Advantage earns 2024 Brandon Hall Group Gold and Silver Awards with AstraZeneca, Woodard & Curran
Related customer story:
Investing in our people: Unique sales training sets up team for success at Woodard & Curran
Contact us or talk to your Advantage partner to learn more about these award-winning initiatives, and how we could help your organization with impactful learning experiences tied to your business goals.
SAN RAFAEL, CA (Aug. 26, 2024) - Advantage Performance Group and clients AstraZeneca and Woodard & Curran are recipients of 2024 Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Gold and Silver awards.
This marks our eighth and ninth Brandon Hall Group awards since 2018, and our third Gold. This year's honors are:
- 2024 Brandon Hall Group Gold Award in Learning & Development for Best Competencies and Skill Development: Building Influence, Impact, and Communication Capability - Advantage Performance Group and BTS with AstraZeneca
- 2024 Brandon Hall Group Silver Award in Sales Performance for Best Unique or Innovative Sales Training Program: Sales Mastery at Woodard & Curran
Winners of the 32nd annual Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards were announced on August 22.
Award-winning learning initiatives
AstraZeneca, a leading global biopharmaceutical company, partnered with Advantage and BTS to enhance the leadership, influence, executive presence, and communication skills of its leaders, while fostering a community of practice among peers. The initial focus was on the Group Product Leaders (GPLs), who play a crucial role in advancing drug development from early stages to commercialization.
The GPL Excellence Academy featured:
- Executive Presence 360 Assessment: Including insights from an expert coach.
- Executive Presence Mastery: A day dedicated to learning leadership presence and sharing wisdom in peer groups.
- Speak Like a Leader: A day of practical application, covering audience engagement, business case development, and storytelling to convey key ideas.
Customized for AstraZeneca and the GPL role, these elements led to a notable uplift in capability, evidenced by improved performance in leading and influencing decision-making. Following the program's success, AstraZeneca expanded the initiative to include similar learning experiences for international and global employee segments, continuing to focus on leadership, influence, communication, and executive presence through BTS models and tools.
Woodard & Curran is an integrated science, engineering, design-build, and operations company specializing in water and environmental projects nationwide. As the firm has grown and evolved, its leaders felt they needed a way to solidify the Woodard & Curran approach to sales regardless of what business unit is making the sale. The organization sought a partner capable of crafting a strategic, comprehensive sales development journey transcending mere training to assess, mentor, improve, implement, and maintain the essential competencies for a successful client manager.
They chose Advantage to conduct a needs analysis and design a year-long innovative learning journey combining diverse thought leaders’ tools and materials into a cohesive curriculum that included:
- A sales talent audit self-assessment
- A presentation skills workshop
- An account selling skills workshop
- 1:1 practice sessions to role play skills and obtain feedback
- Live virtual learning sessions
- A keynote on Noble Purpose
- A collaborative sales negotiations workshop
- A capstone competitive sales business simulation
- A mobile learning app with on-the-job exercises
Contact us or talk to your Advantage partner to learn more about the learning journeys, and how we could create similar journeys for your organization.
About the awards
“Excellence Award winners are shown to be organizations that truly value their employees and invest in them through their human capital management programs. These HCM programs have been validated as best in class for business value and the impact on the employees themselves,” said Brandon Hall Group™ Chief Operating Officer Rachel Cooke, HCM Excellence Award® program leader.
The Brandon Hall Group Human Capital Management (HCM) Excellence Awards® recognize organizations for their HCM strategies that demonstrate a commitment to innovation and employee development. To view a complete list of winners, visit https://excellenceawards.brandonhall.com/winners/.
Entries were evaluated by a panel of veteran, independent senior industry experts, Brandon Hall Group analysts, and executives based on these criteria:
- Alignment to their business need and environment.
- Program design, functionality and delivery.
- Adoption, integration, user experience, innovation and creativity.
- Overall effectiveness, impact, and measurable benefits.
“Our award recipients demonstrate an unwavering commitment to excellence in human capital management,” said Brandon Hall Group Chief Executive Officer Mike Cooke. “This year, we've witnessed some of the most groundbreaking applications of HCM strategies in our organization's history. Many of these innovations leverage cutting-edge technologies and foster unprecedented levels of cross-functional collaboration, resulting in remarkable improvements in operational efficiency and employee engagement.”
The 2024 Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards® recognizes best practices for initiatives in Learning and Development, Talent Management, Leadership Development, Talent Acquisition, Human Resources, Sales Performance, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and the Future of Work. Winners will be honored on stage at the HCM Excellence Conference and Awards Gala, January 28-30, 2025, at the Hilton West Palm Beach, Florida.
About Advantage Performance Group
We help organizations develop great people.
Advantage Performance Group provides professional services related to corporate learning & development, including leadership development, sales training, business simulations, talent assessments, coaching services, mobile learning solutions, and many other areas of focus. Clients include mid-size to large organizations from all industries and any part of the world including many Fortune 500, Fortune 100, and Fortune 50 companies. Contact us at (415) 925-6832 or via email at contact@adantageperformance.com.
About Brandon Hall Group™
Brandon Hall Group™ offers data, research, insights, and certification to Learning and Talent executives and organizations. The best minds in Human Capital Management (HCM) choose Brandon Hall Group™ to help them create future-proof employee development plans for the new era. For over 30 years, they have empowered, recognized, and certified excellence in organizations worldwide, influencing the development of over 10 million employees and executives. Their HCM Excellence Awards® program was the first to recognize organizations for learning and talent and is the gold standard, known as the “Academy Awards of Human Capital Management.”
The awards recognize the best organizations that have successfully developed and deployed programs, strategies, modalities, processes, systems and tools that have achieved measurable results. They are honored to receive applications from organizations worldwide ranging from small, medium, large and global enterprises to governments, not-for-profits and associations.
“I’d like to steal from an old African proverb and say ‘It takes a village to win awards like these.’ As is true in the roots of this saying, people develop through quality, security, trust, and collaboration. I’m proud and thankful to be part of these villages!” - Jonathan Hodge, Advantage Performance Group President & CEO
"We are deeply honored to receive this recognition. This achievement reflects the power of collaboration—where visionary client partners secure senior leadership support for crucial initiatives, and our brilliant colleagues bring unmatched thought leadership to life. The flawless execution of these development programs truly demonstrates that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." - Kristina DiStasio, Advantage partner on her work with AstraZeneca
"In collaboration with Advantage Performance Group and BTS, we have developed an immersive leadership program that not only enhanced leadership skills but also cultivated a vibrant community of learning. Through this partnership we empowered our team leaders, fostering a sustained impact that reaches well beyond the workshop." - Rafael Valdes-Camin, Sr. Director, Learning & Development – Global Learning Partner, Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease
"I'm incredibly proud to be a recipient of this prestigious award. It’s been exciting and an honor to be part of this incredible journey with our amazing thought leaders, APG team, and exceptional client partners at Woodard & Curran—whose strategic vision and unwavering commitment have been instrumental in driving measurable positive impact both personally and for the firm. Their partnership has been pivotal in shaping the success we've achieved together." - Suzie Ramirez, Advantage partner on her work with Woodard & Curran
"We are absolutely thrilled to be recognized as a Brandon Hall Award winner! Working with our partners, APG, we strived to design a program that would solidify the Woodard & Curran approach to sales, regardless of what business unit the sale is coming from. By providing a dynamic training, including concepts like Selling with Noble Purpose, we knew this would improve and sustain our sales team’s skillset and approach to sales for the long term." - Rowena Holden, Director of HR Solutions and Senior Principal at Woodard & Curran
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