Corporate Education Overview

Corporate education has become a strategic function as we enter this century. In the best organizations, education is no longer the first to be cut back in a downturn. Rather, best-in-class corporate education is making a difference to the bottom line.

Good corporate education has an impact on:

Retention By providing employees careers paths and on-going development, they are less likely to leave for another employer. Many organizations are encouraging on-going academic development and paying for advanced degrees, both as a way to build capability and as a retention tool.
Capability When organizations know they have a broadly educated employee base, they are more willing to enter new product areas and expand business to new geographies.
Productivity Better educated employees with up-to-date skills are more likely to work efficiently and have good morale.

GLR works with organizations to develop leadership and general education programs as well as assist organizations develop strategic partnerships with academic institutions that can grant degrees and customize curricula for their specific needs.

Leadership Development

Developing leaders is much like building muscles. It takes a varied series of activities, spread over time, to create any noticeable improvement in strength. And, once muscles are developed, they need to be continuously exercised or they quickly atrophy.

Developing leaders is not just about training programs. It is putting in place a series of activities and learning events that, over time, build capability. These should be varied in method and time. A few can be short and serve as a catalyst for future action. Others may be longer and provide a more intensive mental workout. But the key to a successful leadership development program is to stage events over time and never go for the single event approach. Events that last for a day or two and then are not supplemented or connected to future activities are as useful as a single day of working out.

Here are some examples of activities that Global Learning Resources can provide or facilitate:

Bringing key people together to constructively analyze a new strategy.
Hosting a day of scenario planning.
Providing a manager with performance feedback and putting together a development plan.
Supplying a coach to either help employees overcome a skill gap or to provide some expert advice and assistance on a new project.
Developing and delivering a formal training sequence or curriculum.
Helping to design and implement a learning project or action learning program.
Developing a rotation program within your organization.
Designing an academic partnership.
Facilitating a brainstorming or strategic planning offsite.

Corporate Universities

Corporate education is taking on new dimensions as we move into the 21st century. Over the 20th century, organizational education has moved through technical skills training and vocational training to a greater focus on managerial and leadership education.

E-Learning

e-Learning allows information to be delivered in a more user-centric, user friendly format than traditional training and education. e-learning solutions allow learners to get the information they need in any location, at any time.

Future of Learning

In conjunction with other think tanks and organizations, Global Learning Resources' Eileen Clegg and Kevin Wheeler have contributed to a broad spectrum of research projects designed to help people think strategically about the future of education.