Rosendin

Retailers flexed their training muscle on the 2019 Training Top 125, with Dollar General Corporation, LLC, earning the top spot and Best Buy ranking third. Leading Real Estate Companies of the World (#2), Nationwide (#4), and BNSF Railway Co. (#5) rounded out the Top 5.

Some 28 new companies broke into the Top 125 this year. The majority of the companies are in the business services, finance/banking, health/medical services, insurance, and IT/technology industries.

Training magazine recognized the 2019 Training Top 125 winners with crystal awards and revealed their rankings during the Training Top 125 Wish Upon a Star Gala held last night during the Training 2019 Conference & Expo at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, FL. The black-tie gala was sponsored by Adobe, Brella, Pelucida, Seiko, and the Training Top 10 Hall of Fame. Adobe provided a special gift for the Gala attendees. Brella spearheaded the event production. Pelucida created the crystal awards. And Seiko served as the official timekeeper of the event and provided keepsake watches and a commemorative clock for the No. 1 winner.

Now in its 19th year, the Training Top 125 is the only awards program that ranks companies unsurpassed in harnessing human capital. Some overall statistics from the quantitative analysis of the winning 2019 Training Top 125 applications include:

• The mean revenue was $9.7 billion U.S. and $12.2 billion worldwide. The mean training budget was $25 million, representing 7.34 percent of payroll. The mean amount of training cost savings was 13 percent.
• The mean number of total employees trained per organization (including independent contractors and franchisees) was 38,704, with 19,828 trained in the classroom and 56,548 trained online. A mean of 631 courses were offered as instructor-led sessions; 7,860 were offered as online self-paced modules; and 155 were offered as virtual instructor-led classrooms. All but one of the 2019 Training Top 125ers have a technology infrastructure.
• The average number of full-time and part-time trainers was 137 and 269, respectively.
• Some 95 percent of Top 125 winners have a tuition reimbursement program. A mean of 11 percent of eligible employees made use of tuition reimbursement programs in the last year. Median spend on tuition reimbursement programs was $205,248.
• Some 98 percent of winners use employee satisfaction surveys, while all use competency maps and personal/individual development plans. Some 75 percent tie managers’ compensation directly to the development of their direct reports.
• On the evaluation side, 86 percent of applicants utilize Return on Value; 94 percent utilize Return on Investment; 78 percent utilize Balanced Scorecards; and 67 percent utilize Six Sigma. The Kirkpatrick Levels of Evaluation are more widely used: Level 1 (99 percent), Levels 2 and 3 (100 percent), and Level 4 (98 percent).

Yesterday afternoon, Training recognized innovative and successful learning and development programs and practices utilized by some of the Training Top 125 winners. Best Practice and Outstanding Training Initiative winners received crystal trophies during a ceremony on the Expo Stage. They were (in alphabetical order):

BEST PRACTICE AWARD WINNERS

• BayCare Health System
• CenturyLink
• Haskell
• Paychex, Inc.
• Walden Security

OUTSTANDING TRAINING INITIATIVE AWARD WINNERS

• Best Buy
• Birmingham Water Works Board
• CarMax, Inc.
• FORUM Credit Union
• Van Meter, Inc.

“We salute the 2019 Training Top 125 winners’ training brilliance, their out-of-this-world innovation, and their deep dedication to employee learning and development,” says Lorri Freifeld, editor-in-chief of Training magazine. “We hope they will continue to inspire this and future generations with their love of learning and commitment to training! The sky’s the limit!”

The Top 125 ranking is determined by assessing a range of qualitative and quantitative factors, including financial investment in employee development, the scope of development programs, how closely such development efforts are linked to business goals and objectives, and their effectiveness in terms of business impact.

Companies that wish to be considered for Top 125 ranking complete a detailed application, which is scored both quantitatively (73 points) by an outside research and statistical data company and qualitatively (52 points) by Training magazine editors and Top 10 Hall of Fame representatives.

For a profile of each of the Top 5 companies on the Training Top 125, additional information about the training efforts of all 125 companies, and details on the programs receiving Best Practice and Outstanding Training Initiative awards, see the March/April 2019 issue. The digital edition can be found online at http://www.trainingmag.com.

Rosendin ranked #49 out of 125.