Chief Learning Officer - December 2008 - (Page 46)

LEADERSHIP AWARD • GOLD • DIVISION 1 Andrea R. Huff Executive Vice President, Chief Learning Ofﬁcer, Lee Hecht Harrison Though Lee Hecht Harrison offers its clients talent management services, what it lacked were talent management processes for its internal employees. As chief learning ofﬁcer, Andrea Huff’s leadership challenge was to oversee the creation and implementation of a brand new internal talent management system at the company to address its need for succession planning. Her responsibilities extended to the creation of a new high-potential leadership program. Huff said her biggest challenge in implementing the new internal talent management process was ensuring all the components of the talent process were integrated and reinforced one another. “For example, [we needed to make] sure that the results of the succession planning and development program — Leaders at all Levels — was directly connected to the performance management process to track the behavior changes that occurred,” Huff said. “Our recruitment efforts needed to be connected to our diversity initiatives, and our learning management system needed to be a vehicle to support our on-boarding process to help our new hires become productive more quickly. Nothing operates as a stand-alone program without being integrated into all other aspects of talent, learning and HR, and this was the biggest challenge.” Another obstacle was the absence of a team that could report directly to Huff. Instead, she developed the multifaceted talent management process by collaborating with a cross-functional team. Huff was able to create a talent review process that identiﬁed high-potential and high-performing employees across all depart- ments and even launched the leadership program for high potentials. In addition, she included a diversity recruitment initiative into the process, as well as a career development portal and learning management system. Huff said her biggest accomplishments throughout this process were the positive feedback and behavior changes on the part of employees, managers and the executive team, in addition to the way the results of these programs help employees achieve business goals. “Our employees say we now are creating a development and coaching culture and that the investments we have made in them have helped them become more productive in their jobs and more engaged and positive about their future with [Lee Hecht Harrison],” Huff said. Chief Learning Ofﬁcer magazine recognized Huff for her contributions to the company. “I was very excited to be recognized for the leadership award since it represented an external acknowledgement that our organization has created an industry-leading talent management process for our employees,” Huff said. “We often create new programs and services to deliver to our clients, but this is the ﬁrst time we delivered them to our own employees,” she continued. “Many organizations think that only large companies provide these services for their employees, and this award is tangible evidence of the importance of companies of all sizes investing in the development of their talent.” – Deanna Hartley 46

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chief Learning Officer - December 2008

Chief Learning Officer - December 2008 Editor’s Letter Contents Connections Business Impact Best Practices Effectiveness Guest Editorial The Future of Learning CLO Profile Learning Opportunities Embedded in Social Networking ManTech Leverages Knowledge Management Approaches for Social Networking Agility Training for the Learning Organization Creating an Agile Organization With Learning 2.0 2008 Learning In Practice Awards Corporate Social Responsibility: How Can Learning Contribute? Union Fenosa Corporate University: How CSR Education Impacted the Bottom Line Training in the 21st Century: Everything Old Is New Again Zions Bancorp.: Connecting the Dots Case Study Business Intelligence Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - December 2008

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