2025 Tribute to Learning Winners
The International School of Hospitality
Steve Hodgson and Sean McCray
Celebrating their excellent work in Building Personal Capability
The Certified Professional in Guest Experience (CPGE™) is a certification program designed to enhance guest service skills across industries by focusing on practical competencies, communication, and guest retention strategies. CPGE addresses gaps in outdated certifications, which emphasize emotions rather than measurable skills. Developed using the SERVQUAL model – a widely recognized framework for measuring service quality – the program introduced a guest experience meta-model to guide training. The curriculum combined eLearning (via Articulate 360) and in-person delivery, ensuring consistent skill development. A Companion Guide reinforced learning through exercises that double as exam preparation. Early adoption by the Nevada Hotel Lodging Association, healthcare providers, and dental practices show promising results, with participants reporting improved guest interactions, empathy, and satisfaction scores. Employers say the key outcomes are better staff communication and stronger customer connections.
Amanda Rael
Steve Hodgson and Amanda Rael
Celebrating her excellent work in Developing Professional Capability
A department leader identified a performance gap tied to negotiation skills and requested a comprehensive soft skills training program for 250-300 agents, with a quick turnaround. After conducting a detailed analysis of procedures, calls, and skill gaps, four training modules were developed. Each module addressed key behaviors: welcoming the customer, negotiation skills, system integration, and handling difficult situations.
The staggered delivery allowed agents to apply new skills weekly, boosting engagement and learning retention. As a result, dollars collected increased by $16 per call, average handle time decreased by 30 seconds, and customer satisfaction improved. This efficiency gain translated to an estimated $16 million in annual savings. The project's success led to expansion into additional departments with similar positive outcomes.
Janek Performance Group
Steve Hodgson and Dana Peck
on behalf of Rudy Joggerst
Celebrating their excellent work in Impacting Organizational Capability
A large healthcare insurer partnered with a sales training provider to address inconsistent sales techniques and improve objection handling. The customized training program introduced a structured sales methodology, targeting customer retention, cross-selling, and upselling strategies. Delivered virtually through instructor-led sessions, the program incorporated interactive activities, role-playing, and real-world scenarios.
A key success factor was the train-the-trainer model, ensuring ongoing development for new hires. A digital reinforcement tool provided continuous learning support post-training. Results showed a 97% application rate of new skills, 91% of participants improved job performance, and 85% reported stronger customer relationships. The initiative delivered an impressive 1,219% ROI, significantly enhancing sales outcomes and team alignment.
2024 Tribute to Learning Winners
Mission Support and Test Services
Organizational Development
Steve Hodgson and Janice Duis
Celebrating their excellent work in Impacting Organizational Capability
Due to a change in the company's leadership and the release of a Gallup employee survey in Fall 2022, the company identified a major deficiency in the training and development of its supervisors and managers. The Gallup survey results showed bottom quartile in many key metrics.
The existing manager training program was redesigned to focus on leadership skills, resulting in the creation of the Leadership Essentials program. This initiative involved developing new modules, refreshing content, and increasing participant engagement. Through listening tours and formal needs assessments, critical gaps in leadership skills were identified, leading to a comprehensive redesign with an emphasis on experiential learning and modern leadership topics.
The program's success was measured through improved engagement and applicability metrics, higher participant satisfaction, and increased program availability. Additionally, efforts were made to incorporate inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility. Their greatest win was the positive reception from participants and the reputation gain, for both the OD team and the training department, for their ability to deliver meaningful and impactful development of a critical company asset – their people.
Southwest Gas
Erin Henlin, Michael Kramer, and Jackie Lomanto
Celebrating their excellent work in Developing Professional Capability
The Talent Development team embarked on a multi-year journey to establish a talent calibration process aimed at fair and consistent evaluation of employee skills, performance, and potential. After initial virtual meetings in 2021, efforts intensified in 2022 with in-person sessions and expanded participation. In 2023, a strategic shift occurred, with HR Business Partners (HRBPs) taking ownership of the process, supported by Talent Development.
A new assessment tool was developed based on Korn Ferry research, enhancing accuracy and praise from leaders. The project achieved 100% participation within 45 days, resulting in a fully defined high-potential pool and empowered HRBPs. Stakeholders were pleased with the collaborative approach, and plans were made to further refine the process in late 2024, including calibration on perform.
Mission Support and Test Services
Training Department
Steve Hodgson and Jen Flynn
on behalf of Dave Yakonich
Celebrating their excellent work in Developing Professional Capability
The Training department responded to employee hesitancy towards existing and emerging productivity applications within the company's Microsoft 365 deployment by creating a series of Web Clinic Wednesdays. These virtual training sessions, ranging from 45 to 75 minutes, aimed to increase usage and engagement of various applications such as Microsoft Teams, OneNote, Planner, Stream for SharePoint, and Qualtrics. Through targeted marketing efforts and collaboration with HR leaders, participation was encouraged, resulting in an average attendance of 11 participants per session. Overall, 76 participants attended the live web clinics, with an additional 78 views of the recordings. Each web clinic had a one-page summary, called Quick Start, that provides links to recording, slides, guides, job aids, curated LinkedIn Learning courses and videos, checklists, and list of recommended activities that learners should complete after the web clinic.
The success of Web Clinic Wednesdays led to the continuation of the series and the development of additional web clinics in 2024. Through these efforts, employees gained practical skills and resources to enhance their productivity and efficiency in utilizing the company's productivity tools.
