Added: 2nd February 2024 by Thornton Tomasetti
Our training and educational programs continue to expand. In 2022, we began offering all-staff mentoring, online continuing-education courses and a webinar series on notable projects and best practices. Employees at designated stages in their careers participated in group coaching, cultural onboarding and project management training. Our knowledge-sharing program keeps employees connected, engaged and informed in a wide range of technical subject areas.
Our group coaching model prepares people who have reached career transition points to meet future role expectations. This popular program, with a 75% adoption rate among those invited, brought together 77 senior engineers and senior project engineers to meet in small groups with two lead coaches who guided them toward relevant goals.
The outcomes of this learning model include improved performance, accelerated career advancement and new relationships across offices and disciplines. According to Director of Learning Linda Warren, “Our people are very enthusiastic about this program.
The coaches are phenomenal – the experiences and stories they share give it tremendous value.” And Principal Mark Andrews, a former coach, says, “Our people get a lot out of meeting with others from across the firm and being exposed to different perspectives. I’ve seen our coaching guide people to success in their next career steps, improve their networking skills and help them with their client relationships.”
Two hundred sixty-five employees in the very early stages of their careers participated in a cultural onboarding program initiated in 2022.
Cultural onboarding is based on the premise that employees who feel included and are better acquainted with the company are likely to stay longer. In our U.S. offices, new employees participate in a year of leadership insight conversations and peer-to-peer discussion groups.
Cultural onboarding begins with a “Meet the CEOs” dialogue. Monthly discussions introduce new employees to influencers in the firm and to subjects like career development, innovation and what it means to be a professional-services firm. Peer groups give new employees a forum for navigating the firm together, in a group-directed experience.
A pillar of our training and education program is mentorship throughout an employee’s tenure. In 2021, we expanded our formal mentoring program, which initially targeted women. We now offer mentoring to most employees at least once a year. Each mentee is introduced to a suitable match through our mentorship platform matrix.
We continue to offer project management training, and our technical training now includes courses at the Roux Institute at Northeastern University. Our partnership with the institute focuses on developing a workforce that has the skills necessary for future success.
We collaborate with the institute to design courses that meet our technical training requirements, offer guidance on the types of courses the workforce needs and provide a pool of students from among our employees and trusted partners. In partnership with Roux, we developed and participated in three courses taught virtually in 2022: Introduction to Machine Learning, Data Warehousing, and Data Analysis.
Using multiple delivery strategies, our 2022 training program included more than 600 online courses and 24 Thornton Tomasetti University seminars taught by firm experts. Our employee-driven communities of practice (CoPs) promote learning activities, networking and organisational development. They cover a plethora of topics, from building science to drones. In 2022, 865 people (53% of our staff) participated in our 30 CoPs.
