State Parkway Partners recommends the following companies to enhance services and strategies:

• Q2 Learning provides speed-to-proficiency solutions for high value learning initiatives to corporations using our collaborative learning platform, the xPERT eCampus.
• KnowledgeAdvisors is the global leader in Human Capital Analytics. They help organizations measure, communicate and improve the impact of their learning and development investments.
• LearnShare was founded in 1996 by Fortune 500 companies who were seeking to join together to transform the way their companies research, design, purchase, package and communicate career development and skill enhancement. This visionary group, the Owners, included General Motors, 3M, Motorola, Owens Corning, Deere & Co., O-I, Eaton, Northwest Airlines, Pfizer Inc, Pilkington, UnitedHealth Group, and Chevron. Since that time, the owners have been joined by more than 30 of the largest, most diverse corporations in the world representing more than 2.5 million employees around the globe.
• Bersin & Associates is an organization of senior analysts and consultants with extensive experience in corporate learning, e-learning, performance management, leadership development, talent management, and enterprise systems.  Their WhatWorks® research methodology allows them to identify unique and powerful business solutions which enable learning and HR managers to drive dramatic improvements in their organizations.
• NIIT Cognitive Arts is a leading Global Talent Development Corporation, building skilled manpower pool for global industry requirements. The company which was set up in 1981, to help the nascent IT industry overcome its human resource challenges, has today grown to be amongst world’s leading talent development companies offering learning solutions to Individuals, Enterprises and Institutions across 40 countries.  

Tom Hilgart

Partner, State Parkway Partners

Tom Hilgart offers 35 years of business leadership experience as a line manager delivering operational improvement in insurance operations, as an internal consultant in process innovation and quality management, and as a nationally recognized leader in corporate learning and development.From 2000 through 2008, Tom served as Vice President of the Knowledge & Learning Group at CNA.CNA was recognized in 2004 by Corporate Executive Board research as a benchmark company for its approach to aligning learning investments to business strategy.In 2005, CNA was acknowledged by Bersin & Associates research as a best practice company both for its alignment of learning investments to business strategy and for the effectiveness of its balanced centralized/decentralized governance structure.Prior to that Tom was

• an internal consultant in quality management, benchmarking, and process redesign
• director of management development
• director of insurance operations

Tom earned a BA in philosophy from St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein IL and completed extensive graduate studies in philosophy, education, and social sciences at Loyola University and Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, IL.

Shirley Kitzmann

Partner, State Parkway Partners

Shirley Kitzmann offers a wealth of business acumen resulting from over 25 years of extensive consulting, human resources, communications, and operations management experience for entrepreneurial, professional services, mid-sized and Fortune 500 companies.In her work as a management consultant and Human Resources executive, Ms. Kitzmann has helped organizations achieve their strategic objectives by focusing on human resources processes, investments in support of organization development, and culture change. She is skilled in designing and implementing total rewards programs, organizational and job design, organizational effectiveness processes, performance management, learning and development strategies and programs, succession planning processes, and communication strategies.Ms. Kitzmann has lectured for Loyola University’s (Chicago) Human Resources and Industrial Relations Institute’s graduate program, and has served as an Adjunct Professor for Washington University’s (St. Louis) Human Resources graduate program. She earned a BA from the University of Wisconsin Green Bay, and an MBA from the University of Minnesota.

Manage Learning Strategically

We will show you how to move away from a demand-driven service and how to become a value-driven strategic partner. We will guide you as you build your:

• Annual Learning Plan and budget in a way that is aligned to business strategies and managed as a portfolio of prioritized investments.
• Measurement Plan aligned to the human capital performance objectives required by your business strategies and operating plans.
• L&D Strategy Assessment and Roadmap: your organization structure and staff roles; decisions about selective insourcing and outsourcing of roles; learning technologies and vendor selection; learning design methods for different delivery media; and your use of performance support.

Managing Learning Strategically (Open in Notes view to see narration)

Managing Performance Strategically

For decades, the major emphases in performance management have been performance objectives and performance assessment. Important as these are, they only become strategically important when they are integrated into a coaching culture, development opportunities, recognition, and rewards that increase workforce competencies, engagement, and retention. We will help you build your:

• Annual Talent Engagement and retention Plan focused on developing a “talent as an asset” mindset in your leaders at all levels and managing their adoption of practices which evidence that mindset.
• Measurement plan focused on increased competency in the workforce, on selected measures of engagement, commitment, and retention, and on the adoption of “talent as a mindset” practices.
• Assessment of and Roadmap for your “people leadership” capabilities.

Managing Performance Strategically (Open in Notes view to see narrative)

Managing Talent Strategically

Strategic talent management is about taking a systemic view of your business strategies, identifying the key roles in those strategies, and ensuring that you will have enough of the right people with the right competencies to make the business successful year after year. We will help you build your:

• Annual Integrated Workforce Plan in which you take a holistic view of the entire talent management process for each line of business and identify near term and longer term initiatives. Within the context of business strategies, your planning process will address workforce planning, talent acquisition, on-boarding, learning and development, performance management, and rewards and recognition. The result will be a coordinated, comprehensive plan.
• Succession Planning Process to address leadership roles, pivotal positions, and key positions challenged by competitive and demographic forces.
• Assessment of and Roadmap for your talent management capabilities including core issues such as data integration, process coordination, and technology support.

Managing Talent Strategically (Notes view with narrative will be available 3/23/09)

Our Mission

State Parkway Partners shows businesses how to manage their investments in human capital as rigorously as they manage other investments. We show you how to align your investments in people with your business strategies and operating objectives ensuring that you have the right people with the right competencies in the right roles to be successful now and in the future.

Our Capability

We employ a unique perspective and methodology for developing a prioritized portfolio of investments in human capital. We balance strategic and operational requirements as well as short and long term requirements. Our approach ensures that each investment is aligned with overall strategies, executed with confidence, and managed with accountability for results.

Our Offering

We show our clients how to manage their human capital investment portfolios in three areas:

Strategic Learning Management - Read more…

The Accenture January 2007 High Performance Workforce Study reported that of the 250 senior executives surveyed from the United States, Europe, and Australia only 14% saw their organizations’ workforce skills as industry leading, and only 20% said that most of their employees understood their companies’ strategy and what was needed to be successful.

Strategic Talent Management - Read more…

The Business Week European 50 Research Survey 2006 reported that executives surveyed identified human capital as the most important factor for maintaining high performance in the long term by a factor of nearly two to one. The combination of globalization and technology has increasingly fueled the war for talent.

Strategic Performance Management - Read more…

Bersin & Associates 2008 research report High Impact Talent Management reported that 32% of managers do not clearly understand the role between pay and performance in their organizations, 85% of organizations do not have clearly defined competencies which define success, only 21% of organizations have training tied to development goals, only 29% of organizations create goals which are aligned to the organization, and only 13% of organizations have coaching programs tied to thir performance management process.