Testimonials
Case Study
SHAMBAUGH has launched a new service of Webinars this year. These webinars provide a more flexible, real-time and economic means for our clients to foster staff development and build connected learning communities for a broad and diverse demographic of employees whether they are in a field office, at a client site or working from a home office.
SHAMBAUGH is partnering with Booz Allen Hamilton on an in-house webinar series. We recently interviewed Chris Holmes, Senior Associate of Corporate Learning and Development, who leads this particular initiative.
- What is your role for this initiative?
For these Sticky Floor webinars and the follow-on, group coaching sessions that SHAMBAUGH is facilitating for us, I’m primarily focused on supporting the Learning & Development opportunities for women at the firm. We are partnering with stakeholders from across our firm including Diversity and our women's groups. - What is the business case for doing this webinar series? How does this fit into Booz Allen’s Diversity and Talent Development Plan?
Booz Allen has a renewed focus on the recruitment, retention, development and advancement of women at the firm. After collecting data points from across the firm and conducting a series of focus groups with women, we discovered that the topics in the Sticky Floors webinar series aligned nicely with the development needs of our women. The webinar series is a complement to several other development and networking opportunities available for women at the firm. - Who is the target audience?
The series is targeted for, and has the highest attendance from, women in middle management roles; however, we have been pleased that we have participation from women at all levels. Women from our administrative staff all the way to our executives have attended. These webinar topics really transcend the levels in our firm as the skill sets they address are applicable to all staff. - What are the key objectives of the Webinar Series?
We have 4 key objectives:
1) Increase the capabilities of our pipeline of women for future leadership roles;
2) Address specific challenges that women face in the workplace, with a focus on Booz Allen culture, norms, and expectations;
3) Leverage the expertise, guidance, and experience of our female partners/executives/leaders; and
4) Foster an environment that embraces the skills and capabilities that women bring to the Booz Allen workforce. - Why did you choose the Sticky Floor topics and webinar approach?
The key topics in the webinar series hit the heart of development needs of women at the firm. Specifically, the topics of how to manage work/life balance and networking are of great interest.
Leveraging the webinar approach has been effective for our staff given that we have offices across the United States and many staff are also working at client sites. With webinars, participants need only have an internet and phone connection to participate.
Additionally, having one of our senior women executives co-facilitate has been a huge value-add for participants. The Booz Allen co-facilitator is able to inject talking points and dialogue specific to our culture and environment.
The Enterprise Coaching (virtual group session) which follows each webinar session has really been a valuable action learning model that helps attendees take the learning to the next level by reflecting on the session and then taking next steps to develop a personal action plan. - What has the feedback been thus far?
We've had an overwhelming response to the webinar series with a record number of attendees logging in for the events! That metric alone speaks to the fact that this initiative hits the interest, as well as the development needs, of the women in our organization. We also found that participants appreciated hearing the thoughts and reflections of our senior leadership as it relates to the topic at hand. And finally, the co-facilitation model also helped affirm that leaders at the firm are invested in staff growth and development.