Developing Organization with Employee Engagement and Training

Jo Ann Peterson, Director of Training and Development, Taylor Guitars

Jo Ann Peterson, Director of Training and Development, Taylor Guitars

Jo Ann Peterson is the Director of Training and Development at Taylor Guitars with extensive experience in Talent Management, Learning and Development, and Employee Engagement. She has created a global learning and development program for employees, sales, and dealer networks. Additionally, she has led a training and education program for 1,400+ internal employees and played a crucial role in establishing an Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP).

What are the major challenges and trends that are impacting the HR space lately?

The rise of remote work and a global workforce has made it difficult to find and attract top talent. As an acoustic manufacturer, we require employees who can work both in a hybrid setting and on the factory floor. To address talent shortages, we need to approach recruitment differently.

Our main focus is on employee engagement. Engaged employees are more productive and committed for the long term. To achieve this, we have implemented the Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP), making all employees co-owners. We prioritize regular communication, foster a positive work culture, offer growth opportunities, and recognize and reward contributions to the business.

Where will the future head with all these transformations and disruptions prevailing in this space?

One of the additional tools that we use for our internal customers and our dealers worldwide is our learning management system. These tools will continue to grow as we need to have people and data analytics. This has led us to make more data-driven decisions. Leveraging these tools, we will be able to make the right decisions at the moment. We’re going to have access to information at our fingertips and instead of being reactive; we will be proactive with our employees to ensure that their environment is what it needs to be while working here at Taylor.

What are the technological and process elements you’ve leveraged to make a project successful?

We have leveraged technologies for our learning management system to address various challenges. Being a global manufacture company, we have to merge two different HRIS systems into an employee engagement or training platform to ensure that our partners can meet all our needs globally.

" Emphasizing on employee engagement is crucial because engaged employees in organizations are more productive and committed towards the organization "

In order to get solutions on time promptly, we’ve implemented tools and strategies in learning and development to be able to provide a blended learning approach to cater to diverse learning needs. Diverse learning implies delivering consistent and comprehensive training across our different employee groups, which is not an easy task. Since we have the technological infrastructure in place, we are able to offer a blended approach to all learning experiences tailored to the specific requirements of our manufacturing employees, both on the floor and for professional roles. We provide multiple learning resources, which include online micro third-party leadership programs, and in-person training.

Moreover, to identify skill gaps and develop personalized learning paths to ensure employees’ continuous growth, we have tracked the learning progress of employees across various locations. Our workforce is scattered into various locations, so we offer learning materials in multiple languages for the employee[1]owners to be able to learn in their language.

Would you like to share a piece of advice with the other leaders so that they can improve in the space?

It is crucial to have an understanding of the breadth and width of the HR tool that is being used and the way to measure the success of that tool. Additionally, to implement those tools, from initiating a conversation with vendor partners all the way to launching and measuring the success, getting the right people at the right place is very important.