CUX Webinars are designed to showcase the work of member companies and noted experts that is having a significant impact on the business. In the past few months, we have heard presentations from Farmers Insurance, Qualcomm’s CLO Tamar Elkeles, Caterpillar, Author Mark Allen, and more. CUX members can view the recorded sessions by accessing them through the CUX Research Collaboratory or the webinar archive pages of the website (www.corpu.com).

MEASURING THE PERFORMANCE IMPACT OF TRAINING AT BOEING

Successful L&D organizations measure. They know what performance impact they are aiming for, and have rigorous procedures to determine if their goals (and therefore the goals of the business leaders involved with a particular initiative) are met. Mark Dana, from the Learning, Training and Development Organization at the Boeing Company described their training evaluation process for Performance Impact (ROI). He discussed participants in the evaluation process and their roles and showed and described the tools the team uses to conduct an evaluation. Examples of completed performance impact studies were presented.

ONBOARDING AT SANFORD HEALTH SYSTEM:
IT’S ALL ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS

Onboarding is a critical issue for all businesses, but is particularly critical for health care organizations, many of which face severe shortages of qualified staff. Deborah Letcher described how Sanford Health System, a group of hospitals, clinics and nursing homes, provides interactive learning sessions, opportunities for dialogue, and regular follow-up sessions between clinical educators and new hires facilitate the nurturing of relationships. Most important, new nursing employees are supported by Clinical Nurse Educators who serve as faculty advisors and mentors for twelve months following their hire date, dramatically increasing nursing staff retention.

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT:
DRIVING RESULTS AT FARMERS INSURANCE

Most companies have to deal with employees that are distributed, sometimes throughout the world. Farmers Insurance has another issue. The company depends on 22,000 independent contractors to meet its business goals. These contractors define the time, place and manner they do their work, making it even harder to affect changes in behavior. Annette Thompson and Jim Harwood described how the Farmers L&D organization found a way to leverage their performance management process to coach contractors to a different level of performance, and deliver business results.

THE CHIEF LEARNING OFFICER (CLO):
DRIVING VALUE WITHIN A CHANGING ORGANIZATION THROUGH L&D

Tamar Elkeles, the CLO of Qualcomm, shared how CLOs can develop strategies, set proper levels of investment, make performance improvement the primary learning goal, and manage learning and talent for value. She also shared some of the strategies of the twenty high-profile CLOs that contributed to the new book she wrote with Jack Phillips. Participants learned the importance of the CLO role, regardless of the actual title, nine important value-adding strategies that will be part of the CLO role and how to develop productive management relationships that enable learning to add value.

CATERPILLAR’S COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE:
UNLEASHING THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE

Companies that want to go beyond training to learning need to develop networks of individuals willing and able to share information that will benefit others, and, ultimately, the company. It is not an easy thing to do. Paul Walliker described how Caterpillar University has grown their Knowledge Network into a corporate goldmine that contributes significantly to the growth of the company. Bringing together over 40,000 employees, retirees, and dealers into some 3,500 communities, the network has helped restart plants destroyed by tsunamis, and solved countless problems in subjects ranging from bolts to keeping garage floors clean when servicing equipment.

THE NEXT GENERATION OF CORPORATE UNIVERSITIES

This presentation, based on the book of the same name by consultant and author Mark Allen, provided a window into some of the most innovative corporate universities and their inventive approaches. Corporate universities are being used strategically to help develop people and expand organizational capabilities. The whole range of issues facing these new strategic organizations was discussed.