Each year, Training magazine names the 100 best companies for training, and, despite the economy, the numbers for this year's winners are no less impressive than in years gone by.
The Training Top 100 invested more than $6 billion in training and an average of 65 hours annually per employee, funded by an average of 4.6 percent of payroll. A full 92 percent of the Top 100 measure the outcome of their programs on business results through Kirkpatrick's Model (a thorough, four-level outcome analysis), while 67 percent formally measure their training ROI through other methods.
The top spot on Training's list went to New York-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc., for the second year in a row. The company devotes a whopping 15 percent of its payroll to learning activities and employs 146 training professionals in its pharmaceutical division alone. In the past year, Pfizer formed a Department of Measurement, Evaluation, and Strategic Analysis, which is led by a person with a doctorate in statistics and measurement. The company has also made significant investments in its sales training infrastructure, the largest training organization in Pfizer, in part as a result of its 2000 merger with Warner-Lambert and its recent merger with Pharmacia.
Second-place winner IBM was applauded by the magazine for its Web-based management training initiatives, including the new Role of the Manager@IBM program, which is backed up by in-person workshops. IBM kicked off the program last year with a 48-hour, enterprisewide online learning event called ManagerJam, hosted by CEO Sam Palmisano.
For a complete report on the companies on Training's Top 100 list, visit www.trainingmag.com.
Training's Top 100
Average hours of training per employee: 65
Average percentage of payroll spent on training: 4.6
Average training budget per company: $6.1 billion
Average number of trainers per company: 177
Biggest training budget: IBM ($700 million)
“Best in Class,” hospitality industry: Ritz-Carlton
