For the past five months I have had the first weekend of February circled on my calendar (ok since my calendar is electronic it wasn’t circled but it was bolded). The reason was this was the weekend of Training Magazine’s annual award ceremony where they unveiled, one by one, the companies that were included on their list of Top 125 Training Organizations. Think of it as the Grammy’s but for Training Organizations.

I didn’t attend the event as it was in Atlanta, but I had a plan. I came to work Monday morning and immediately Googled “Training Top 125 2008”. (Random tangent, does anyone know when Google became a verb?) All that came up was the list from 2007. There was Verity rated at 101, our 2007 rating. My first thought was how disappointed I would be if we didn’t rate higher in 2008. I tried to push that thought out of my head as soon as possible so I wouldn’t jinx anything. I also knocked on wood, drank water upside down, and avoided stepping on any cracks that day. I was not going to be responsible for ruining our ranking.

Everyday I Googled the list until finally on February 8th I found it. As I scrolled through the list my heart sank as I approached number 101 and then went past it. To my relief I made it all the way to 125 without seeing Verity’s name. I knew we had made the list and there was renewed hope that I had simply missed our ranking and it was higher then 101.

As I scrolled through the list a second time I spotted Verity at number 62. We had jumped up 39 spots, which I believe was the highest jump of anyone on the list. A big smile came across my face as I realized that we were sitting two spots above a little company called Home Depot who has 3,140 trainers to our 2.

What I find really valuable is reading about the training initiatives other companies are undertaking that is placing them on this list. What are some great training programs you have heard about or witnessed?