Michael Dorsey ensures that every Department of Human Services employee has the training they need to serve Maryland residents. When Maryland residents experience a crisis, they can turn to the Department of Human Services, the state’s primary social service provider, for help and guidance. DHS assists more than 1 million people annually, although that number is likely to rise in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The department, through its 24 local administrations—covering areas such as child protective services, supplemental food assistance, and other...

Chief People Officer Marissa Andrada is leading cultural transformation at Chipotle. From sustainably sourced, real ingredients to hand-prepared foods to forming partnerships with farmers to offering employees no-cost mental healthcare and debt-free college degrees, Chipotle is on a mission to cultivate a better world. The fast-casual restaurant infuses this mission in everything it does, and that is a driving element of its talent development initiatives. "It really does capture what we stand for, which is this whole food culture and movement that Steve Ells,...

What will 2020 look like for talent development leaders? Do they anticipate being able to meet their organizations' needs, to have an impact on corporate performance? How do they expect other leaders' views of talent development to change? How many resources do they think they'll have at their disposal? To answer those questions, in December 2019, the Association for Talent Development conducted an online poll of 116 talent development leaders. ATD distributes this Talent Development Executive Confidence Index (TDXCI) survey every quarter, using participants'...

Scenario planning and talent forecasting can help talent development professionals brace—and prepare—for future disruption. Learning and talent development budgets have grown rapidly during the robust bull market of the past 11 years. As a result, some talent development professionals haven't needed to pay attention to deep profit and loss analysis for our units. While the TD function has often been viewed as a cost center, the 2010s saw it emerge as a critical driver of recruiting, employee engagement, brand building, and growth. Yet, the COVID-19 pandemic—and...

Burnout among you and your employees can take a toll on an entire organization. The World Health Organization defines burnout as an "occupational phenomenon." Employees who experience emotional and physical exhaustion, a sense of powerlessness, and frustration may be well on their way to complete burnout. In fact, the 2020 Global Culture Report from O.C. Tanner Institute, a firm specializing in employee recognition and workplace culture, found that 79 percent of employees are suffering from mild, moderate, or severe burnout. The report, a compilation of data from...

Follow these seven steps to effect change. My mandate was to build a leadership pipeline. While I was already familiar with leadership competencies when I joined TELUS International, I didn't know much about the company or why it needed a pipeline and didn't already have one. What were its business objectives and goals? How does it make money? How was the organization structured? How would L&D help the firm achieve its business objectives? What impact would multiple cultures have on a global learning strategy? How would we measure success? I took two years to...

Chief Learning Officer Michael Molinaro is ensuring New York Life employees have easy access to intuitive learning options. Leadership isn't a role you inhabit—it's a set of actions. That principle has been a driving force behind the work of Michael Molinaro, chief learning officer for New York Life, the largest mutual life insurance company in the United States, according to Fortune. "People are leaders when they act in a leaderly way," says Molinaro. "We've worked to define the leadership actions that most embody who we are and what we want to be at New York...

Use metrics to determine a mentorship program's return on investment. While many executives acknowledge the significant impact mentoring has had on their careers, these same executives often view structured mentorship programs as expensive and ineffective. Senior leaders who have experienced the individual benefit of mentoring relationships hesitate to formalize mentorship within their organizations. Why? The largest obstacle is many practitioners' inability to capture metrics that tell the quantifiable story of success in mentorship programs. Mentorship programs...

Liz Janssen is focused on ensuring ICF employees have the skills and mentoring to support the company's innovation and growth. In 1969, a former Tuskegee Airman and three U.S. Department of Defense analysts founded the Inner City Fund to finance minority-owned businesses in Washington, D.C. Fifty years later, ICF has become a billion-dollar global consulting and digital services firm focused on solving complex problems for their clients in various industries such as energy, environment, public health, economic development, and more. With client partners and...

Learn to find purpose, power, and perspective. It was 1988. Guns N' Roses sang, "In the jungle/ Welcome to the jungle / Watch it bring you to your ... / It's gonna bring you down." The visceral scream echoed around my bedroom walls. It was a time of change: Glam rock was taking the charts by storm; the world's first major computer virus, the infamous Morris (later Internet worm) had reared its head; and what was then the Soviet Union had begun its restructuring and the start of its eventual collapse. Thirty years later, welcome to disruption. It could still...

