Organizations that crave a community that comes with an aspirational culture should create opportunities for employees to opt into an ethos of higher purpose. And that expression can be a unifying and inspiring experience for everyone at the company. Optimizely, which has a strong existing culture of caring about its community and employees, recently doubled down in this area. By launching with the software-as-a-service  volunteer solutions provider Causecast, it experienced unparalleled results.

Cynthiann King leads the design, development, implementation, management, and maintenance of company-wide employee training initiatives and programs for Toll Brothers, a national, luxury homebuilder firm with more than 5,000 associates.

Rob Lauber is chief learning officer at McDonald's, where he oversees a staff of 250 people across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Under his purview are the L&D Center of Excellence and seven Hamburger Universities around the world, as well as education and accreditation programs. In all, L&D's audience is about 1.9 million McDonald's employees.

A survey of more than 23,000 employees in 45 countries and territories found that work effort is nearly twice as high in positive work experiences (95 percent compared with 55 percent), suggesting a stronger employee experience can contribute to…

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?

Because companies recognize the business impact learning has on organizations, the talent development leadership role is experiencing unprecedented expansion in scope and responsibilities. To show current and aspiring talent development leaders the changes and growth occurring in the roleand what those shifts might mean for themthe Association for Talent Development (ATD) and the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) collaborated on new research based on the experiences of learning leaders worldwide.

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. Learning is becoming increasingly prioritized, as shown in Deloittes Global Human Capital Trends Report 2016 which showed that more than eight in 10 executives (84 percent) rated learning as important or very important.

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.

High employee engagement has been the "holy grail" for talent development during the past few decades. Getting employee engagement right translates to higher productivity, employee retention, and many other intangibles for an organization. Get it wrong, and it becomes more difficult to hire the right people, keep them happy, and move the needle on the strategic imperatives for a company. However, with the rise of such companies as Google and Facebook, with their enviable campuses and perks, organizational culture has emerged as a bigger concern for companies, a...

My charter as the new head of executive development was to build a mini version of GE's leadership university—Crotonville—for Heinz globally. The Heinz CEO counted GE's CEO at the time, Jack Welch, as a mentor and wanted to ensure we were developing our far-flung executives to be prepared for growth. Headquarters was a relatively small group of executives focused on corporate strategy and portfolio. The CEO wanted to create a more cohesive, skilled top leadership team. I was asked to propose a leadership training program and a budget for the few hundred senior...

ATD's 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...

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 in 77 countries say the skills shortage is the biggest threat to their business...

In this Q&A, Chief Talent Development Officer Martha Soehren provides an inside look at the talent development function at Comcast Cable. 1. 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 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. Two thought leaders share their contrasting viewpoints on the topic.