Use the Greiner Curve to assess and anticipate business needs and create a talent development strategy to address them. As a senior talent professional, you're in the business of cultivating the potential of your organization and its people. Organizations grow and change in predictable ways, moving through six stages of development. Each shift requires new skills for the organization's leaders and employees and can predict attrition in key groups. Knowing how to identify where your organization is, and more importantly, the next stage it is growing into, will...

Video gaming and talent development take off in tandem. Long tenure at one company is not common in the video game industry. But the very things that make the industry volatile—changing tastes among gamers and markets that shift because of new technology—have kept Humera Malik at Electronic Arts (EA) for 13 years. Today, as vice president of learning, engagement, and performance for the global video game company, Malik oversees a broad cluster of learning and development roles, from talent development to diversity and inclusion. It wasn't always that way. When...

Homebuilding isn't done how it used to be; neither is training at Toll Brothers, led by VP of L&D Cynthiann King. Inspired by their homebuilder father in 1967, Bob and Bruce Toll built two colonial-style homes in rural Pennsylvania. Fifty years later, Toll Brothers is a Fortune 500 company building luxury homes, urban condos, golf resorts, and active adult communities throughout the United States. Toll Brothers is a public company traded on the New York Stock Exchange. In 2016, the company had revenue of $5.2 billion. Even with that track record, the firm is...

The argument: Employees, not employers, should take responsibility for career development. An organization's talent development function exists, among other reasons, to develop employees so that they're able to contribute to achieving organizational goals. But if employees likely won't remain with one company throughout their entire careers, and given the evolving work dynamics in place, it's to employees' advantage to take professional development into their own hands, to achieve their personal goals. Right?   Shawn Milheim Senior Director, Head of Quality of...

One-size-fits-all training, executive-only coaching, and legacy corporate learning systems were once considered the norm, but most organizations and employees found them insufficient. Now, we have technology platforms that can push learning programs and multimedia content to the masses.  Learning is becoming increasingly prioritized, as shown in Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends Report 2016 which showed that more than eight in 10 executives (84 percent) rated learning as important or very important. Additionally, the amount spent on learning jumped 10...

Sonic Automotive is an auto retailer with more than 100 dealerships in 14 states, which provide everything from car sales and financing to collision repair and maintenance. The organization has traditionally focused on selling new cars.That effort began to change over the last decade, though. With more than 45 million used cars sold each year in the United States (compared with 10 to 14 million new cars), senior leadership recognized that billions of dollars were exchanging hands in the pre-owned business. Sonic Automotive’s researchers then identified more than...

Nancy Altobello and the talent function at EY not only have a seat at the leadership table, but also a valued role throughout the organization. Staid and stately as an ocean liner, the professional services firm Ernst & Young undertook, at age 167, a transformation to something more akin to a fleet of speedboats running in close formation. In 2013, under the leadership of a new global chairman and CEO, Mark A. Weinberger, the firm shortened its name to EY, unveiled a snappy new logo, and embarked on a rapid reinvention. Guided by a plan called Vision 2020, EY set...

Not everything was a glowing success for a new leadership development program at Heinz, but lessons learned helped to improve future program designs. The mover surveyed the house and said, "You must be very proud of your husband. It says here this is a VIP move for Heinz." "Well I am proud of my husband. He has a great job," I said. "But I'm the VIP for Heinz." He sputtered a little, but I helped him through the awkwardness with a laugh and change of subject. Two weeks later, I was settled in Pittsburgh, surveying the city from my 60th-floor office. My charter as...

The Association for Talent Development's (ATD) 2015 State of the Industry report found that, in 2014, organizations on average spent $1,228.70 per employee on direct learning expenditures. This represents just over a 1.7 percent increase from 2013, when the average spent per employee was $1,207.73. The increase in spending outpaces the average inflation rate of slightly under 1.4 percent seen in advanced economies in 2014, based on the International Monetary Fund's World Economic Outlook 2015.  The average number of learning hours used per employee also saw an...

A new ATD whitepaper offers insight into what it takes to close the skills gap. The skills gap has garnered significant attention in the United States and globally in recent years. Communities, states, regions, and entire nations—now more than ever given the globalization of business—pay a heavy price when they cannot find or equip workers with the right skills for critical jobs. Simply stated, they fail to flourish and falter when meeting customer demands. In fact, PricewaterhouseCoopers's 2015 Global CEO Survey found that three-quarters of 1,322 responding CEOs...

Martha Soehren is chief talent development officer and senior vice president of Comcast University and Comcast Cable. She is chairwoman of the Women in Cable Telecommunications board of directors and is past chairwoman of the Association for Talent Development Board of Directors. Where does talent development fit into the org chart? Is it under HR or free-standing? Talent development is aligned under me—so is the talent management function—and I report to the chief human resources officer for Comcast. How do you define talent development at your company? Talent...

The argument: Improve the leadership selection process rather than focus on development. How does your organization build its leadership bench strength? Many talent development professionals back the notion that it is critical to put in place tools and processes that identify and select people with leadership potential. Meanwhile, others wager that it's more effective—and predictable—to invest resources in developing internal candidates. Melvin Sorcher Organizational Psychologist People enter life with a set of personalized genes, making us different from other...