CASE STUDY I.

An FMCG company was looking for an innovative way of developing its managers with a new leadership development program

The key drivers behind the program design were:

• Ease of Access
  One gateway was required through which staff could find out about leadership both within and outside the organisation, and collaborate with colleagues having similar interests and needs.
• Greater Flexibility
  The capability was required to provide learning for a more diverse workforce with less emphasis on face-to-face.
• Reduced Costs
  Costs of classroom trainings and travelling was required to be significantly reduced.
• Content in Business Context
  Learning should be tailored to embed the customer’s business messages, values and branding.
• Modular Approach
  To support future refresher ‘just in time’ training
  Signposting to existing material: to maximise on other areas of investment.
• Diagnostics
  To align learning with need.

The Learning and Development Program was designed to include:

• E-learning tutorials (covering the underpinning theory)
• E-learning ‘just-in-time’ case study
• 15 custom-tailored eLearning  courses
• Practical workshops (with high tutor/learner ratios, role-plays and exercises to reinforce the underpinning theories)
• Line manager one-to-ones (using guidelines issued as part of the program)
• Intranet website from which all the content could be accessed: this to include relevant articles, contact bases, links and discussion forums

The feed-back from the learners was very positive. They commented particularly on the flexibility of the program and appreciated being able to return to the e-learning after attending the workshops. The use of discussion forums also ensured that learning continued in an informal basis long after the programs had been completed.

CASE STUDY II.

A pharmaceutical company was aiming to develop the sales management skills of its sales representatives

The key drivers behind the program design were:

• Pharmaceutical companies face major challenges in developing the sales management skills and teamwork competencies of sales representatives in a dynamically changing market environment.

• The problems are also compounded by busy schedules which tend to make people regard professional development as luxuries rather than necessities, and as something that can be "put on the back burner" because of urgent problems of the day.

The Learning and Development Program was designed to include:

• Problem-driven Learning
  Participants focused on a topic of shared interest where concrete improvements are needed. The problems selected for the workshops are those nominated by sales representatives as being of pressing concern. The aim of each workshop is to share ideas that can create an understanding of the fundamental problem and generate practical outcomes that will lead to immediate performance improvement.

• Cascading Impacts on Sales Management and Performance Improvement
  Based on the custom-tailored needs that have been all highlighted at the above mentioned workshops, we have developed a wide portfolio of eLearning courses.

Sales representatives that need to upgrade competencies have seen that help was immediately available; their leaders and managers could get as involved in the process as they wished, and gained comfort with the fact that the action-orientation itself brought bottom line benefits to the learning and development process.