On May 22, 2016, COCC was an honored guest at this year’s Association for Talent Development (ATD) 2016 International Conference and Exposition in Denver, Colorado. Steve Guglietta, Talent Development Manager and Lisa Jacobi, Senior Vice President of Human Resources, presented during a special session sponsored by the American Management Association (AMA). During this presentation, they discussed how COCC’s learning and development culture was implemented, how it has evolved over the years and ultimately how it led them down a path to being honored as an employer of choice in Connecticut by two leading workplace survey awards.
This recent honor was incited by a previous article that was published in CLO Magazine back in July titled “Extreme Makeover: Learning Edition.” The article highlighted how COCC built a best-in-class employee training program as a small organization. It highlighted COCC’s five-year journey, from presenting one-off training classes to building a diverse, targeted training program, and ultimately, a learning culture that is aligned with the business needs of COCC. “It is a great honor for us to be recognized by a global organization for the work we have done at COCC. It was also very satisfying to share our story and be a resource for other companies who were looking to implement an employee training initiative,” said Mr. Guglietta.
Mr. Guglietta and Ms. Jacobi spoke to a room full of talent development professionals for over an hour about best practices, learning and development strategies, business tools and lessons learned throughout their five-year journey. In addition, they took several questions from an enthusiastic audience looking to learn from COCC’s experiences in order to build and improve programs within their own organizations.
One of COCC’s main business priorities is to provide top-notch, quality service to its growing client base each and every day. “Being a technology service-based employer for financial institutions, we knew it was all about our strongest people assets: how we engage them, reward them and how we develop a workplace culture centered on continuous learning,” said Ms. Jacobi. “It’s not every day that you see a large organization like ATD recognize a small employer for the work they have done on building a learning culture. I am honored that this recognition occurred for COCC and all of the employees behind making our success continue day in and day out.”
ATD holds the largest event for talent development professionals worldwide. Over 10,000 learning professionals from around the world attended to discuss the latest industry trends, best practices, new solutions and how to give their organizations a competitive advantage through employee training and development. Leading companies from around the world were in attendance, including Amazon, Exxon Mobil, Apple, LEGO, Lockheed Martin and many more.
