Don Duquette, Executive Vice President at GP Strategies Corporation (GPX) discusses the competitive advantages of GP Strategies’ Learning Outsourcing.

Doug Sharp, President at GP Strategies Corporation (GPX), discusses the company’s impact on Heavy Hauler Transportation by leveraging LNG.

Everyone makes an impact on their company, their community, and even the world around them through the work that they do. Yes, everybody. We recently exhibited and presented at the ASTD 2012 Expo and Conference where we asked several attendees to tell us how they make an impact through the work that they do. We were impressed and inspired by the amount of people who participated and shared their stories on our Facebook page! The initial incentive could have been the dangling carrot (an iPad that we were giving away to a random winner), but in talking with a few of the participants, leaving their Impact story helped them reignite that passion for why they wake up every morning and chose to do the work that they do. After a few weeks of collecting stories, we are excited to announce that Jennifer W. won the Impact Story Campaign! Here is her story: I provide training in the private sector as well as teaching at the graduate level. A few years ago, I was reading a student’s portfolio (the final graduation requirement document) and found a paper titled "I Love My Teacher." Her story made me cry! Why? She told a story of how nervous she was about going back to graduate school after 30 years since she finished her undergraduate degree. She was afraid of what the experience might be like (her other experiences were not as good). She even described what she wore and what she did to try and relax since she was so stressed. She even recalled how she almost did not come to class! She said that after 5 minutes in class, she decided she loved her teacher. She said she felt respected, appreciated, and treated like a professional. She was glad she stayed and mentioned how she aspires to do the same for her students…make them feel safe in their learning environment. She turned out to be one of the top students and blossomed in her comfort and ability to learn. I was proud to be that teacher she loved. It helped me to realize that creating a safe learning environment is a key to learning success. Whether it is in a classroom or online, creating this environment helps a learner be open and successful. So, before I introduce too much content, I make sure I am creating a fantastic and safe learning environment. —Jennifer W. From the front-line performers to company executives, everyone makes an impact through the work that they do. And, with the right knowledge support and strategies in place, we can all perform at our highest potential to make that impact even bigger. What’s your story?

Scott Greenberg, chief executive officer of GP Strategies Corporation (GPX), talks about his career with the company.

Have you ever stopped to think about what goes into just about everything we use on a daily basis? It’s difficult to even fathom where anything we use comes from. Gas, food, medicine, transportation, and the list goes on. These products all have a back-end process to create the goods and there is always someone or something behind the curtain of everything we use. Technology and people work together to create our comfortable living situations. So who or what is out there to govern the processes and people involved in creating our goods? Is there anything out there ensuring that the products we use are safe, the technology used to produce them is environmentally conscious, and the people on the front line in production are not in danger at work? This is the basis behind regulatory compliance. It’s hard to find an industry these days that is not subject to regulatory auditing in some way. Whether it’s off shore on the oil rig or on the line of a manufacturer, governmental laws and rules apply to all in some form or another. For the organizations that produce these products, the consequences of failing an audit can be quite severe, depending on the industry and sections of the audit they failed. Essential to these companies are regulatory compliance capabilities and initiatives. There are four main attributes to ensure your organization is meeting regulatory standards: Training Documentation Regulatory Compliance Regulatory Change Management In training, organizations must ensure their operations and personnel are well-versed in regulations and compliance requirements. Establishing a robust and user-friendly means to transfer knowledge and skills is a must. Documentation includes operating procedures, emergency procedures, process line documentation, as well as training records and related documentation. This aspect of regulatory compliance requires careful attention to detail and focused practices, ensuring that the documentation is well-maintained and updated as needed. Regulatory compliance is both an art and science. The art of regulatory compliance resides in creating strong technical documentation that is both well written and user friendly.  On the surface this appears simple, but in practice many organizations are challenged to find strong technical writing skills that can develop well written and reader friendly documentation. The science aspect requires technical accuracy and the quality control efforts to validate that the included specifications or limits are correct and up to date.  Often organizations are strong in this area as they have exceptional subject matter expertise.  The common headache is documentation change management practices.  The science is building adequate processes to safe guard your organization so that documentation is kept up to date as facility or plant conditions change and/or regulations change. Achieving regulatory compliance requires a complex set of actions that each organization must complete. Obtaining a satisfactory level of compliance requires discipline and attention to detail, ensuring that your organization is completing the right practices in a timely manner. Documentation and training are must-have elements as well. Many organizations must devote full-time positions to oversee the various regulations and ensure compliance. Lastly, managing change and ensuring that your compliance is up to date to new standards and regulations is paramount. Careful updating and review of new postings and regulations is required so that your organization is not caught unaware. Preparation is key, as the communication of most new changes is well-documented, but acting on the new standard or regulations can be costly, so some organizations will delay, resulting in poor audit performance or perhaps even failure and fines. Careful and pragmatic change management must be integral to a successful program. Laws and regulations are constantly evolving across all industries. This requires organizations to take a proactive approach to regulation standards. Take for example the new SEMS regulations for off-shore oil production, which came into effect in November 2011. This, like many other changes to regulations, was based off of a virtually catastrophic event within the industry (well-known oil spill of the Gulf Coast). While these new regulations mirror PSM (the older version of the regulations) in a lot of ways, there are still enough differences that companies need to pay attention to the changes and begin to take a proactive approach to align their operation to accepted standards of operations and ensure that they are socially and environmentally responsible in order to avoid costly fines. Do you find that the company you work for takes a reactive or proactive approach to regulatory compliance? Is your documentation and training in place, and are there well-established practices for maintaining your compliance? Lastly, what steps are in place to ensure change management is integrated into all aspects of the regulatory compliance so that your organization is ahead of the wave instead of being consumed by it? Looking forward, I want to take a closer look at several of the regulations that the industry is working with and explore some of the practices and actions that are making regulatory compliance achievable and sustainable. See you at the next post!

