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Live from Training 2010: Nuggets of Training Success from Saratoga Hospital and Carnival Cruise Lines
February 01, 2010
By Margery Weinstein
Saratoga Hospital and Carnival Cruise Lines, among other companies, shared best practices this morning at the Training 2010 Conference and Expo in San Diego, CA.
When Saratoga Hospital, an acute care facility in upstate New York, noted a need 18 months ago to ready employees to step into leadership roles, it launched the Siena College Leadership Institute, a program that teaches up-and-coming employees to "grow and think strategically," says Director of Education Susan Malinowski. The one-year program, which offers "operational," "strategic," and "emerging" tracks of study, is competitive, requiring employees to apply for enrollment. The "strategic" track is aimed at potential c-suiters, while the "emerging" track is for those aspiring to managerial positions, and the "operational" track is for current managers.
Participants meet quarterly at a hotel near the hospital, and are expected to complete readings and assignments between classes. Employees enrolled in the "strategic" track are given business projects to complete.
The goal of the program, which Malinowski says the company successfully achieved, was to provide participants with "a current skill-set and plan for the next."
Carnival Cruise Lines, meanwhile, shared takeaway lessons it's learned from operating its "floating university." Eileen Tighe, manager Corporate Training Department, said the university, which, as the name suggests, provides curriculum for the company's 32,000 shipboard employees, is received as well as it is thanks to a partnership between learning professionals and the business functions. "We are students of the business," says Tighe. "We never force a program down somebody's throat or agenda."
Tighe says trainers meet regularly with business leaders to get their feedback on learning programs, and see if they have ideas of their own they'd like rolled out. The company's managers and executives are comfortable enough with Tighe and the other trainers to seek them out. "Relationship-building is huge," she says. "We know the ins and outs [of the business]. People are open to coming to us. We're the go-to guys."
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