case study on employee development

Successful Employee Development Programs: Three Key Case Studies

Employee development, closely related to (but distinct from) employee training,  is the practice of helping employees gain or expand upon skills, competencies, and abilities .

This process involves preparing employees for future roles and their overall careers rather than for a specific job or task and focuses on optimizing a person’s readiness and capacity for professional success in a given field or industry.

Upskilling ,  reskilling , and various continuing education programs are common forms of employee development. Methods such as  gamification , leadership training, specified technical training through online platforms, or anything that helps employees expand their capabilities are also considered employee development.

Why should I care about employee development?

Failing to develop one’s workforce or neglecting the creation and maintenance of employee development initiatives and frameworks is one of the most damaging mistakes you can make regarding organizational output, team performance, and business success. Without an employee development program, your company will:

Miss out on massive ROI in the long run (or even in the short term).

Fail to cultivate an optimal professional culture of growth that’s conducive to innovation.

Let your organization fall below current industry standards.

Lose potential leads for top-notch would-be employees interested in learning and development.

According to LinkedIn’s 2018 Workplace Learning Report , 94% of employees said they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career, highlighting the importance of being proactive about the capacities of your team. Employee development keeps your employees satisfied, reduces turnover, and provides opportunities to promote from within (leading to stronger, more loyal, and more successful supervisors).

What makes an employee development program successful?

Employee development can manifest in many forms, and no “one-size-fits-all” approach will work for every company. There are, however, a few characteristics inherent to successful systems. Most, if not all, remarkable internal employee development frameworks have the following features. They are…

Personalized, adapted, and adjusted to industry best practices, strategic decision-making, goal-setting, company/organization type, and varied for departmental and individual employee needs.

Flexible and dynamic, giving employees options, augmented autonomy, and job control.

Enhancing employee wellbeing , satisfaction, and engagement at their core.

Implemented and adhered to by passionate, knowledgeable, and loyal leaders.

Utilizing all resources, technologies, and tools at the disposal of a business’ leadership and HR teams to both strategically design and maintain programs, including  module-based HR software , integrated and optimized  HR data and metrics  frameworks, mobile apps, advice from industry experts, and anything else that can help you succeed.

Planned and developed strategically, carefully, intelligently, and in accordance with performance/skills gaps, specific goals, industry evolution, cultural changes, and all possible factors informing company needs and aims.

Incorporating a variety of perspectives and are developed, implemented, and evaluated collaboratively.

Focused on the development of not only hard skills but also soft skills.

And most importantly, they aim for proactive long-term changes and continuously produce long-lasting programs.

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Three famous case studies of employee development at its best

Throughout the last decade, this well-known phone and internet provider has spent a whopping amount on “reskilling” and upskilling employees. The company’s Future Ready initiative represents a $1 billion program offering things such as a career center, degrees through universities, nano-degrees through online portals, and copious resources giving employees insight into their options, valuable skills, and future career planning pathways.

AT&T has significantly invested in its online education systems and partnerships, tuition assistance scholarship funds, strategic professional development initiatives, and more.

AT&T’s framework has helped it continue producing, performing, and competing at a high level within a tough industry. Notably impactful aspects of their program include their commitment to reskilling every single one of their employees, intentional fixation on employee engagement levels, strategic individualization and customization of development programs, and close focus on supervisors and managers.

“(W)hen you have engaged employees, that leads to satisfied customers and increased profits for the company. Having a mantra of continuous learning is all part of that equation.” -Bill Blase, Former Senior Executive VP of Human Resources at AT&T

Analytics leader SAS, long-known as a fantastic place to work and grow professionally, can teach us a lot about developing employees throughout their entire careers.

This company is committed to determining, analyzing, and evaluating individual and group goals through metrics, a people platform, and regular feedback sessions. SAS maintains the importance of tracking employee satisfaction through data and surveys and uses these insights to determine which skills to develop and how to do so.

This company consistently optimizes employee engagement, motivation, and work-life balance. They’ve invested in DEI initiatives, e-learning programs,  leadership programs , learning lunches, and  continuing education degrees . They also offer  SAS YPN  for youth networking and career development opportunities and a SAS academy for full-time employee training.

This framework contributes to employee-development success, increased retention rates, satisfied employees, and a huge team dedicated to achievement and overall business success.

Marriott International

Hospitality giant Marriott International’s approach to employee development is holistic, integrating all possible tech and tools. Marriott focuses on ultimate flexibility, autonomy, and self-paced learning and has a robust commitment to  diversity and inclusion . They prioritize collaboration, and their employee-focused culture (represented by programs like TakeCare)  reminds us of their dedication to overall (not just professional, but also personal) development.

Programs such as  Marriott University  (providing post-grad degrees and internships),  Life With the Works  (offering FlexiFutures™, additional training, options and modifications, career progression avenues, and more), and The Marriott Development Academy (an integrated system allowing for total personalization and designed for a diverse team of users) remind us how successful this company has been at intelligently planning programs to help employees grow.

