Chief Learning Officer - June 2008 - (Page 38) population is eager to grow, it often expects the corporation to create, publicize and encourage participation in all the opportunities, she said. “It has been a challenge for us in terms of changing the mindset of our employees that actually it is their responsibility to drive their careers and their development,” she said. One way to overcome these challenges is to have executive-level support in the form of role modeling. “Everything has to do with leadership,” Marana said. “The best role models that we have in our company are our own leaders. They are the first ones who set up the example and finish their own development plans and share them with their team. Learning and development at Microsoft is not the sole responsibility of HR or the readiness area: It’s the responsibility of our leaders, and they’re being [held] accountable for that.” IBM’s Leon said having leaders as role models also helps employees gain a clearer line of sight to career opportunities, which is important for every employee, regardless of geographical location. “The learning team should be aware of that, and it’s a serious, important and key thing to do. It’s critical,” she said. Another potential side effect of any culture that places great emphasis on social interaction is that e-learning might present a hurdle. “The Web training, the e-learning, is still anticultural in our specific country and region,” said Debora Palermo, CLO for Sun Microsystems Brazil. “Traditionally, our culture sees more aggregated value in taking that skills training in person.” Additionally, exposure to the Internet is low in many Latin American countries, with only 12 million active home Internet users in Brazil, or less than 10 percent of the population. “We think that if we did nothing, we’d probably end up with somewhere between a 35 to 40 percent [IT] skills gap in those countries over the next few years,” said Jeanne Belliveau-Dunn, general manager of learning at Cisco. However, that’s not to say that the problem of e-learning is purely a Latin American issue. “I think e-learning from a global perspective presents a challenge in most areas,” said Ben Cardoso, vice president of human resources for The Coca-Cola Co.’s Latin America Group. http://www.knowledgeadvisors.com/
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