Bersin by Deloitte Announces Rackspace® Hosting Takes the Top Spot in the 2014 WhatWorks® Award Program

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., May 7, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Bersin by Deloitte, a leading research and advisory firm empowering Human Resource (HR) organizations to drive bottom-line impact, today announced Rackspace® Hosting, a global leader in hybrid cloud and founder of OpenStack®, was chosen as the ultimate award recipient of the 2014 WhatWorks® Award Program for its innovative Open Cloud Academy (OCA), a training program that aims to bridge the IT skills gap by providing students with certifications and training  for IT jobs. Results of the award program, which recognizes innovation and excellence across the critical areas of high-impact HR, learning and talent, were announced on April 1 at Bersin by Deloitte's annual research conference, IMPACT 2014: The Business of Talent®, at the Marriott Harbor Beach Resort in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Bersin by Deloitte raised the bar for the award program this year with a new format that brought top contenders to IMPACT 2014, where they presented their achievements in a special session with conference attendees. Rackspace and the additional finalists, including Cisco, ConAgra Foods, Genentech and Tata Consultancy Services, focused on programs to acquire top talent, build leadership skills, develop and retain employees, manage change, build a local talent pipeline, and use workforce data to transform HR decision-making.  Immediately following the presentations, HR professionals attending the special session voted to choose the ultimate award recipient. 

The award program is offered through an exclusive collaboration between Bersin by Deloitte and the widely-respected Human Resource Executive® magazine. Rackspace and the other finalists are featured in the print and digital versions of the magazine's May issue.

"Rackspace® Hosting emerged from a field of more than 80 contenders to take the top spot in this year's program, in the category of Optimizing Talent Management, for offering training programs that provide technical career development and career growth opportunities for non-employees interested in starting their information and technology careers," said David Mallon, head of Research, Bersin by Deloitte, Deloitte Consulting LLP. "Implemented within a climate of economic recovery, this year's leading programs highlighted several similarly creative and practical solutions to real-world challenges, especially in the areas of attracting, developing and keeping employees with skills critical for driving innovation and growing a business." 

The Open Cloud Academy allows Rackspace to create a local pipeline of talent at no recruiting cost. 

"We are honored to receive this recognition for Rackspace's Open Cloud Academy," said Deborah Carter, Rackspace manager for the OCA. "This training program gives students an affordable way to receive IT certifications for tech jobs that are in high demand. We are pleased with the momentum of the program over the past year and look forward to giving more students the skills to succeed in the IT industry in the future."

Bersin by Deloitte analysts this year were joined by industry leaders in choosing the finalists. David Shadovitz, editor and co-publisher, Human Resource Executive magazine was among the external industry judges selecting this year's five finalists.

"It was a privilege to be the exclusive media partner for Bersin by Deloitte's research-based award program again and for the first time to help select finalists that brought innovative and excellent solutions to pressing challenges in HR, talent and learning," said Shadovitz,. "We look forward to sharing in-depth coverage with our readers of the leading practices and innovations that are delivering improved business results."

The additional WhatWorks categories and finalists include:

Acquiring Top Talent: Tata Consultancy Services, for creating a platform that uses game mechanics to build engagement with college students, encourage them to participate in various activities and, in doing so, demonstrate their potential. 

Developing Tomorrow's Leaders: Cisco, for a program for experienced managers to build on their management experience and add powerful and adaptive leadership competencies to their repertoire, resulting in gains in productivity of 7 percent to 18 percent.

Enabling High-Impact Learning: Genentech for the launch of a "career center" called CareerLab, a company career philosophy, the "Navigating Your Career Framework," and a suite of career services and resources to better retain and develop the current and future generation of employees. The results showed an increase in engagement with career opportunities across the organization ranging from 10 percent to 15 percent over the previous 18 months.

Transforming HR: ConAgra Foods, for transforming its capability to use workforce data to uncover challenges and make decision-making rapid, precise, insightful and predictive.

Bersin by Deloitte will publish a WhatWorks Award report on leading practices, findings and observations collected during the evaluation process in May. Other program-related activities will include public webinars featuring specific HR, training and talent management topic areas and leaders.

Those interested in learning more about Bersin by Deloitte or its WhatWorks® membership may email [email protected] or call 510-251-4400.

About Bersin by Deloitte

Bersin by Deloitte delivers research-based people strategies designed to help leaders and their organizations in their efforts to deliver exceptional business performance. Our WhatWorks® membership gives Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 HR professionals the information and tools they need to design and implement leading practice solutions, benchmark against others, develop their staff, and select and implement systems. A piece of Bersin by Deloitte research is downloaded on average approximately every minute during the business day. More than 5,000 organizations worldwide use our research and consulting to guide their HR, talent and learning strategies. For more information, please visit http://www.deloitte.com/bersin or http://www.bersin.com.

As used in this document, "Deloitte" means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting.

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