Marriot International’s practices have garnered great success, a loyal workforce, and countless rewards and accolades. As a result, they earned a place on Fortune’s list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For® every year for the past 25 years.

Other Notable Programs

Honorable mentions include Pixar and Amazon, companies that have also created growth-oriented cultures in divergent ways.

Pixar University (PU),  Pixar DEI initiatives , the  Pixar Undergraduate Program , and leadership’s focus on progress through creativity, risk-taking, and group-learning practices are some of the initiatives that set Pixar apart. This company allows employees to spend four hours per week at PU, gives staff the option of taking general fine arts courses during work hours, provides workshops, and prioritizes overcoming fear through skill development.

Find, develop, and support good people, and they, in turn, will find, develop, and own good ideas.” -Ed Catmull, co-founder and president of Walt Disney Animation Studios

Amazon, an inarguably dominating global force, boasts a robust employee development plan that focuses on proactive upskilling in response to the skills gap and their business needs within the current context.

This industry leader announced in 2019 that they would ” spend $700 million to upskill 100,000 of their US employees by 2025 ”, and provides  continuing education opportunities , such as the Amazon Technical Apprenticeship program, a Career Choice program, the Associate2Tech program, The Machine Learning University, and more.

These examples represent strategically designed, wildly rewarding employee development programs that hit the bullseye. Looking to these successful experts and analyzing their approaches helps us better understand company needs, shifting cultural trends, and strategic ideas regarding employee development.

Track your workforce’s competencies, skills, and progress with  an HR software , and start enhancing your employee development programs today.

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Case study: How Allianz promotes employee development

With millions of customers worldwide, Allianz has grown to be one of the world’s largest insurers, investors and assistance providers. Recognising that learning and development is a key differentiator in the financial services industry, Allianz employs a wide range of learning and development approaches to develop its people, which include on-the-job learning, mentoring and coaching, classroom training workshops, peer circles and digital/mobile learning.

This case study is based on the 2019 Sustainability Report by Allianz published on the Global Reporting Initiative Sustainability Disclosure Database  that can be found at this link . Through all case studies we aim to demonstrate what CSR/ ESG/ sustainability reporting done responsibly means. Essentially, it means: a) identifying a company’s most important impacts on the environment, economy and society, and b) measuring, managing and changing.

In 2019, Allianz invested over 85 million Euro in developing its employees     Tweet This! , equivalent to 613 Euro per employee. Around 75 percent of employees took part in at least one training session, and an average of 3.3 training days per employee were delivered. In order to promote employee development Allianz took action to:

• establish Allianz University
• offer Strategy Campus programmes
• implement a global performance management approach
• attract talent
• develop strong leaders

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Please subscribe to the SustainCase Newsletter to keep up to date with the latest sustainability news and gain access to over 2000 case studies. These case studies demonstrate how companies are dealing responsibly with their most important impacts, building trust with their stakeholders (Identify > Measure > Manage > Change).

With this case study you will see:

• Which are the most important impacts (material issues) Allianz has identified;
• How Allianz proceeded with stakeholder engagement , and
• What actions were taken by Allianz to promote employee development

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What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2019 Sustainability Report Allianz identified a range of material issues, such as climate change, human rights, environmental and social products, social and financial inclusion, customer innovation. Among these, promoting employee development stands out as a key material issue for Allianz.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards              

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The reporting organization shall identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups Allianz engages with:

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritise material topics Allianz invited employees to pick their top three issues from a list of 15 issues perceived to be of most relevance to Allianz, receiving 1,339 responses, and also asked, through the Allianz customer marketing survey, retail customers across 27 countries to identify the three most important issues for Allianz in the short-term (0-3 years) and in the future (6-9+ years), receiving 27,636 responses.

What actions were taken by Allianz to promote employee development ?

In its 2019 Sustainability Report Allianz reports that it took the following actions for promoting employee development:

