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podcast

Interview with Gladys Tillmon and Janet Baker, VPs of Learning & Development, Aflac

Have you ever wondered the difference corporate training can make? In this case, Aflac takes it to a whole new level with customized corporate training focusing on the organizational brand and strategy. Chester sat down with Janet Baker, SVP of Corporate Learning and Gladys Williams-Tillmon, Vice President of Corporate Training to learn what makes Aflac executives so anxious to promote training and how a culture of appreciation is separating them from the competition.

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Transcript

CE:  Okay, this is Chester Elton welcoming you to the weekly Carrot Culture podcast.  I am delighted to invite to the podcast this week Janet Baker and Gladys Tillmon from Aflac, the great insurance company that is known for their executive training, and actually, their award-winning training.  So, welcome to the podcast, Janet and Gladys.

J&G:  Thank you.  Thank you.  Glad to be here.

CE:  Yeah, we were just out there in Columbus, Georgia, about a week or so ago to do some training with your executives, and I’m just always fascinated, you know, with all the cutbacks everybody’s going through, you still are investing in this leadership training.  Why is that as important to you now as ever in this kind of economic climate?

JB:  Well, I think, Chester, that if you take care of the people, the people will take care of the business.  And we have always known, and have always treasured the fact that it is the people that will make the difference.  I think in these economic times, a lot of companies are finding out that in this war on talent, the people that you have in the trenches, the people that you have in leadership will make the difference of success, failure, and sustainability, in an organization, and that has been a long founding principle of ours, so the continued investment in that philosophy is nothing new to us.  It is something that we believe in and something we keep plugging away at and that will be one of the last things in the economic turmoil that will go away, because if we don’t invest in our people, then we fail to propel Aflac to the next level.

CE:  Great point!  You know a lot of people talk to me, too, about “developing the bench;” you know, the next round of leaders, and certainly you’re caught up in that as well, aren’t you?

JB:  Absolutely.  Absolutely, developing that bench, making sure that our culture continues, making sure that we’ve got the right people, they can respond to all of the different economic conditions and competitive situations.  You’ve got to have people on the bench who can see things before they happen and be able to react to that kind of change. 

CE:  Excellent.  You know, Gladys, maybe I can ask you a quick question.  You were in Atlanta just last week—actually this week—and you accepted the award from Training Magazine, being one of the top 125 best training programs for…corporately, in America, for the ninth year in a row!  Talk to me a little bit about what that means to you and to Aflac, to have this sort of tradition of excellence now in your training.

GT:  To me, Chester, that means that we’ve excelled, but we’ve still got some ways to go.  I think our success in nine continuous years has been versatility.  We adapt, we adapt well, and to piggyback onto what Janet said, we believe in everything coming…we manage from the top down.  And if we have the buy-in from the top, which we have all the time I’ve been here, in reference to our training programs, then it will disseminate down into the employee base.  If we have their buy-in, we’re a sure win!

CE:  That’s great.  So talk to me a little bit about the Carrot training.  Why did you turn to that particular model to teach your managers?  Why is this idea of creating a “culture of appreciation” important to you now?

JB:  Well, number one, the entire Carrot philosophy works hand-in-hand with our own culture.  Our executive leadership participates in the development process.  They engage employees.  They manage by walking around.  They’re in our lunchrooms.  They’re in our meetings and they encourage engagement, and when we saw the Carrot Principle, we saw a way to just heighten that sense of recognition and awareness and there were things that we could learn, too.  It was kind of getting back to the basics, getting back to some consistency that we found it.  It was just a great fit.  And I think the second thing was ya’ll are just a great group of people to work with!

CE:  Thanks!  We did have a good time, didn’t we? 

JB:  Absolutely.  Absolutely.  And, you know, I like people who can make it happen and be responsive and coach and train and this relationship has just exceeded all of my expectations. 

CE:  That’s great.  Let me ask you a little bit, too, and we appreciate that.  You know, I want to give a particular shout out to Andrea, who did the great job training.  And of course, Steve, who constructed all that.  He was great, wasn’t he?

JB & GT:  Absolutely. 

CE:  Perfect.  Well, tell me the feedback that you got because we started with your top executives.  You had them fill out forms and I know you had a few days to digest all this.  So, what was their feedback about the training?

