Winning Organizations Focus on Business Alignment, Metrics, Social Networking, and Simplicity
Oakland, CA – Feb 8, 2012 – Bersin & Associates, the premier research and consulting firm empowering Human Resource (HR) organizations to drive bottom-line impact, today announced the winners of the Bersin & Associates 2012 Learning Leaders™ Program, now in its sixth year. The firm also announced the availability of its report on the 31 winners, titled Learning Leaders™ 2012: Lessons from the Best.

The complimentary, 108-page report details how winners improved their businesses with innovative, efficient and effective approaches to employee learning and talent management. This year’s Learning Leaders™ winners emerged from hundreds of applicants – including industry leaders in management consulting, hospitality, business-process and document management, financial services, and wind power. Executed in the face of a challenging economic recovery, winning programs focused on business alignment, measurement, social networking, and simplicity. As in past years, Bersin & Associates conducted the awards program in partnership with Elearning! magazine.

“This year’s Learning Leaders demonstrate that the focus of learning has evolved from simply building a skill set to driving the right skills for competitive business advantage,” said Kim Lamoureux, Senior Director of Research Practices and Principal Analyst. “Learning teams increasingly measure how training and development contribute to the top and bottom lines of their organization. Social networking for the first time played a role in almost every entry, enabling learning and talent leaders to leverage the expertise of their people to find new talent and train current employees without creating formal programs.”

Another core theme: simplicity. “At a time when rapid change is commonplace and employees must juggle conflicting priorities, simplicity is becoming really important,” Lamoureux said. “Finding ways to deliver simple solutions requires innovative thinking, and this year’s winners demonstrated a drive to make it very easy to meet one critical learning or talent need successfully.”

Bersin & Associates’ report explains winning strategies and best practices for employee learning and development. For example, it tells how Cisco’s new year-long training program for new sales representatives uses virtual delivery, rather than in-person classroom sessions, and blends formal training with on-the-job experience. The program has made associates 10 percent more efficient upon moving into the field, which translates to $111 million in increased bookings for the year. Elearning! magazine features winners in its...