Chief Learning Officer - December 2008 - (Page 47)

LEADERSHIP AWARD • GOLD • DIVISION 2 Annette Thompson Chief Learning Ofﬁcer, Farmers Insurance Annette Thompson recently was promoted to the newly created position of chief learning ofﬁcer at Farmers Insurance as a result of her initiative and leadership role in creating a centralized learning unit at the company. Years ago, Thompson noticed signiﬁcant infrastructure and standardization challenges in several of the company’s learning units. Among them were unjustiﬁable differences in budget levels among the units, inconsistent training methods and a disconnect between each unit’s training complement and the impact on business results. As each learning unit operated independently and sought to create expertise in key areas, the absence of a centralized learning unit resulted in redundancies and inefﬁciencies. Each unit could not leverage the strengths and best practices of the other units to produce greater business results. “The biggest challenge in bringing learning together for Farmers under one umbrella was creating an organizational structure that provided both the opportunity for efﬁciencies and best practices [while maintaining] tight connectivity with the business units we supported,” Thompson said. Thompson conducted research to support her observations and brought it to the attention of senior leadership at the company. Thereafter an executive committee was formed and, under Thompson’s leadership, it devised viable solutions for the company’s learning challenges. This resulted in the formation of the shared learning unit, which is responsible for ensuring employee needs such as onboarding and supervision or management. The move also was meant to reduce the redundancies that plagued the company’s learning structure by implementing best practices and facilitating the efﬁcient use of learning resources. Thompson also established a new system of accountability — an innovative hybrid direct/matrix reporting structure — that was vital to the smooth functioning of the shared learning structure. Representatives were required to report to the shared learning unit and were responsible for working with the technical business units to create curricula. In turn, the technical business units worked with shared learning to organize its learning needs and offer subject matter expertise. “I am proud of the fact that we came together in a broader learning unit very quickly with clear understanding and excitement about the opportunity,” Thompson said. “We quickly formed a vision, mission, operating model, standards in design and evaluation, guiding principles and pulled together the organization to lead us into the future.” During the careful transition to the shared learning platform, Thompson personally met with each unit’s leaders to share the vision for the new structure and answer questions. Since then, the shared learning team has successfully undertaken two projects: implementing a new online content learning management system and developing core competencies for the company’s commercial ﬁeld trainers. Thompson was recognized by Chief Learning Ofﬁcer magazine for her contributions to the company. “Farmers is an organization [that] supports and believes in the importance of learning as a driver of business results,” Thompson said. “I am so honored to have the privilege to represent Farmers for the CLO leadership award, [and I’m] also very grateful for the support of the vision to bring learning together across our organization for even deeper and greater strategic advantage for our great organization.” – Deanna Hartley 47

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

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.