Investing In Your Employees: Kim Niederman Of GlobalMeet On The Benefits of Offering Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Initiatives For Employees
An Interview With Chad Silverstein
Brand Reputation and Credibility
Building off the competitive edge, continuing professional development creates a culture of continual improvement that resonates with customers and builds brand reputation, credibility, and consumer trust.
Investing in team development has become increasingly crucial for forward-thinking companies, who understand that their greatest assets are their people. From implementing innovative training programs and wellness initiatives to cultivating a supportive work environment, these strategic investments play a vital role in enhancing employee satisfaction and retention. As the business landscape evolves, mastering effective methods to support and retain employees is pivotal for achieving long-term success. I had the pleasure of interviewing Kim Niederman, CEO of GlobalMeet.
Kim Niederman is the CEO of event technology industry leader, GlobalMeet, with an impressive career spanning over four decades in public and private technology companies. As a change agent and growth accelerator, Kim shaped product and go-to-market strategies, building world-class companies as CEO, President, and Senior Executive at big names like 8×8, Lifesize, Polycom, Cisco, and FORE Systems. Kim has extensive experience running global operations for current and new disruptive technologies.
Thank you for joining us. To start, could you share a little about yourself, and how you got started?
I have worked in the technology industry for over four decades. At the start of my career, I came up through the Sales ranks. While at Wang Laboratories, I met future Cisco Systems CEO, John Chambers. He recognized my sales and managerial talents and promoted me several times, eventually, resulting in me being ranked #1 Regional Sales Director of 80 US regions. Eventually, I joined John as an early Cisco Sales executive, managing a geographic business and scaling revenue 5X in just 18 months. Additionally, I architected and executed a corporate-wide initiative to transition to a ‘Direct to Channel’ sales model. Over the next several years, I worked my way up to Operations Director, one of six Sales Directors worldwide representing about 20% of Cisco’s revenue. Then, promoted to General Manager, I formed Cisco’s first Business Unit with the acquisitions of Crescendo and Kalpana.
What was your biggest challenge in those early days?
In the early days at Cisco, there was no Internet, that anyone knew of. Therefore, the biggest challenge was helping Fortune 500 companies understand why they should pay $100,000 for a 10-port FDDI router. The challenge was enormous as it required a comprehensive understanding of the product and technology, as well as convincing the company real-time digital delivery of business intelligence was a good ROI. Our main competitor was IBM, whose FEP (Front-end processing) division was $8B. They were set on convincing their customers that this new-fangled thing called a router was unnecessary.
One of the biggest challenges was establishing a repetitive sales motion and driving a consistent sales process. This was essential to creating ‘sales velocity’ whereby sales would continue to scale revenue growth monthly. Once the salespeople and sales team leaders saw how leveraging the process accelerated growth, they saw a 5X increase in sales efficiency
Can you explain why continuing professional development is important for the success of a business?
Continuing professional development is essential to ensure that professionals stay well-versed in the latest and best practices being introduced in their respective fields. This is particularly important for industries like healthcare, finance, legal, and education, where new information that emerges from government regulations and scientific studies is constantly brought to the forefront. For businesses to be both competitive and compliant, continuing professional education and development is essential for all employees.
What has been the most impactful CPD initiative you’ve seen other companies offer, and how did it inspire or influence your own approach?
We’ve found that virtual events and video learning methods are highly impactful and in demand. The proof is that over 3 million people have utilized GlobalMeet’s online Continuing Professional Education platform. This has inspired our approach at GlobalMeet to revitalize the technology available to professionals, educators, and employers. With GlobalMeet’s online course hosting platform, companies can access branded virtual classroom presentations, cutting-edge reporting software, and effective engagement elements such as polling. All of these elements are included in a one-stop-shop training portal that increases session functionality by allowing companies to turn an event into on-demand learning chapters that support the development journeys of their employees.
What challenges might companies face when implementing these initiatives, and how can they overcome them?