Scott Greenberg, Chief Executive Officer at GP Strategies Corporation (GPX), and Sharon Esposito-Mayer, Chief Financial Officer, discuss competition in the marketplace.

It’s the time of year when graduates are celebrated as we end another school year. Last week, I had the pleasure of attending my daughter’s kindergarten graduation ceremony (YES, they really do have them—which I learned this year since she’s my oldest). It was adorable. All of the kids wore caps, sang songs, received graduation certificates and earned special awards "just for them," and each child was publicly recognized by the principal for their special talents. It was a great event, and children, parents, teachers and administrators were all celebrating achievements from the year. SO, in the spirit of recognition, I was inspired to reflect on the importance of acknowledging team members in the workplace for their accomplishments to drive engagement and boost productivity. In April, SHRM/Globoforce released a survey on this very subject, which reveals the growing impact of recognition programs on performance.  At GP Strategies, we have an employee recognition program called Our People Make a Difference that highlights individuals and teams living our values and who are truly making a difference for the customers (internal and external) they serve. Employees are encouraged to nominate their peers, leaders, and teams and tell the story of their impact.  Nominees are recognized in the following mediums: An All-Hands email is distributed with a detailed story of how they made a difference. They receive a "Making the Difference" certificate signed by our president. They are recognized in our quarterly internal newsletter. They are also recognized publicly on our leadership calls. This program is revered by our Company, and as a result, several hundred employees are celebrated for their "specific talents" each year. Our People Make a Difference award recipients serve as models for others by showcasing exceptional customer service and delivering business impact. Although a formal program is great, a phone call, email or simple "thank you" for a job well done daily is a great habit to practice to keep the performance engine running! Do you have a formal recognition program with your organization? Please share as it’s always great to learn what others are doing to drive employee engagement and performance!

Sharon Esposito-Mayer, Chief Financial Officer at GP Strategies Corporation (GPX) discusses the company’s client base.

Doug Sharp, President at GP Strategies Corporation (GPX), discusses the company’s impact in training.

In February and March 2012, 146 organizations participated in a research study designed to better understand how companies adopt, implement and manage user-generated content in their training or performance improvement programs. All of the companies surveyed both have employees who create user-generated content and either currently leverage or plan to leverage user-generated content. However, only 60%-65% of respondents reported that they support their employees in creating their own content in any way or were at least somewhat effective at leveraging user-generated content. Thus, a key question among companies and learning professionals is, "How should learning professionals or companies best support and leverage user-generated content?" The key findings have been made into the following easy to read infographic: