Aircel Wins Two Prestigious Global Leadership Development Awards

Recognising Aircel’s efforts in providing specialized learning and development to all its employees, the company has been conferred with two coveted international awards for its leadership development programmes – ‘The Brandon Hall Excellence Awards’ and ‘Chief Learning Officer (CLO) magazine's Learning in Practice Awards’.

The ‘Aircel Future Leaders Program’ has won the Brandon Hall Bronze award in the ‘Best Leadership Development Program’ category and the CLO ‘Learning in Practice’ Silver Award in the ‘Best Strategy’ Category. While ‘Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards Program’ often called the ‘Academy Awards’ for HR, recognize organizations which have successfully deployed programs, strategies, and processes that have achieved measurable results,‘Chief Learning Officer magazine's ‘Learning in Practice’ Awards recognize industry leaders who have demonstrated excellence in the design and delivery of workforce learning and development programs.

The Aircel Future Leaders Program in collaboration with Harvard Business Publishing, a learning initiative in its second year now, focuses on building leadership capabilities across the organization, and provides participants with an understanding of key financial aspects of the business. The program also arms the participating employees with essential management and leadership skills in VUCA world, thus helping them lead more strategically with a focus on operations and revenue. The program spans across four months during which the training is imparted through a mix of class room sessions, live case studies and web based sessions.

The measurable benefits in this program are captured through an innovative framework – ‘Return on Training’, which comprises of five different levels of measuring: Reaction, Learning, Behavior change, Business Results and Return on Investment. In addition, as part of this program, the participants also implement ‘Action Learning Projects’ that include a wide array of learning in the areas of new business, market, product development and market expansion to process rationalization, revitalizing existing platforms, and consolidating resources.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Sandeep Gandhi, Chief Human Resource Officer, Aircel said, “The Aircel Future Leaders Programme is an exceptionally well crafted program where the endeavor is to cultivate future Indian telecom leaders from Aircel. Over a period of four to six months, our dedicated Aircel Academy team, led by Charan David, leverages a blended learning approach that combines traditional face-to-face classroom learning with live virtual faculty-led sessions and self-paced online learning. Further, to ensure ‘Learning by Doing’, the team also facilitates case discussions, simulations, and ‘Action Learning Projects. The highlight of this program is that we can measure its benefits to the organization through a unique framework of ‘Return on Training’.”

He further added, “Learning and development of employees is an integral part of Aircel’s HR policies and these awards are a recognition of our unwavering commitment in this direction. We wish to continue on this path and help our employees attain higher benchmarks towards self and organizational development.”

Rachel Cooke, COO of Brandon Hall Group - “I’m honored to recognize this group of elite organizations with phenomenal programs across HCM functions. The winners truly exemplified excellence around the critical business dimensions across the award categories, including a high standard of performance in their organization and demonstrated clear, measurable business results through these innovative programs.”

For the awards, the entries were evaluated by a panel of veteran, independent senior industry experts, Sr. Analysts and Executive Leadership, based upon stringent criteria: Design of the programs or technologies, the use and objectives of the program and Overall benefits and measureable results.

About Aircel:

Aircel is one of India’s leading innovative mobile service providers. The company has 3G spectrum in 13 circles and BWA spectrum in 8 circles and is credited with the fastest 3G roll out ever in the Indian telecom space. As a young data led telecom player, Aircel has constantly been at the helm of introducing innovative and value for money products and services for its customers, which are industry firsts, be it the Aircel Pocket Internet, taking the first step in making 3G affordable for the masses, being the first telecom player to introduce Facebook Voice Updates on Aircel, and many more. The Smart Pocket Internet data plans by Aircel truly changed the way mobile internet was perceived and consumed. The company has been the proud recipient of coveted awards such as Asia Responsible Entrepreneurship Awards (AREA) 2012 South Asia by Enterprise Asia, ‘Excellence Award for Security in Telecom 2012’ by Data Security Council of India (DSCI) an institution setup by NASSCOM®, Best in class Learning and Development Awards 2013 for ‘Innovation in Learning’ and ‘Best Training Venue’ by World HRD Congress. For more information, please log onto our website www.aircel.com.

About Brandon Hall Group:

Brandon Hall Group is a HCM research and advisory services firm that provides insights around key performance areas, including Learning and Development, Talent Management, Leadership Development, Talent Acquisition and Workforce Management.

With more than 10,000 clients globally and 20 years of delivering world-class research and advisory services, Brandon Hall Group is focused on developing research that drives performance in emerging and large organizations, and provides strategic insights for executives and practitioners responsible for growth and business results. (www.brandonhall.com)

About CLO Learning in Practice Awards:

Chief Learning Officer magazine focuses on solutions for enterprise productivity in the enterprise learning market. Named Best New Publication of 2002 by the American Society of Business Publication Editors, Chief Learning Officer features top experts in the corporate training industry writing to executives and officers about the importance, benefits and advancements of a properly trained workforce. Chief Learning Officer has its own family of supporting publications, including theCLOmedia.com website and the Chief Learning Officer Executive Briefings electronic newsletter.

For further information, please contact:

Govind Mahadevan

Govind.mahadevan@digitaslbi.com

+91-8447027399

Astha Ghai

astha.ghai@digitaslbi.com

+91-9871708750