Other Selected Partners
- The Challenge: Making a significant first step in the journey to reinvigorate Kellogg’s strong values-based culture
- The Solution: A unique education experience that engages employees to think about HOW they act
- The Impact: A strong start and positive momentum
In its search for a new partner, Kellogg was attracted to LRN’s ability to inspire principled behavior across a company’s workforce and extended enterprise, as well as LRN’s view of education as one step in a journey to strengthen and shape culture for greater competitive advantage.
Kellogg Company
For more than 100 years, consumers have counted on Kellogg for great-tasting, high- quality and nutritious foods. Kellogg Company, with 2010 sales of more than $12 billion, is the world’s leading producer of cereal and a leading producer of convenience foods, including cookies, crackers, toaster pastries, cereal bars, fruit-flavored snacks, frozen waffles and veggie foods. Kellogg Company’s beloved brands, which are manufactured in 18 countries and marketed in more than 180 countries, include Kellogg’s®, Keebler®, Pop-Tarts®, Eggo®, Cheez-It®, All-Bran®, Mini-Wheats®, Nutri-Grain®, Rice Krispies®, Special K®, Chips Deluxe®, Famous Amos®, Sandies®, Austin®, Club®, Murray®, Kashi®, Bear Naked®, Morningstar Farms®, Gardenburger® and Stretch Island®. For more information on the Kellogg Company, including our corporate responsibility initiatives, visit www.kelloggcompany.com.
The Challenge: Making Progress on a New Journey
More than 100 years after its founding, Kellogg Company retains many of the same values instilled by its founder, W.K. Kellogg, during the company’s early years. Today, the company’s K ValuesTM shape its culture. One of those values, which compels employees to “act with integrity and show respect,” also serves as the foundation for the company’s Global Code of Ethics by promoting an environment that is respectful and ethical— whether interacting with consumers, communities or each other.
In early 2010, Kellogg determined that it wanted to do more to assure its ethics and compliance training did not become a “check-the-box” exercise focused on merely meeting legal requirements without actual learning and corresponding behaviors. As a starting point for this journey, Kellogg hired a new Ethics & Compliance director, Emeka N. Nwankpah and selected LRN as its new online ethics training partner.
In its search for a new partner, Kellogg was attracted to LRN’s ability to inspire principled behavior across a company’s workforce and extended enterprise, as well as LRN’s view of education as one step in a journey to strengthen and shape culture for greater competitive advantage. In addition, LRN’s broad suite of courses and learning
The Solution: A Unique Education Experience
Driving Awareness: As Kellogg planned its new education approach, Kellogg’s Office of Ethics and Compliance wanted to make sure the company had a solid foundation of awareness before it moved on to specific compliance topics. “I felt the best place to start was to provide all Kellogg employees with a general awareness of business ethics and a reminder why good ethics is good business, so I looked for the right education curricula to support our goals and our employees’ needs,” he said. Accordingly, he paid particular attention to the quality of the learning experience, looking for the most engaging courses LRN had to offer.
Modeling Behaviors:
This month, we are pleased to recognize LRN’s partner of 15 years, United Technologies Corporation, which recently received the Stanley C. Pace Leadership in Ethics Award from the Ethics Resource Center (ERC). United Technologies Corporation, based in Hartford, Connecticut, provides a broad range of high technology products and support services to the building systems and aerospace industries. In 2005, prompted by ERC survey insights about creating the right environment for ethical behavior, United Technologies began to re-shape its ethics and compliance program—beginning with stronger communications and training, formalized compliance risk management, increased resources in business practices, an enhanced ombudsman program, and intensified audits. But what has distinguished United Technologies’ effort is its emphasis on certain key behaviors in “ethics competency” as part of the performance appraisal process and its initiatives to establish and cascade the “CEO’s Ethics Objectives” to reinforce those behaviors across the company. Together, these efforts have produced a higher level of awareness and overall performance and reflect the commitment and hard work of leaders at all levels of the company. Employee survey results from 2005 to 2009 demonstrated improvements to the composite ethics score in every region of the world and every United Technologies company. Leadership is pleased with this progress but recognizes that the journey toward making ethics the foundation of the company’s performance culture isn’t over. United Technologies is continuing to improve ethics performance by focusing on competencies, systems and controls, and multiple levels of auditing and management monitoring to assure that it sustains progress. Congratulations to United Technologies and Chairman & CEO Louis Chênevert on receiving the Pace Award—a richly deserved recognition of your commitment to ethics in business and Principled Performance.
