Creating the perfect governing body to power talent development and learning is a balancing act between centralized control and enough delegation to lines of business to keep content relevant. In this article, a handful of 2012 Training Top 125 winners describe how their companies effectively govern talent and learning development.

Employee engagement is not just HR's responsibility. While HR is responsible for the process of measuring and driving engagement, improving it is actually everyone's responsibility. And that means reducing the barriers to productivity to drive business performance. Training departments can play a pivotal role. Their job is to enhance curriculum or…

When hiring starts again after a recession, workers often need a new skill mix. If so, it's the trainer's job to make sure employees--both current and those being hired--have those skills. Now that it's time to consider hiring again, some new complications emerge. After layoffs, remaining workers likely took on more tasks and learned new skills.…

"You're hired!" Those two words are easy to say, but it's not always easy to find the right employee. Success hinges on hiring interviews--and they require quite a bit of training to get right. Much of the work in identifying the best people for open positions falls to line-of-business managers. In this article, Verizon Wireless, Umpqua Bank,…

For flooring manufacturer Mohawk Industries, it is not enough to teach employees how to be great. The long-time Training Top 125 contender focused last year on helping employees to blaze their own learning paths while meeting organization imperatives. That meant improving the technology that supports employee performance, as well as creating new…

Sometimes it's a relief when a leader leaves. What large organization, after all, doesn't have its "seasoned" corner office dragon who predates everyone, and who no one can figure out how to get rid of? But more often, companies are proud of their leaders, especially the ones they took pains to develop over a decade or two. After years of…

Discusses the debate over whether the training department of a company should be placed within human resources. Offers opinions of training and human resources executives and concludes that a varied structure enables training to remain flexible in response to changing conditions. (JOW)

To be successful, human resource development (HRD) managers must be marketers as well as trainers and performance engineers. The approach described in this article includes several components necessary to influence the outcomes of HRD decisions made by persons in higher positions. (Editor)

A survey of 222 training professionals identified current training priorities: soft skills training; technical training; enhancing the quality of training; business skills; business alignment, business impact, and return on investment; online learning; sales training; safety and compliance training; performance management; and human…

A survey asked respondents to identify the U.S. companies or organizations that do the best job of training and developing their employees, and which industries do the best and worst jobs of employee development. Respondents also identified the 10 most admired training consultants. (JB)

A test is provided to assess the value and use of an organization's human resources development (HRD) operations. (TA)

A discussion of three training experts' answers to the following question: What can the human resource development specialist do to gain influence and leverage for human resource development within an organization? (WL)

Suggests that measurement of performance is difficult and imprecise. Offers questions for consideration before designing and implementing measurement systems and describes new tools for measuring and managing human capital. (JOW)

This article gives the dialogue from a roundtable training discussion which answered questions concerning organizational human resources development (HRD), with emphasis on the chief executive officer's (CEO) role. The participants, who were management consultants and leaders in the HRD field, contributed 20 questions (which are included) that…

Discusses the policy of using tax incentives to stimulate investment in training, which allows the federal government to offer financial support without getting directly involved. The popularity of this policy and the reasons for it are examined. Proposed legislation directed at training needs is described. (CT)