Functional Excellence Through Training, Embarking on a New Path

It is common to hear in the entrepreneurial environment that "training is very important to our future", and "we value training", but the actions behind those words are often vague and unorchestrated. It is the intent of this paper to identify, describe and discuss various training methods and structures used in the company that can be aligned with the various demographics and their needs, both immediate and long-term, promoting a more efficient training effort. As collegiate hiring in the industry diminished after the 2010-2013 boom and early-career training was less necessary, training needs shifted to more task-specific, individualized training for mid-career employees. More mentoring, ‘just-in-time’ and ‘fit-for-purpose’ training was required and applied, while less classroom training was available due to higher delivery costs and constraints in travel budgets. This reality required a re-tooling of the training program in Chevron, aiming more at short-duration, universally accessible, dedicated training where the supervisor and mentor are as important as the functional instructor. This integrated approach is showing to accelerate both the career development of the individual, as well as their path to impact in their current and future jobs. These advantages are expected to be found in the usage of a blended approach for training purposes, together with specific guided experiences and other course-related and/or independent training activities designed to increase and measure training effectiveness. Training effectiveness is to be measured not by the composition of a course (or its instructor performance), but by the content and delivery aligned with the participants’ needs and experiences. Whereas early-career training assumes no prior experience, mid-career professionals have significant (and very varied) experience. Training success can only be achieved with a flexible, nimble training strategy. In the evolving L& D world, ‘flexible and nimble’ often translates to short, specific, readily accessible training. While scheduled classroom-style training will remain a key part of our training portfolio, more modular, cloud-based training has been successfully applied and will continue to grow in number and importance, with its strong suit being immediate job impact and universal access. These successes could only be achieved by frequent communication between customers, OC leadership and internal and/or external training providers. Benefits included a total reduction on development and delivery expenses, more flexibility in delivery methods, which can be translated in more time to the participants to optimize their work schedules, improved communications and networking among learners worldwide and more knowledge retention according to adult learning principles. This approach to blended learning, the methodology presented and the lessons learned obtained in this process will benefit other companies and organizations.