Which Company is the Best Place to Learn?

The "Best Place to Learn" award is given to a Dallas/Fort Worth area company showing learning has value in its culture and demonstrates success as a result of employee development, workplace learning and performance-improvement initiatives. The annual award, announced in December, is the Dallas Chapter of the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) process to publicly recognize the merits of local professionals and organizations for their commitment to training and performance improvement.

(PRWEB) January 4, 2007 -- The "Best Place to Learn" award is a process that the Dallas Chapter of the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) uses for recognizing a company or organization in the Dallas/Fort Worth area that best exhibits evidence that learning has value in its culture and demonstrates success as a result of employee development, workplace learning and performance-improvement initiatives. The award publicly recognizes the merits of local professionals and organizations for their commitment to training and performance improvement. This award is intended to encourage organizations to continue their course as leaders in the field of training and development.

Dallas ASTD announced the recent winner of their annual "Best Place to Learn" award in December. The 2006 winner was Freese and Nichols Inc.; a Fort Worth, Texas-based architectural, engineering and environmental services company. More details on the winner and why they won may be found in the January issue of the Dallas ASTD newsletter available on their website at www.dallasastd.org. A representative from the winning company will also be the featured speaker in a Dallas ASTD meeting during first quarter of the year following receiving the award.

In 2006, special recognition was also given to the Addison headquarters of Mattress Giant. The 2005 "Best Place to Learn" award was presented to Alliance Data located in Dallas, who is a leading provider of transaction, credit and marketing services.

How does a company receive this award? The award process begins with a schedule for the "Best Place to Learn" award nominations opening on the Dallas ASTD website at www.dallasastd.org in late spring, which runs through mid-summer. After nominations close, companies which are invited to participate to the next step of the process complete a detailed questionnaire about the learning activities within their organization, the structure of the learning function, learning results and the commitment to learning as a strategic part of organizational focus, which is due by end of that summer. In the autumn, a Dallas ASTD volunteer team reviews the submitted questionnaires and determines which companies should continue to the final evaluation process, which includes onsite visits by pairs of Dallas ASTD team members to talk with learning leaders and executives. Interviews are conducted, evaluations are reviewed and analyzed by the entire team, and then a winner is selected. The winner is announced in the December program hosted by Dallas ASTD.

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