Things That Worked for P&Gs R&D University: Selecting What to Teach

27 Mar 2012

Topics: Strategy Integration, Program Design & Delivery, Cultural Outcomes

Corporate Universities are a proven way to provide education and training within organizations. The Research and Development (R&D) organization within P&G created its corporate university, R&D University (RDU), in 2003. Over time, RDU has developed into a dynamic contributor to the business of the R&D organization and within a just a few years was considered to be a fundamental part of the R&D culture. Edward Klein, Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati and a faculty member of the Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Institute, and Lisa Owens, Dean of Learning Sciences at Procter & Gamble, created a series of articles for CorpU over the last few years about the decisions made during the founding and running of RDU; the series, Things That Worked for P&G's R&D University, further explains the challenges, solutions and results of key elements of their success. This article, Selecting What to Teach, is the final installment of the series.

The process of selecting topics for P&G's Research & Development University (RDU) was a challenge. To narrow down the choices, RDU focused on content that could be applied on the job "next week" for each participant.

And this focus has produced results. When asked if their RDU learning will help them on the job, over 95% respond favorably. We get the same favorable response for the question "time spent was very worthwhile." Anecdotally, deans and trainers repeatedly hear participants say that they were skeptical about spending so many days away from the office in training but that they are glad they did. Likewise, we hear people who finally attended the college after repeatedly cancelling saying they don't know why they avoided coming for so long.

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Things That Worked for P&Gs R&D University: Selecting What to Teach

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Things That Worked for P&Gs R&D University: Selecting What to Teach