Chief Learning Officer - January 2008 - (Page 25)

clo profile Those who lead the learning function quite often find themselves acting as a bridge between various parts of the organization. They might serve as conduits between learning and people, or two departments, or people and the business. CLOs can even be called upon to act as the strategic and tactical bridge between concepts such as experience and performance. Ron Lawrence, vice president of organizational development for VF Corp., a leader in branded-lifestyle apparel, found himself acting as just such a link between his company’s many brands while working to build a focused, cohesive enterprise learning function and leverage it for company advantage. Using a mélange of skills and experiences like HR, total quality management and competency management planning – developed in previous employers such as Capital One, AT&T and ChoiceCare, a precursor to Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield – Lawrence has spent the past two years facilitating VF’s organizational development team’s efforts to operate holistically. “There are certain things we do from the organization development team that completely drive the agenda, and everyone conforms to the way we’re doing it,” Lawrence said. “We set training completely for certain centralized initiatives. But at the other end of the spectrum, you can have very decentralized decision making, for what I would call brand-specific training needs. We have approximately 50 brands that are organized into a series of coalitions. If you look on our Web site, you’ll see that there are groupings by product. We have an outdoor coalition for brands like JanSport and Vans and The North Face. We have a jeans coalition for Wrangler and Lee. We have a sportswear coalition anchored by Nautica, but it has John Varvatos. In a decentralized training environment, we let those brands do what they need to do if they have a specific need, but we have a core middle management curriculum and other core programs that are offered to associates across all of those boundaries.” With learning responsibilities for some 25,000 of the company’s 46,000 employees, Lawrence said his greatest challenge is managing and developing a global workforce in 46 countries. VF sells products in more than 150 nations, and it’s growing due to a number of acquisitions, which challenge the existing HRIS structure. But, if a company is to do human capital management well, Lawrence said it has to have good data and good data-mining capabilities. “To be really effective in OD and training, work at a macro level requires spending a lot of time thinking about HCM strategies and the HRIS foundation that underlies it,” he explained. “I give a lot of thought to what the big organizational needs are and how HR supports that and really enables the development of the workforce in that context.” Lawrence said the company’s supportive culture has helped his efforts to facilitate organizational transformation. He has introduced new practices in areas such as talent management and new tools such as executive coaching and leadership development programs focused on specific needs. His team also has introduced global HR practices such as online, worldwide associate-engagement surveys offered in 11 languages. “It’s not a pure training thing, but it’s clearly tied to workforce development because we use the results to figure out what we’re doing next,” he said. “We’ve built a pretty aggressive five-year human capital management strategy. I think it’s pretty bold and outlines great direction for our company, which is growing from $7 billion in annual revenues to $12 billion. That’s our goal, and we’re growing at a very aggressive rate. VF is really becoming a stronger company, and I feel like I’m a big part of making that happen.” Learning is consistently a tenet of VF’s human capital strategy, which has three anchors: process, technology and people. For people, it’s all about developing the skills needed for the future. Development helps the company assure its succession plans, I www.clomedia.com I Chief Learning Officer 25 January 2008 http://www.clomedia.com

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Chief Learning Officer - January 2008 Editor’s Letter Table of Contents Imperatives Selling up, Selling Down Strategies Take Five Environment Sips of Knowledge at E. & J. Gallo Winery CLO Profile Productivity UST Global: Opening Employees’ Eyes to New Learning Tactics Applying CRM Concepts to E-Learning Human Capital Capital One: Experiences in Innovation Learning Solutions Macy’s: Using Feedback to Develop One Leader at a Time Case Study Business Intelligence Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - January 2008

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