Leaders feel the impact of rapid change, which is why leadership has never been more challenging than it is today.
Sophisticated leadership development programs create a deeper, richer pipeline of talent. Smart organizations seek ways to unlock the full potential of their talent to create this internal mobility.
The future of work has arrived; how we invest and develop our human capital requires a major shift to stay relevant. Today, organizations not only need a talent strategy aligned to business strategy, they also require providing employees with individualized learning opportunities aligned to their personal development strategy and it needs to designed and delivered in a profoundly new way.
Forrest Solutions is uniquely poised to capitalize on these changes in the workplace— which is why we have made learning and development an integral part of our company’s strategic business agenda.
To that end, I am proud to have launched L.E.A.D.: Leadership Excellence Acceleration and Development. We selectively partnered with external learning partner, Bridgitt Haarsgaard, CEO of The GAARD Group, to design and deliver this innovative learning solution that resets where and how we develop future leaders who are ready to deliver results for the organization, the team and, more importantly, our clients.
The L.E.A.D. program at Forrest Solutions is open to high performing managers and above and is a masterful combination of the essential topics incorporated into a modern learning experience. Truly a hybrid-learning model, the program is a scalable, best-in-class learning journey which prepares leaders for the needs of future roles within our Forrest Solutions business.
The L.E.A.D program currently has 55 enthusiastic participants from offices across the US. The program is comprised of interactive digital learnings, virtual classroom sessions, peer to peer collaboration forums and personal executive coaching.
Several design principles have been adopted to ensure learners’ needs are at the center of our approach to building effective, high-impact leadership development solutions. One example of this is how we incorporate insights such as “learning in the flow of work,” a key concept from human capital thought leader Josh Bersin, to further optimize the experience for our employees.
Learning in the flow of work ™ is the ability to access quicky and easily short pieces of learning content called micro-learnings. These byte–size learnings are then curated into the L.E.A.D. curriculum to optimize the applicability and relevancy for the individual and are available 24/7 within the Forrest Solutions University learning portal. Also, because our employees sit onsite at our clients’ sites, it was equally important to design a program that would maximize the learning while minimizing the disruption of workflow and productivity. L.E.A.D. is proving a win for all stakeholders.