OxfordSM wins coveted Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Award™ for Learning and Development

The 2023 Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards™ recognize best practices for initiatives in Learning and Development, Talent Management, Leadership Development, Talent Acquisition, Human Resources, Sales Performance, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and the Future of Work.

OxfordSM won a coveted GOLD award for excellence in Learning and Development for our GSK ImpactEurope Capability program.

Overall objectives:

The objectives we set for the program were:

• To raise core Marketing capability to drive strategic impact
• To make an immediate impact on the quality of the annual Brand Plans
• To respond to the specific capability needs of individual countries.

These had to be achieved virtually, in the flow of day-to-day work.

The program focused on six key strategic skill areas, selected and validated by European Marketing leaders.

Program design:

We developed a blended learning program, shaped by “pace and space” – balancing momentum and a sense of urgency, with time for different learning techniques plus the opportunity to reflect and deliver tangible results. We covered each Impact skill in four simple steps – with a facilitated introductory webinar, self-paced e-learning, team tasks facilitated by a live virtual coach, and a facilitated “share and embed” webinar to reinforce learning through peer review.

Implementation:

Learners were assigned to Brand/Therapy Area groups of 4–6 per Impact skill. Oxford Facilitators were assigned as “coaches/critical friends” on the basis of their knowledge of the skill area and credibility in engaging with the topic and the groups. These coaches enabled “learning by doing” across the four steps in a supportive and guided environment.

The program was accessed via the GSK Keep Growing Campus, a SAPJAM-based LMS, with single sign-on to ImpactEurope, powered by the OxfordLive/CrossKnowledge learning experience platform.

Impact and key results:

“Excellence Award winners are shown to be organizations that truly value their employees and invest in them through their human capital management programs. These HCM programs have been validated as best in class for business value and the impact on the employees themselves,” said Brandon Hall Group Chief Operating Officer Rachel Cooke, HCM Excellence Awards program leader.

500 marketers across 17 countries participated in this program, with 92% stating that it would enable them to deliver better marketing outputs for their brand. Individual elements of the program, including the Critical Friends, were rated positively by between 94% and 98% of participants. Verbatim feedback supported these scores.

A senior GSK Commercial Leader recently observed that, “while executional skills are an important focus for country marketers, the core strategic skills in the Impact program remain critical to the success of our brands.”

We coached and inspired over 200 brand teams in the application of these strategic marketing skills. A wide range of live business issues were tackled, and a summary of outputs across skills, brands, and countries was collated for reference and re-application.

We ran the GSK ImpactEurope program successfully, as the only strategic training available to European Marketers, for two years. It was extended by positive word of mouth beyond Europe to GSK’s Greater China and International region and to ViiV EU and International regions.

“Our award winners are relentless in their pursuit of excellence,” said Brandon Hall Group Chief Executive Officer Mike Cooke. “We have received some of the most innovative use of HCM strategy that we have seen in the last 30 years, and in most cases, technology and collaboration across departments have helped them achieve amazing business results.”

Judging criteria:

Entries were evaluated by a panel of veteran, independent senior industry experts, Brandon Hall Group analysts, and executives, based on these criteria:

• Alignment to their business need and environment
• Program design, functionality, and delivery
• Adoption, integration, user experience, innovation, and creativity
• Overall effectiveness, impact, and measurable benefits

We are delighted that the quality of this work has been recognized both internally, and externally with this Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence GOLD Award™.