Creating engaging continuing professional development content and courses and maintaining compliance, can be difficult when first implementing continuing professional education in a virtual setting. It’s crucial to choose a platform that automatically saves CPE results and certificates and allows for consistent touchpoints with attendees through features like polls and Q&As. In addition, It’s becoming increasingly beneficial to provide on-demand content for students to revisit post-event. Certain online course hosting platforms will automatically save sessions to a main training hub and provide robust reporting on behavior analytics, session engagement, and demographics for improved future content delivery.
Can you share a story of an employee who significantly benefited, and how it affected their performance or career trajectory?
GlobalMeet is fortunate to collaborate with all four of the world’s largest professional services consulting firms, which audit 90% of the Fortune 500 companies. GlobalMeet helps its professionals maintain their industry and professional certifications while also ensuring consistency in how particular program/practice advisory services are executed globally.
Could you please list the “Top Five Benefits of Offering Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Initiatives For Employees”? Can you explain what you mean?
- Higher Employee Retention
Professional development improves employees’ confidence in their work. This leads to greater job satisfaction and, when done throughout an organization, greater company morale.
2. Improved Productivity and Performance
Continuing professional development allows employees to build upon their existing skill sets, improving overall job performance and productivity.
3. Competitive Edge
When done widely throughout an organization, continuing professional development creates skilled workforces. When all employees are working as experienced experts in their respective roles, your company has an edge over competitors.
4. Brand Reputation and Credibility
Building off the competitive edge, continuing professional development creates a culture of continual improvement that resonates with customers and builds brand reputation, credibility, and consumer trust.
5. Attract Better Talent
According to a report from Clear Company, 74 percent of employees say that a lack of professional development opportunities is hindering them from reaching their full potential. Regularly providing these opportunities gives companies the edge to attract skilled employees who prioritize individual professional growth.
How do you measure the success and ROI of these CPD initiatives?
Online course hosting platforms make measuring the success of CPD initiatives intuitive. By delivering CPD courses online, all the time, money, and carbon footprint of traveling to a national or regional training center is eliminated. The cost of 1 trainee’s travel for a week usually is more than the entire monthly cost of the GlobalMeet CPE software for 500 trainees. Through the use of engagement reporting metrics and virtual exams, companies can evaluate the efficacy of their CPD programming on employee understanding and performance. To evaluate the ROI, you need to set clear and measurable goals that allow you to compare the results with your current benchmarks.
Looking forward, how do you see the role of CPD evolving in the next 5–10 years?
GlobalMeet sees CPE technology becoming more mobile and micro by going online. Customized learning paths and competency-based education will ensure trainees demonstrate mastery of skills and knowledge. AI, VR, and AR will be integrated to make repairs and maintenance for industrial systems easier and less expensive, which helps assure optimal safety records. Soft skills, interdisciplinary learning, and critical thinking exercises will ensure the next generation of leaders connect the dots and inspire innovation to go far beyond what a search engine or generative AI model can provide in a matter of seconds.
What advice would you give to business leaders who are hesitating to make these changes?
Online learning is the future, so make sure your company is prepared. Gen Z for example, builds connected relationships through virtual learning and is estimated to make up 30% of the workforce by 2030. Invest in an online course hosting platform that will do the work for you. Data collection, engagement reporting, certificate distribution, and compliance are all aspects of continuing professional development that can be aided with this technology. This will give your team time to focus on creating more effective CPD content.
How can our readers follow your work?
To learn more about GlobalMeet’s Continuing Professional Education offerings, visit https://www.globalmeet.com/virtual-events/continuing-education/
This was great. Thank you so much for the time you spent sharing with us.
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein, a seasoned entrepreneur with over two decades of experience as the Founder and CEO of multiple companies. He launched Choice Recovery, Inc., a healthcare collection agency, while going to The Ohio State University, His team earned national recognition, twice being ranked as the #1 business to work for in Central Ohio. In 2018, Chad launched [re]start, a career development platform connecting thousands of individuals in collections with meaningful employment opportunities, He sold Choice Recovery on his 25th anniversary and in 2023, sold the majority interest in [re]start so he can focus his transition to Built to Lead as an Executive Leadership Coach. Learn more at www.chadsilverstein.com