Our COVID-19 Redeployment Training was named the #1 Outstanding Training Initiative for 2020 by Training Magazine.

At Verizon, our Learning & Development (L&D) team plays a critical role in keeping our people at the forefront of an ever-changing industry. Amid the pandemic, this team has helped us move forward and quickly transition to new ways of working.

We’re excited to announce that our COVID-19 Employee Redeployment Training was named the #1 Outstanding Training Initiative for 2020 by Training Magazine for innovative solutions during the pandemic. What makes this award even more special - we were chosen by our peers from other companies like Deloitte, EY and IBM who, along with Verizon, are members of Training Magazine’s Top 100 Hall of Fame.

Reimagining and transforming the customer experience.

Our L&D team enabled us to pivot quickly to reimagine and transform how we could continue to support our customers. It required finding innovative ways to retrain thousands of V Teamers as we redesigned processes to successfully work through uncertainty.

Although it was definitely unprecedented, the team was up to the task. We reskilled nearly 20,000 V Teamers in record time to support different roles across the company and to care for the immediate needs of Verizon customers.

When 1,000 out of 1,600 Verizon-owned retail locations were closed for safety reasons at the peak of the pandemic, we knew that we still had a commitment to ensure that our customers stayed connected. Among our redeployed employees were 8,000 retail V Teamers who were retrained as customer support and telesales support.

How we did it.

Before the retraining process began, we asked members of our retail team to let us know if they had a preference for customer support or telesales. Once we knew which areas our V Teamers wanted to support, we went full-force, working with our operations teams to ship equipment to allow team members to work from home.

We also redesigned our customer support and telesales onboarding programs and materials for a virtual experience. From there, we trained team members through a combination of virtual instructor-led training, self-guided digital learning, digital performance support, post-training trainer support, and daily leader reinforcements.

Moving forward in the face of change.

In just a matter of weeks, 60% of redeployed retail V Teamers were trained and fully equipped. They delivered outstanding results, handling over four million Customer Support calls and over 800,000 Telesales calls.

In 2020, Verizon ranked #1 in Forbes’ Nation’s Top Employers’ Responses to Pandemic rankings. The retail redeployment initiative was cited as a contributing factor. L&D also earned nine prestigious Brandon Hall Awards for technology advancement.

Congrats to our L&D team and all of their partners! We also want to give a big thank you to the 20,000 employees who were a part of our redeployment process. Our greatest strength is our V Teamers, and we couldn't have done this without you

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