2023 Tribute to Learning Winners
Mission Support and Test Services
Jeff Miller and Steve Hodgson
Celebrating their excellent work with Impacting Organizational Capability
After deploying Microsoft Teams to the organization, the IT department identified a low user adoption rate after three months. They partnered with two Learning and Organizational Development specialists experienced with Teams to design, develop, and deliver four web clinics, “Learn MS Teams in Four Steps.” The specialists facilitated the 30-60 minutes web clinics with IT professionals available to answer chat questions during the clinics.
The cross-functional team delivered 38 web clinics to 945 learners. The overall Net Promoter Score for these clinics was 72. In three weeks, Teams active user adoption increased by 39% (700 additional users).
Later, two more clinics were presented, “Learn MS Teams as a Team.” The overall Net Promoter Score for these clinics was 67. After these clinics and on-demand access for the original clinics, the MS Teams active user adoption increased by 27% (662 additional users).
Aristocrat Technologies Learning Solutions
Mike Peacock and Maria Zoppas
Celebrating their excellent work with Impacting Organizational Capability
Data identified multiple issues at the same customer locations for the same problems over the past 5 months, so the objective was to launch a refreshed training program to increase the knowledge of Field Service technicians. The goal was to increase the Tech’s ability to fix the product on the first visit, rather than return multiple times to resolve the root issue.
The refresher training focused on basic troubleshooting, identifying common issues, applying current standards of service, and employing smart practices. A needs assessment identified the most frequent issues, and Field Managers and Supervisors identified skill gaps. The training program incorporated blended learning which was focused on adult learning methodologies.
- eLearning modules, which incorporate gamification and mobile learning
- In-person training delivery with an emphasis on practical testing
- Follow up eLearning modules to reinforce best practices and quick tips
- Community-based learning repository, with job aids, videos, reference materials, and documentation
Elham Arabi, PhD
Elham Arabi and Steve Hodgson
Celebrating her excellent work with Building Professional Capability
The project involved developing a competency-based approach to guide the needs analysis, design, development, and delivery of training programs. All existing programs focused on knowledge transfer with minimal opportunities for practice and feedback for skills training. The gap in design and desired outcomes led to a significant shift in training design and delivery.
This approach included a framework for robust assessments and evaluations, so it required all stakeholders (subject-matter experts and technical units responsible for content and assessment development) to adopt this competency-based approach.
Once approved, a team of subject-matter experts designed and developed the training programs, which included a meticulous needs analysis, identified target learners and their needs, identified outcome measures based on the learner-transfer evaluation model (LTEM), determined competencies, developed performance objectives, and developed assessment tools. The programs included real-based scenarios, job-aids, post-training learner guidance, and facilitator guidance.
2022 Tribute to Learning Winners
Janek Performance Group
Nick Kane and Justin Zappulla
For their excellent work in the Training and Delivery Facilitation capability of the Building Professional Capability Domain.
A major manufacturer of motion and control technologies and systems with presence in more than 50 countries reached out needing support in shifting to a virtual model which required a new set of skills to sell remotely and improve virtual sales interactions.
Leaders sought to build, extend, and sustain a core set of professional virtual selling skills and best practices that improved performance, created differentiation, strengthened customer relationships, created customer value, and delivered better results for their sales forces in their respective regions.
For a few weeks, workshops were held literally around the clock for this global audience. High marks were given to the relevancy and real-world context the training curriculum provided, the massive localization effort that considered local customs and culture as part of the training facilitation, as well as the support and coordination of the project team to provide a swift and organized training roll-out in a relative short amount of time.
GeoTab
Steve Hodgson and Wes Miller
For their outstanding work in the capabilities of Business Insight, Performance Improvement, and Data and Analytics in the Impacting Organizational Capability Domain
A new hire orientation and performance readiness program was launched. A clear metric for evaluating the success of the program was needed to ensure the goals and objectives of the training were being met and that the performance quality needed in production was satisfying customer needs and demands.
Three organization members were involved in the implementation of the program – a manager of training, an operations manager, and a data analyst.
The performance metrics used by the operational leaders were used to evaluate participants at the 30, 60, and 90 day mark and provide quantitative level three results. Additionally, for level three data, a satisfaction survey was sent to individual team leaders of the participants to collect their qualitative input on the performance of the new hires. A team member from the data analytics department pulled performance of the new hire participants and created a dashboard that easily shows that performance against operational performance standards.
A digital dashboard reflecting the level one and two results were created in Excel and were made available to trainers and operations on the same day of completion. This immediate feedback allowed for remediation that is quick and effective.
Inclusive Pixelation
Steve Hodgson and Britne Jenke
For her terrific work in the Project Management capability of the Building Personal Capability Domain
The client, a speech school, engaged a consulting company to design and develop several digital learning products to revamp an existing elearning course and to create an instructor’s guide and a technical manual to fill existing gaps in their curriculum.
Analyzing and prioritizing the elements of the learning products helped to ensure a meaningful and relevant learner experience. The project manager used agile principles to develop a project plan and schedules that integrated the available resources, assigned tasks, and project timeline. Using the project management tool Trello, the project manager organized tasks to do and in progress for each deliverable.
Unexpectedly, there was a last-minute request for additional scope with one month left to go. The consulting company was able to complete these final client review cycles throughout with limited resources, keeping additional client costs low.
The project was an overwhelming success! The client was ecstatic about the final deliverables, completed earlier than expected and to superior quality. The consulting company received words of praise and recommendations from the client, leading to additional project work.
