Case. A Strategic Approach to Learning at ConAgra Foods. Read the case and answer the questions.

ConAgra Foods has a strategic goal to be the fastest-growing food company (in terms of sales and profits) by 2017. The company, whose brands include Chef Boyardee, Healthy Choice, and Hunt’s, has been acquiring other businesses, helping it grow to more than 25,000 employees. HR managers on ConAgra’s Enterprise Learning team realized they would need a strategy to ensure that the company has the skills needed to support further growth. So ConAgra developed a strategy for sharing training resources among local facilities to meet each employee’s individual training needs.

In the sales function, for example, ConAgra has a goal that all of its salespeople will know their product line and customers so well that they can serve as trusted advisers. This requires that salespeople understand financial data, specifically how sales of their products contribute to ConAgra’s profits. The Enterprise Learning team pinpointed the required skills and knowledge, using that information as the basis for creating a three-stage training program. The first stage is a set of simulations, videos, and reading materials to support classroom training in basic business principles. Next, five sales teams (about 100 participants each) gathered for two-day workshops at which they applied the basic principles, engaging in role-plays to practice what they were learning. To sustain what was learned, managers in the final stage of the training set goals for the salespeople and monitored their performance. Since the training, the Enterprise Learning team has measured a substantial improvement in profits among the trained salespeople.

Other training programs target management. For the first layer of management, front-line supervisors, ConAgra established the Foundations of the Leadership program. This program addresses how to become a leader of individuals and teams—skills a front-line supervisor may not yet have practiced. The goal for Foundations of Leadership is that supervisors will understand what is involved in being a leader at ConAgra Foods so their groups can deliver better results. Surveys of employees provide feedback used for additional training and efforts to sustain what supervisors have learned. The Enterprise Learning team also measured lower average turnover of employees whose supervisors participated in Foundations of Leadership, saving an estimated $116,100 for every class of 28 supervisors trained. Another program, called Managing Talent for Results, used a board game to teach 500 managers how to improve business results by choosing the best people to fill positions as needs open up.

Questions

1. What were the training objectives for salespeople? How did the company measure the results of training them?

2. Why was there a need to train first-line supervisors? What results of that training program did the company observe?