Elearning! Magazine: Building Smarter Companies via Learning & Workplace Technologies.
ing to burial services. A one-size-fits-all approach hadn't worked in the past and could not meet the demands of our diverse workforce." After months of collaboration between
internal working groups and technology partners led by Dr. Reginald E. Vance, director of VALU Learning Infrastructure, V.A. advanced from a basic learning man- agement system (LMS) to an employee development-centric talent management system (TMS) — the largest non- Department of Defense TMS in the United States government. For fiscal year 2011, VALU (www.valu.va.gov) registered nearly eight million training completions — an impressive number by any stan- dard. The program's success has garnered industry-wide recognition, including a recent win of the Best Launch to Organization award at the Insights 2011 international conference. VALU's curricula are based on a three-
tiered competency model. These compe- tencies — which include leadership, tech- nical and organization-wide competencies — set a common standard for employee performance, help employees understand the path for career growth, and prepare teams to better meet the needs of America's Veterans. By aligning course offerings to competencies, VALU ensures that training and development activities directly support VA employees' personal and professional growth.
HARNESSING THE VALUE OF E-LEARNING "Regardless of content, we design all of our training programs around a single overarching concept: empowering our employees to provide better service to our veterans," says Vance. "But we realized from the outset that we needed to offer a range of education approaches to meet the demands of a nationwide organization. To augment traditional in person training, we provide more than 17,000 downloadable book titles on leadership, management and other critical business topics and cur- rently offer more than 30,000 different e- learning training options." While most organizations' employees
can only access best-selling thought lead- ers at leadership and national confer- ences, VALU has provided V.A. staff with
'The training shifted my perspective on our mission at the V.A., as well as the needs of veterans I engage with through our call center.'
-Arminda Guerrero, training technician
direct access to leading-edge concepts. Led by Dr. John D. Garvin, director of Leadership Development at VALU, V.A. launched a new program in October that includes a series of videocasts featuring Dan Heath, author of the book "Switch." Broken into four segments of approxi- mately 7 to 25 minutes each, employees from the front line to the executive suite are able to download digestible sessions focused on change management. Within the first week following launch, VALU recorded nearly 1,800 completions of the Switch video training. As VALU gains traction throughout the
V.A., industry is starting to take notice: the United States Distance Learning Association (U.S.D.L.A.) recently crowned VALU's Military Cultural Awareness (M.C.A.) Program with its 2011 Best Practices in Distance Learning Programming (Gold) Award. The 90-minute module is intended to help staff understand the nuances of mili- tary branches, armed conflicts and how to engage with multiple generations of veterans. Like the rest of
VALU's courses, the M.C.A. training was developed through intensive, cross- domain collaboration and employee feed- back. Recognizing that it needed to pair its employees' commit- ment to veterans with a deeper awareness of the complexity of each branch of military service, VALU senior leadership worked with internal resources to build a course that provides a foundational knowledge of common military culture, customs and courtesies through real-world context and
compelling stories. As part of the onboarding process, VALU welcomes new employees by introducing them to the M.C.A. and TMS. "I was nearly brought to tears — it
brought so much about our veterans to life for me," says Arminda Guerrero, a training technician at the Topeka V.A. Health Resource Center who completed the course. Guerrero recommends the training to every employee at the V.A., whether or not they are directly interfacing with veterans or pro- cessing benefits. "The training shifted my perspective on our mission at the V.A., as well as the needs of veterans I engage with through our call center."
DIVERSE OPTIONS, DIVERSE WORKFORCE Many of the V.A.'s offices are located in rural settings, far removed from state capitol headquarters or major metropoli- tan areas. VALU's e-learning approach
The VALU portal provides V.A. employees and the general public with a snapshot of all VALU products and services.
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