JB:  Their feedback has been great.  In fact, we took an assessment of the evaluations that we received and 90% of our attendees said that it was either good to great.  Evaluations are one thing.  I’m one of those people that likes to hear it from the horse’s mouth, so two things have happened.  One, I’ve had executives tell me that they have written thank-you notes to employees.

CE:  That’s great!

JB:  They actually told me that, so that’s when I know it hit home.  And we have had some executives that want to know how we…can we come back and sit down to make sure they got it.  Now, that to me, is when you take training, learning, and development, and it transfers to the workplace and that is what every executive corporate learning officer wants, is when it transfers from the classroom to the actual workplace and this has done it for us.

CE:  That’s great. Well you know, that brings up a great question, how do you sustain that?  I mean, you have this great training session, so what’s your plan for sustainability?

JB:  I think it’s a couple of things.  We’ve got to make sure that people are practicing out of those principles.  It can’t be a one-time hit, because one-time-hit training never works for anybody and it doesn’t work for us.  And so our charge will be continuing to engage our executive leadership and making sure that we live by the principles we’ve decided that we’re going to train by.  And the other is just keeping going away at it.  I mean, we’re going to keep plugging away at it to make sure that we are able to live by those principles.

CE:  That’s great.  Well, what kind of advice would you give to companies that are looking at their executive training programs?  What would you say about what it’s meant to Aflac, and to the building of your culture, to have this, you know, in essence, an Aflac University for your executives to turn to, those kinds of resources?

JB:  Before engaging in any learning and development effort, my advice to anyone is to understand the culture in which you’re working with.  If you don’t know what your people like or dislike, if you don’t know the goals and objectives of your organization, if you are unable to link learning and development to the corporate strategy of your organization, you’re going to have a real hard time in sustainability.  One of the things that we tried to do here at Aflac is that we made sure that whatever we were trying to accomplish, that it linked directly to our corporate objective.  The learning and development of the people of the people at Aflac is a corporate objective.  It is tied directly to the top five strategies of our organization and that’s our ability to attract, retain, and develop talent.  That keeps it on the forefront of everything.  It’s just as important as our sales.  It’s just as important as meeting our financials.  It’s just as important as our claims strategy where our business and our company is to provide for and take care of the needs of our policy holders who come up against a crisis that our policies protect.  So, the learning and development of people is just as important as all of those and I think that’s where our top-down philosophy comes from.  If it doesn’t fit that, any CLO is going to have a hard time.

CE:  Yeah, well that brings up a good point.  You know, one of the things that we decided, and we put a stake in the ground, was that we would take our Carrot Philosophy, but we would customize it, and, boy, nobody customized our stuff more than you guys, so I guess what I’m hearing you say is, it’s one thing to have those kinds of strategies, but you have to customize it to the Aflac culture, don’t you? 

JB:  Yeah, you have to.  And the only way you’re going to be able to do that is that you know, you know the environment that you’re working in and you have to have an organization who understands your passion and your desire and your drive to do that and I think that’s part of, when we looked at the Carrot Principle and began to work with you, why that was so important, because the customization wasn’t seen as an annoyance, but the customization was seen as us working together in this collaborative environment to achieve this goal and everybody got onboard with that.  And that’s important because you’re trying to make sure of the sustainability.  You want to make sure that your audience gets it.  You’re accountable to see how this training is going to ensure that Aflac propels its learning and development and its people.  You’ve got 50 million other things because it’s not like learning and development sits outside as a ‘nice to have’ for an organization.  For us, it sits on the big boardroom, it’s in the table with everything else, and so working with an organization who understood that was very, very important to me.  And Gladys and I made sure that you guys got it, ya’ll told us you had it, and then you showed it to us.  And, I mean, it couldn’t have worked out any better.

CE:  Well, listen, last question.  Are carrots really your favorite vegetable or are you just being nice to me, and my team, by saying that?

JB:  I’m learning to get ‘em better, that’s for doggone sure!

CE:  You’re liking them more now, right?

JB:  I’m liking them more now!

CE:  Good deal!  Hey, listen, it has been delightful to spend a little time with you here today.  Thanks so much for taking the time and sharing your expertise.

CE:  Congratulations again for having that great award, nine years in a row best training.  We’re proud to call you partners.  Thanks so much.

JB & GT:  Thank you so much.  Thank you.

CE:  You bet.