Learn to purposefully guide your company’s culture. “Culture is everything,” the CEO said during our first interview. “Our company has something special—figure out what it is, cultivate it, transform it, but don’t screw it up.” No pressure at all, right? I accepted the job. What is this culture thing we all hear about and speak of? I have many peers who will tell you that it’s a fluffy buzzword, haphazardly thrown around in intellectual conversations about strategic growth and business continuity—an undefinable intangible that makes for great debate. There are...

Blockchain is the underpinning technology of cryptocurrency. It is an encrypted digital ledger of public records organized into groups of data blocks that are distributed over trusted networks. Once a record has been added to the chain, it is difficult to change, and constant checks to the network verify that the content is valid. But if you think this technology has no relevance for talent development, think again. Simply defined, blockchain is a record-keeping technology, and the talent management team is responsible for updating, maintaining, securing, and...

Classic change management advice doesn’t apply to transformational change. I’ve been a student of leadership for a long time. I’ve spent the past couple decades studying what the top scholars in the space have to say, even meeting and working with some. I’ve rolled up my sleeves in the field, partnering with many well-respected companies on leadership development initiatives. It’s fair to say I love this. One perennial focus of the talent development field is how to lead change. These days, you can’t shake a stick without running into someone talking about the...

Director of Talent Management Mary McNevin helps U.S. Venture prepare future leaders while broadening its talent acquisition scope. Talent development skills are portable across industries—and Mary McNevin’s career is a testament to this. She’s developed talent for a healthcare company, a food manufacturer, and now U.S. Venture, an energy, automotive, and lubricant products company. The learners in her current universe range from CEOs to barge captains, forklift drivers, and oil traders. As director of talent management, McNevin oversees talent acquisition,...

As technological advances like artificial intelligence and automation make their way into more and more workplaces, leaders have begun taking steps to prepare for the future of work. The Association for Talent Development’s research report The Future of Work: Technology, Predictions, and Preparing the Workforce examines how talent development leaders are readying their organizations for impending change in the next five years. Advances in technology or transformations in the workplace may be causing these changes. Respondents are fairly split as to how they...

The argument: Hiring for culture fit is ideal. Patrick Bosworth Founder and CEO, Leadership Choice Cultural fit is typically described as the likelihood that someone will adapt to or mesh well with the core beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors within your organization. Leaders in charge of the hiring process will often say that training for the specific skills required for any given job is easier than teaching someone to adapt to a culture in which they do not fit. Poor cultural fit can negatively affect turnover rates, costing companies a significant amount of...

American Express has entered a new season—one of fresh leadership and growth. With that comes new talent development needs. Known for a long history of strong performance, outstanding customer service, and elite rewards, American Express—under the guidance of former Chairman and CEO Ken Chenault—became a leading credit card issuer in the United States. After 17 years at the helm, he retired in early 2018, and Stephen Squeri, the company's then vice chairman, took over. Just six months before this major leadership change, Samantha Hammock stepped into the role of...

In my zeal to impress my construction client, I had gone rogue. This isn't you, Bill. This isn't the quality of work I've come to know, and I'm deeply disappointed … and frankly confused." Ouch. In the 25 years I had been a leadership development practitioner, no words had ever leveled me as much as those. In my mind, I had gone above and beyond my client's expectations by addressing a pressing business issue smartly, independently, and aggressively. The company owner's words hit me like a punch in the gut. At that point, I had been working regularly with the...

While looking forward, we can't lose sight of the fundamentals of learning. There is so much focus today on the pace of change, increasing demands on people, and technological advances. Are we forgetting—or at least not giving enough consideration to—the fundamental human processes associated with learning? I have growing concerns that, as talent development executives, we will lose sight of the process while focusing on the outcomes. Let's go back to the basics. Learning comprises a cycle with several key processes: acquiring new information, acting, reflecting,...

Chief Talent Officer Michael Arena is helping build adaptability into General Motors' workforce. After more than 100 years as a tra- ditional automotive manufacturer,General Motors began to realize that it needed to make changes to remain a competitive force in the industry. Once the largest automotive manufacturer in the world, it was no longer making a profit as of 2005. And the 2008 global financial crisis—when car sales plunged—only increased its losses. With liabilities twice its assets in 2009, GM engaged in an ongoing process of improving the operating...