Chief Learning Officer - December 2007 - (Page 39) a mini-CNN with a control room — you’d think you were at NASA — and we designed it so that it could be run very effectively with just three or four folks. After three years, we’ll have paid off all of the hardware and software, and expenses will go down dramatically. Then we have all the depreciation that has occurred on the equipment, so the costs will go up, but even with depreciation hitting our books, we have a 32 percent internal rate of return on the investment that we’re making.” Lamb said having budget savvy and financial acumen, knowing how to build a business case and evaluating the ROI of a situation are some of the most important skills a CLO should have. The ability to think and act like a businessperson will ensure learning leaders a place at the strategy table, he said. Thinking in business as well as in learning and development terms and being able to understand investors’ and internal customers’ challenges also will enable CLOs to position their solutions to actively help the organization accomplish its strategic goals. “Many of those goals are financial,” he explained. “And if you don’t understand finances or understand investment levels to be able to go in and effectively determine the scope and definition of the initiatives that you’re recommending — what the total, fully loaded costs of that initiative are and then be able to commit to cost savings, cost avoidance, productivity improvements, numbers that can fall to the bottom line — if you can’t do that as a CLO for any kind of organization of significant size, you probably should be looking for something else to do.” With business outcomes top of mind — specifically, the company’s desire to establish itself as a commercial services leader — Lamb helped to spearhead a lot of the development for Orkin’s stateof-the-art learning facility. Originally envisioned as a place where technicians could gain valuable hands-on experience, he said he helped to conceptualize something far more ambitious. “As we go forward, we’re looking to add simulations of fast-food restaurants for food processing,” Lamb said. “Kraft Foods is one of our major customers, and they’re donating some equipment that’s representative of what happens in their plants. We train some state regulators once a year. We’re benchmarked at least a couple of times a week. We had a major Japanese firm visit us in June. We’ve even had the president of our company bring in the president of Terminex, which is one of our largest competitors. He was so proud of what we have here, and felt that it would be so difficult to duplicate, that he brought him in and showed him the investment that we make in our people and the progress that we’re making.” – Kellye Whitney, kwhitney@clomedia.com FINANCIAL TRAINING FROM THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW FINANCE PROFESSIONALS As the national membership organization for Certified Public Accountants, the AICPA knows finance professionals. If you are looking for cost-effective, quality training for your professional staff, AICPA LEARNING offers a wide variety of on-site training, including auditing, tax, leadership, internal control, ethics and more. BENEFITS OF AICPA LEARNING ON-SITE TRAINING: No lost travel time or expenses for staff Focused presentation for your company Confidential learning environment Flexible pricing options Discounts on large group seminars Employee/instructor interaction Convenient schedules Reinforced learning with workbooks and follow-up reading Experience and expertise of the AICPA With more than 200 COURSES to choose from — ranging from 4 hours to 3 days, accounting to Yellow Book — you are sure to find the training program that is right for you. For a complete list of available courses, visit www.aicpalearning.org or call 1-800-634-6780, Option 1 for more information. 1147-252 ISO Certified http://www.aicpalearning.org http://www.aicpalearning.org
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