“Learn and confirm” is Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Inc.”™s catch phrase for a new clinical drug development strategy.
The tag line appears to apply to its rank-and-file workers as well.
Wyeth, whose massive Pearl River plant places it among the largest corporate employers in the lower Hudson Valley, has among the top 10 training regimens in the nation, according to a new report.
Training Magazine ranked Wyeth eighth nationally thanks to a program that requires remedial training if employees do not achieve a score of 90 percent in ongoing skill assessments.
In Wyeth”™s world, the stakes are high. If an agent at Verizon Wireless makes a mistake, about the worst that can happen is the customer taking his or her $100 annual contract elsewhere.
Mistakes at a drug company bring considerably higher penalties, whether in the form of customer lawsuits or federal oversight.
Wyeth did not provide a personnel manager to discuss its training program.
Human resources departments regard training programs not just as skills builders, but also as a retention tool, and many carefully track how employees respond to various training initiatives.
Not every employee will respond positively to programs that include a pass-fail-style test, said Rebecca Ray, senior vice president of global learning and organizational development at MasterCard International Inc. in Purchase.
“We want raving fans,” Ray said. “That”™s how we pack the room, and in some circumstances they will respond better to (a) ”˜pull”™ strategy than a ”˜push”™ (approach).”
Verizon Wireless was ranked fourth nationally for its “Insights for Success-Diverse Leadership” workshop. Since the program”™s inception in 2003, 28 percent of graduates have made lateral moves or received promotions within Verizon Wireless, and the company has lost only 2 percent of participants.
The Verizon Communications Inc. unit, which has its New York metropolitan area headquarters in Orangeburg, is in the process of hiring additional customer-service people throughout the area.
Cartus Corp., a Danbury, Conn., company that has helped employees at Wyeth relocate after job transfers, is taking a page from Verizon Wireless”™ playbook and is planning training programs to help internal employees make lateral transfers inside the company.
Some 500 of Cartus”™ 2,800 employees are in-house consultants who work directly with employees at companies who are relocating to another corporate site. It is a stressful position which in the past has led to high turnover.
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At the outset of their employment, front-line employees no longer swallow a massive amount of information from a fire hose, instead sipping from a more modular-based curriculum matched to the challenges they are currently facing.
Cartus is now developing a training program to help its own employees qualify for lateral transfers within the company.
“We were spending a tremendous amount on people who were not staying long enough,” said Lynette Wagner, director of global training and development at Cartus.
The Ritz Carlton Hotel Company L.L.C., which is building a hotel in White Plains, topped the Training 125 list. The company attempts to wow employees from the moment they join the company for their initial training, said Diana Oreck, vice president of Ritz-Carlton”™s leadership center.
For a company whose reputation is entirely based on a high level of personal service, it is critical employees learn the Ritz-Carlton way from day one, Oreck said.
“On my two-day orientation, it just blew me away how they personalized it so much,” Oreck said. “Even the snack the first day was personalized ”¦ For lunch that day, you got to go the finest restaurant around, not the cafeteria. It absolutely leads to engagement because you have these new employees feeling thrilled that they came to Ritz-Carlton.”
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