Elearning! Magazine: Building Smarter Companies via Learning & Workplace Technologies.
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HCL TECHNOLOGIES Learning Organization and Governance Excellence: HCL Technologies is a global I.T. services company, focusing on transformational outsourcing. HCL offers a portfolio of services including software-led I.T. solu- tions, remote infrastructure management, engineering and R&D; services and busi- ness process outsourcing. Its product essentially is the collective expertise of its workforce. Staying constant- ly ahead of the competition in terms of capability development is vital. To that end, TechCEED, which stands for Technical Competency Enhancement for Enabling Development, is the technical training team at HCL Technologies and the source of new expertise for the organization. TechCEED's core focus is on enhance- ment of technical and project management competencies. Its offerings are organized via a number of Business Aligned training Academies (BAA). These BAA then are integrated with several lines of business (LoB) and coordinate the training require- ments for each LoB. There are 13 BAAs. Each has an Academy Head who interfaces with other business enablers to identify the training needs. Each Academy has its own set of internal trainers. TechCEED certifies all internal trainers and subject matter experts. TechCEED also provides neces- sary support to these Academies for the execution of various programs. The Business Aligned Academies ensure that learning aligns with the business needs of the delivery units. On a monthly, quarterly and half-yearly basis, strategic stakeholders define the course of action to ensure training aligns with business needs. The training caters to relevant perform- ance needs. This model allows the Academies to identify and assess the strengths and weaknesses within their delivery units and bridge gaps at various competency levels. For each academy, a quarterly review takes place to check whether the goals are met. HCL Technologies has created its own Academy Maturity Index Model to monitor the overall maturity of its academies. To stay current with today's workplace, HCL Technologies has expanded its blend- ed learning approach to include a wide mix of support systems beyond just formal learning courses. In addition, HCL holds panel discus- sions for project managers and technical engineers. These discussions enable the sharing of best practices across the globe through a live meeting system. The ses- sions are recorded and uploaded on the Learning Management System. HCL is a strong believer in mentoring and on the job training. Learners are assigned to mentors to assist them in their learning. They gain valuable feedback from their mentors and are able to build on their skills and enhance learning. Its hybrid, academy-based governance has provided a major step forward in learning governance at HCL Technologies. In particular, the Business Aligned Academies model has helped to reduce the cycle time for processing of training requests. The training costs are distributed between the center and the various busi- ness units. This helps in the effective dis- tribution of costs and puts the ownership on the business units to meet training needs efficiently. HEWLETT- PACKARD Learning and Talent Technology Initiative Excellence Hewlett-Packard is a technology company that operates in more than 170 countries. It has a broad technology product portfo- lio that includes hardware, software and I.T. services. Its products include personal computers, servers, storage devices, print- ers and networking equiment. The Imaging and Printing Group (I.P.G.) accounts for about 20 percent of total sales. The entire company has more than 300,000 employees. Like many companies, Hewlett-Packard found its sales force within I.P.G. to be gen- erally allergic to traditional notions of train- ing, especially in the classroom. Sales team feedback clearly expressed general distaste for e-learning, calling it tedious and isolat- ing. Time was an issue as well, as there is a constant struggle to balance the time required to learn versus time spent selling. Attempting to bring formal definition to informal learning, H-P started with a rig- orous performance consulting process, including in-depth interviews with 12 key business executives across four global busi- ness units. It determined that the sales force was overwhelmed and distracted by the amount, type and delivery of content pushed to them from diverse organizations, inhibiting productivity and making it diffi- cult for them to prioritize and derive value. The I.P.G. team recognized that success mandated making all design decisions through the eyes of the sales people on the ground, who already were overwhelmed by content. Training had to bring context, and do so intuitively. The team created a content framework to guide its content and interface decisions, basing the framework on H-P's sales methodologies and vocabulary. The Social Learning Center supports a wide variety of learning assets, including video, documents, discussions, blogs, polls, events and games. While sales peo- ple can search directly for needed content on their own, specific learning initiatives are also organized in the platform in the form of recurring programs or campaigns. The initial reach for the Social Learning Center for Sales Skills was the entire I.P.G. sales force globally. H-P rolled the plat- form out to its entire sales force enter- prise-wide in the fall of 2011. The initial development cost was approx- imately $175,000. Ongoing yearly mainte- nance should be approximately $130,000 (neither number includes staff salaries). Within one month of initial launch, the program had 1000 visitors and 120 active contributors. H-P's overall goal was to increase the success of sales force by "con- necting, contributing, and collaborating." To assess success of this goal and the other specific business goals mentioned earlier, HP devised a multifaceted measurement approach including qualitative and quanti- tative metrics for platform activity, pro- gram participation, content popularity and business impact. U.S. INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE Leadership Development Strategy Excellence The Internal Revenue Service, a high-pro- file federal agency with 96,000 employees managed by 9,200 managers, is facing a Elearning! January / February 2012 35