• Establishing Allianz University
• Allianz University (AllianzU) is the group-wide home for employee learning activities. Its vision is to provide every employee of the Allianz Group with the right programme to support their continuous development. It does this by providing accessible learning technologies that empower employees to equip themselves with the right information, at the right time. AllianzU unites group-wide learning and development opportunities, creates new learning content and frameworks, and realises opportunities to reinforce a culture where people and performance matter. To increase its impact and efficiency, AllianzU provides digital opportunities such as LinkedIn Learning @ Allianz. Allianz was one of the top users of LinkedIn Learning globally in 2019, based on the number of employees accessing the platform. Other digital education offerings include eBites and an Open Source Online Learning Library. AllianzU is also developing a new state-of-the art learning platform, aligned with the strategic workforce planning project. It will provide high quality learning content focused on digital skills and includes learning paths for different employee groups based on the outputs of strategic workforce planning. The new platform, developed in 2019, has been launched across pilot operating entities in January 2020 and will provide a ‘one stop shop’ simplified learning experience for employees. It will leverage content from inside as well as outside the organisation to provide high quality learning programmes for all employees.
• Offering Strategy Campus programmes
• Key challenges critical to Allianz’s business transformation by supporting impactful implementation that delivers competitive business value;
• A developmental leadership experience that creates more than the sum of its parts and builds trust; and
• Building an international network of colleagues across functions and companies to maximise collaboration.
• Each programme is designed in collaboration with a Board sponsor and comprises three training days, plus pre- and post-programme activities. In 2019, 161 people took part in five programmes, including 28 percent women. Going forward, Strategy Campus will incorporate thought-provoking, innovative and future-smart scenarios to empower Allianz leaders to propel the cultural transformation in the digital age.
• Implementing a global performance management approach
• Performance discussions (including Priority Setting, Mid-Year Check In, and Year End Review) as well as Personal Development Plan (PDPs) and ongoing feedback are key tools for enabling Allianz’s employees and managers to discuss competencies, skills, experience, performance and potential. Allianz’s global performance management approach now covers more than 24,000 employees, with the rest covered by local performance management processes. The goal is to cover all Allianz employees globally with the global Performance management approach as part of the HR Transformation. The Multi Rater Feedback tool enables Allianz managers to gain feedback from their peers, direct reports, managers and others and is based on Allianz’s four people attributes. This feedback is important for providing a transparent basis for development. In 2019 the Multi Rater was further refined, focusing even stronger on qualitative feedback.
• Attracting talent
• In 2019, Allianz recruited more than 23,000 external candidates. When looking to attract especially digital talent, Allianz is exploring new and innovative ways to reach out to potential candidates. For example, by establishing the Allianz employer brand in a new interface. Via Google Assistant specific candidate groups are targeted through online challenges, making them aware of possible career opportunities. The One Allianz Career Website puts the candidate in the centre and simplifies their user journey by making it much easier for them to browse through opportunities across the Group. In 2019, more Allianz entities were on-boarded into the One Allianz Career Website. The One Allianz Career Website combines 40+ local and operating entity specific career websites. Candidates can switch between different countries and vacancies and, no matter where they may be, view all positions available at Allianz worldwide. This enables content to be targeted to attract scarce talent, leading to higher number of quality applications. To position itself as an attractive employer, Allianz also runs a global Instagram careers account. In 2019, local Allianz entities shared career opportunities and showcased their employees and work places around the world. This was well received by employees.
• Developing strong leaders
• The Group sponsored Allianz Management Programme is designed to equip the next generation of global Allianz leaders with the knowledge, mindset and skills to lead in an inclusive meritocracy environment. In the last three years, it has been completed by over 190 participants, 49% of whom were women, from over 20 different operating entities. In 2019, it was completed by 64 participants, 50% of whom were women. Allianz’s long-term success depends on fostering strong leadership skills at all levels. The Allianz Leadership Development Programme is a group-wide programme for experienced leaders that provides participants with development support for their next career step to a senior executive role in the near future. Over the past three years, 91 of Allianz’s high potential leaders have completed this programme, of whom 42% were women. In 2019, it was completed by 31 new leaders, 54% of whom were women.

Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?

The GRI Standards addressed in this case are:

1)  Disclosure 404-1 Average hours of training per year per employee

2)  Disclosure 404-2 Programs for upgrading employee skills and transition assistance programs

Disclosure 404-1  Average hours of training per year per employee corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 : Quality Education
• Targets: 4.3, 4.4, 4.5
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 : Gender Equality
• Targets: 5.1
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8 : Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Targets: 8.2, 8.5
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10 : Reduced Inequalities
• Targets: 10.3

Disclosure 404-2  Programs for upgrading employee skills and transition assistance programs corresponds to:

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

SustainCase was primarily created to demonstrate, through case studies, the importance of dealing with a company’s most important impacts in a structured way, with use of the GRI Standards. To show how today’s best-run companies are achieving economic, social and environmental success – and how you can too.

Research by well-recognised institutions is clearly proving that  responsible companies can look to the future with optimism .

7 GRI sustainability disclosures get you started

Any size business can start taking sustainability action

GRI, IEMA, CPD Certified Sustainability courses (2-5 days): Live Online or Classroom  (venue: London School of Economics)

• Exclusive FBRH template to begin reporting from day one
• Identify your most important impacts on the Environment, Economy and People
• Formulate in group exercises your plan for action. Begin taking solid, focused, all-round sustainability action ASAP. 
• Benchmarking methodology to set you on a path of continuous improvement

See upcoming training dates. References:

1) This case study is based on published information by Allianz, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original, please revert to the original on the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database at the link:

http://database.globalreporting.org/

2) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

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