On February 26, 2008 Starbucks embarked on an interesting experiment in enterprise learning:  the company shut down all its US stores for several hours to train 135,000 employees in a single shot.    The goal of this program was to "reenergize our focus on the things that have made us the leading roster and retailer of specialty coffee. "  The program was designed to reach every store employee in a single event, to re-energize the starbucks talent, and re-establish the company's focus on brewing the "perfect drink. " How does a program like this fit into an enterprise learning and talent strategy?  My thoughts: 1.   For a customer intimacy company, this approach drives employee engagement.
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Last week I spoke with some of the business and HR leaders at Freeport McMoRan, one of the nation's largest producers of copper, gold, and molybdinum.   This company, which recently acquired Phelps Dodge, produces over 4 billion lbs. of copper each year, from its mines in North America, Indonesia, Chile, and Peru.   The company generates over $16 billion per year in total revenues with over $1 Billion per year in net income. Large Decentralized Operations As one can imagine, this is a very big business.
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We are clearly entering some form of economic slowdown.   Our most recent index of talent management executives (January of 2008) showed some significant changes from May of 2007:  21% greater interest in cost-reduction, 18% lower focus on product introductions, and a significant increase in focus on building new leadership (18% increase).   So let’s assume your business does see a downturn (and if you are in financial services or housing-related industries, this is already happening), what should you do? First, a little history.   I lived through severe downturns in several companies.   I worked for IBM in the 1980s (1981-1992) and saw the company start to disintigrate as the computer business shifted from one of monolithic providers (IBM) to one of seperate product and software companies (Dell, Compaq, Microsoft, Cisco).
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I recently had a conversation with the CLO of one of the world’s largest manufacturing companies, who told me that “The CLO Role as we know it is dead. ” I have to somewhat agree.   Over the last two years some very interesting shifts have taken place in the corporate training market:  more and more companies are waking up to the fact that corporate training (or “learning & development”) does not and cannot stand alone.   In fact, in this tightened talent environment, the concept of the “chief learning officer” is quickly morphing into one of “chief talent officer” or “vice president of talent management. ” Consider a few important trends from our research: 1.
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