American Express is an organization with international operations that provides products and services that aim at improving the wellbeing of people worldwide. It strives to attain customer satisfaction in all its business processes. Hence, the company is committed to improvement of the capacities of all its workers. The company developed a knowledge and control program to train its employees.
The education program improves the capacities of the employees and assists them to develop in their careers. This paper reviews an article titled “American Express: Hiring Smart, Training Smarter”. Jeanette Harrison published the article in 2010. Jeanette is the Chief Learning Officer at the company (Harrison, 2010).
The company developed an education program termed American Express Learning Network (AELN) (Nelson and Quick, 2008). The program enables workers of the company to develop skills that differentiate them from employees of other organizations. The education program that the company developed focuses on customer service and leadership development.
AELN focuses on various sections of vital information that employees require. Customer service guidance is at the core of the corporate education program used by the American Express (Harrison, 2010). The goal of the program is to ensure that employees can assist clients. The program ensures that employees know how to introduce themselves to clients.
Employees are trained on how to introduce themselves in a professional manner (Nelson and Quick, 2011). Additionally, the corporate education program ensures that employees know how to solve customers’ problems.
Corporate education program at the American Express also ensures that employees are equipped with soft and technical skills (Harrison, 2010). Consequently, AELN develops soft and technical skills of workers of the company. Technical education enables workers to know how to utilize different hardware and software used in the company.
It also includes guidance on how to process forms, manage time, and store records (Nelson and Quick, 2008). Soft skills include education on customer service provision and communication. Technical and soft skills complement each other. These skills improve the productivity of workers and assist them develop professionally.
Corporate education at the American Express also focuses on leadership development. AELN aims at developing an efficient management and leadership system in the company (Nelson and Quick, 2011). It also provides a means through which the company develops leaders.
The strategies adopted by the company worked well to improve the productivity of employees. It also assisted them to advance in their careers. In 2006, the company adopted a leadership development model. The model was used to examine the effectiveness of AELN as an education program. The company trained some of the employees through the internet.
They did not receive assistance from tutors and were not allowed to hold discussions. The second group of trainees was taught in class. However, they did not use online materials. The last group received integrated guidance. Tutors trained them, and they received online assistance (Nelson and Quick, 2008). Responses of all the trainees were then analyzed.
The analysis of the responses involved evaluation of workers’ reactions, acquired knowledge, behavior improvements and impact on business. The integrated approach was selected for AELN leadership improvement program (Nelson and Quick, 2011). It is effective, and assists workers to develop in their careers.
The corporate education program used by the American Express is based on the Jeanette Harrison’s education philosophy. Her philosophy is that education changes all aspects of employees’ lives. Hence, AELN improves the lives of the American Express workers at work, at home, and in their communities.
References
Harrison, J. (2010). American Express: Hiring Smart, Training Smarter. Web.
Nelson, D. L., & Quick, J. C. (2008). Understanding organizational behavior. Mason, USA: Thomson/South-Western.
Nelson, D. L., & Quick, J. C. (2011). Organizational behavior: Science, the real world, and you. Mason, USA: South-Western Cengage Learning.