dual rating last year for executives, but all leaders will receive two scores beginning in 2009.


“The combination positions us to move the needle. We’ve got aggressive goals, so this is how we know if things are working,” Kelley says, including goals of increasing membership, boosting revenue and hitting other financial and performance targets.