Transamerica's Enterprise Information Risk Awareness and Training Program educates personnel so they can better understand the risks to and internal practices for safeguarding company information, which can be a daunting task given the topics it covers: information security, business continuity, IT risk management and physical security. The Program’s core components consist of the customary - internal Intranet site, company-wide communications (mainly quarterly), displayable materials, such as hard-copy and electronic posters, eLearning curriculum and an annual awareness campaign. Janine Comstock, Transamerica’s Chief Information Security Officer, points out the Program’s philosophy is to develop practical, fun communications, training curriculum and supporting activities that simply and relevantly explain company expectations and available controls using business-related and real-life personal scenarios. In November, 2011, Transamerica will launch its third energetic and robust annual awareness week to inform and enlighten its employees on a wide range of information risk related topic areas. A special-edition of Risk Watch newsletter is published to kick-off the event, and colorful and informative daily “E- bulletins” keep the initiative fun and fresh with relevant articles, stories, informative facts, and activities. A fresh e-learning module becomes available to all personnel. The week wraps up with an electronic survey. Survey responses and feedback are gathered and reviewed by the Enterprise Information Security Office to identify emerging risks and prevent/mitigate exposure. Insights and suggestions gleaned from the responses are featured in subsequent quarterly newsletter pieces and future mandatory training. The first 100 participants to complete e-training or the survey receive a raffle ticket. At the end of the annual awareness week, tickets are drawn from a “hat”; prizes are $25 certificates for internal company store containing branded goods such as collared shirts, coffee mugs, and golf umbrellas. Mindful of the challenges of employee training fatigue, competing business priorities and under-engagement, Ms. Comstock reported that employees enthusiastically complimented her on the creative campaign. However, she says, “It involves a lot of preparation and planning to keep employees informed and engaged.” Ms. Comstock largely credits the Program’s success to the passion, collaboration, and creativity of the Program’s steering committee, mainly consisting of business unit and subject matter experts, and the support of business leaders. She says, “I eagerly await to see the interesting material the team has creatively developed and designed.” It’s nice to see an organization find creative ways to capture attention and promote ethical awareness. This type of learning initiative is an approach where everybody wins. Quotes Received from internal participants: I really like this method of education. Informative, entertaining, interesting. I looked forward to the emails each day. AEGON has done great work educating its employees regarding these issues. Good information to use at work as well as at home!
- The Challenge: Create an engaging Code of Conduct training course
- The Solution: A media-rich, interactive training with real-world scenarios
- The Impact: Rave reviews from Bertelsmann employees and heightened awareness of its E&C program
In the spirit of collaboration, we proudly feature Bertelsmann AG, an international media corporation, active in television (RTL Group), books (Random House), magazines (Gruner + Jahr), media services (Arvato) and media clubs (Direct Group), headquartered in Gütersloh, Germany, with over 100,000 employees operating in over 50 countries. In late 2010, Brandon Hall, a leading research firm in training and development, awarded the prestigious Brandon Hall Silver Award for “Best Custom Content” to Bertelsmann for the Bertelsmann Code of Conduct training course, which was created in collaboration with LRN. The Brandon Hall awards, which have been awarded annually over the past sixteen years, celebrate the best and brightest in innovative learning technology in workplace learning.
Results Matter
In 2008, Bertelsmann partnered with LRN to develop the “Bertelsmann Code of Conduct Introductory Course” for its global employee population. The e-learning course, delivered in 2009 and 2010, received meaningful positive feedback from Bertelsmann’s employees, and led to a heightened awareness of its Ethics & Compliance program, as demonstrated by Bertelsmann’s global employee survey results.
Course Features
The course features customized video and photographic scenarios that were developed by Bertelsmann’s Ethics and Compliance team, and produced by teamWorx, one of Bertelsmann’s own production companies. The scenarios are based on realistic business situations across five divisions, and faced by employees in the manufacturing, office and executive contexts. The scenarios place the learner in the mind of a protagonist who is faced with an ethical dilemma, and the learner then responds to a question by either identifying an applicable Code of Conduct principle or how to raise a concern through Bertelsmann’s whistleblowing channels. The course contains voiceovers (rather than dubbing or subtitles) in ten languages, which was deemed more appealing to global audiences.
Behind the Scenes
The customized content was implemented by a talented instructional and graphic design team from LRN, including Nicolas Carr, Instructional Designer, and Naznin Kotwal, Project Manager, who collaborated closely with the Bertelsmann team. This award is a win-win for the Bertelsmann and LRN, as it demonstrates how innovative thought leadership and cutting-edge instructional design can produce market leading results.
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