Johnson & Johnson (“J&J”), a leading global health care products company, has doubled down on its commitment to employee learning and development (L&D) in recent years.
In 2021, the company hired its first chief learning officer (CLO), Sandra Humbles, who previously worked as the company’s Vice President for Global Education Solutions since 2016. Since then, exciting changes have been happening at J&J, including the appointment of a new CEO, Joaquin Duato, in 2022. Humbles says that Duato has championed L&D, and even declared that J&J is “a learning organization.” Humbles says it’s “amazing to have that commitment to learning from your CEO.”
According to J&J’s official “Position on Employee Development,” which was last updated in May 2023, “The opportunity to develop personally and professionally is a core aspiration, both for employees who have recently joined Johnson & Johnson and for those who have been part of the Johnson & Johnson family for years. Today’s workforce requires equitable opportunities for reskilling, upskilling and development to help our Company keep pace with evolving business and industry needs.”
Here, we’ll look at how J&J is putting these words into action through strategic L&D and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
Delivering Personalized Learning at Scale
With approximately 150,000 employees dispersed across the globe, establishing a culture of learning at J&J wasn’t easy — especially because the company wanted to deliver a personalized learning experience to each individual employee. To meet this challenge, Humbles says that over the past few years, “We have really deployed a systematic way of thinking about learning and development through our development framework.”
The development framework starts with “reflection and insights,” Humbles says. To deliver personalized learning, learners first need to assess their values, interests and career aspirations.
Then, the learning function can help link each learner’s values, interests and career goals “directly to the learning experience” through the lens of what J&J refers to as “the three E’s”:
- Education (i.e., the process of identifying skills gaps and addressing them through self-directed online learning).
- Experiences (i.e., completing a related project or “stretch assignment” to practice applying key concepts learned).
- Exposure (i.e., working with a mentor who is an expert in the skill or discipline the employee is focused on. This might be someone who is currently in a job role or function that the learner aspires to assume in the future).
For example, if a learner wants to upskill in the area of strategic thinking, they would be tasked with working on gigs and projects that allow them to exercise that skill and would be paired with a mentor who is proficient in strategic thinking, Humbles explains. To help make connections between learners’ individual career goals and the training and support they need to achieve them, J&J recently launched “J&J Learn,” a digital L&D ecosystem powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
The online learning ecosystem benefits both learners and L&D leaders at J&J. For learners, it offers a “one-stop-shop” for skills development. The platform uses AI to offer personalized learning recommendations and acts as a “career navigation” tool for learners, Humbles says. With the new platform, “Every single person has the ability to really aspire to where they want to be, and they have a roadmap to get there.”
J&J follows a federated training organization model and has over 124 individual learning organizations across the business. J&J Learn connects each learning organization in a single digital platform, which is key in streamlining processes and maintaining alignment. It also tracks learner data to provide L&D leaders with insight into the skills the business has already, and those it needs to develop to be agile in the future. Humbles says that these analytics capabilities have brought “everything we need to see to our fingertips” and has “opened a world of opportunity” for both employees and L&D teams. “Now we know what we’re building for and where the gaps are.”
In addition to its digital learning environment, J&J also has an in-person learning environment designed to spark innovation and growth. At the J&J Learn Orlando Campus, employees can gather in person to focus on their well-being, career planning and more. The space includes everything from a full gym to “innovation rooms” with whiteboards to encourage collaboration and creativity.
Meeting Business Needs
Strategic alignment — the process of aligning training initiatives with business needs — is the most important process capability of great training organizations, according to Training Industry research. At J&J, Humbles says that the learning function is focused on supporting business needs across five core areas, including: leadership, DEI, employee well-being, digital upskilling and business skills.
Each of these focus areas are linked to learning opportunities housed in the digital learning ecosystem. Learners can supplement their online learning with other professional development opportunities, such as cohort-based learning or virtual instructor-led training (VILT).
Staying on top of business priorities is a challenge for many training organizations, especially during market shifts and times of disruption. However, when it comes to supporting DEI, Humbles says that J&J’s commitment remains strong. “Even as we face economic and talent headwinds, we have remained completely committed to supporting a diverse and inclusive workforce at J&J.”
The company has committed to three “healthy humanity 2025” goals (i.e., DEI goals that J&J aims to achieve by 2025), one of which it has already exceeded:
- To achieve 50% representation of women in management positions. J&J is on track to achieve this goal: As of 2022, internal data showed that 49% of women held management positions globally, and the business achieved gender parity in two of the four regions it operates in.
- To achieve 35% ethnic and racial diversity in management positions within the U.S. J&J exceeded this goal as of 2022, with 36% of management positions in the U.S. being held by ethnically and racially diverse employees.
- To achieve 50% growth of Black and African American employees in management positions in the U.S. “We have made significant progress toward this goal, with a growth of 40.5% since 2020,” Humbles says. In 2022, 7% of J&J’s management positions in the U.S. were held by Black and African American employees.
L&D has played a key role in supporting J&J’s DEI goals outlined above. In addition to providing equal access to upskilling, employees received unconscious bias training to gain a greater awareness of their own biases, followed by training on other foundational DEI topics.
Conclusion
Looking ahead, J&J will remain focused on delivering personalized learning at scale by connecting training to employees’ individual career goals. The company is also committed to ensuring that all employees have equal access to learning through its online learning ecosystem, its in-person learning facility and more. “My personal mission is to unlock the potential of every single employee,” Humbles says. “I have never been so motivated — or so inspired — by the work we’re doing.”
Sandra Humbles will be speaking at The Opal Group’s Learning & Development Executive Summit 2023, happening Nov. 12-14, in Orlando, Florida. To learn more about the event, visit Learning & Development Executive Summit 2023 – Orlando, FL (opalgroup.net).
