Three flooring manufacturers—Mohawk, Shaw and Tarkett North America—are ranked among Training Magazine’s Top 125 companies for training and development. Training Top 125 Award winners include organizations with the most successful learning and development programs in the world.

This marks the 16th consecutive year Shaw has been named. The company provided more than 1 million hours of education and training, ensuring that every associate has awareness, access, and opportunity to learn and develop in alignment with the needs of the business, as well as reach their personal and professional goals. Shaw also extends its training expertise to the community in support of future workforce development and other education support and to its wide array of customers through continuing education opportunities that foster mutual success.

“Our people are our competitive advantage, and we’re dedicated to empowering them through continuous learning,” said Mike Fromm, Shaw’s chief human resources officer. “Attracting and retaining the best possible talent with a world-class associate experience that incorporates learning and development opportunities contributes to our overall success as a company.”

It is the 14th consecutive year that Mohawk has earned a spot on the list and the 12th time it has ranked as the top flooring manufacturer on the list. 

In its application, Mohawk showcased the company’s commitment to safety, operational, sales and leadership training along with its award-winning apprenticeship program, health coaching, tuition reimbursement and industry-leading retail training resources.

“Our training initiatives allow us to deliver better products and service to our customers, simplify and enhance our organization’s processes and help our people fulfill their personal and professional ambitions," said Becky Redd, director of talent management, Mohawk. 

Tarkett was judged on its innovative approach to upskilling its newly integrated commercial sales organization. At the end of 2018, Tarkett merged its sub-brands under one name, Tarkett.  The challenge was to quickly educate and equip every sales person with the information and tools that would enable them to sell both resilient and soft surface flooring effectively, transitioning from a mindset of selling products to selling full flooring solutions. Tarkett successfully implemented six Product Framework training sessions over a five-month period for a salesforce of 21 regions across three sales divisions. With collaboration across the business, they were able to come together and focus on selling the complete Tarkett commercial product portfolio to their customers.

“Tarkett is committed to the ongoing development of our sales team. It was obvious when we announced one commercial sales team that an investment in training on our robust product portfolio was necessary," said Steve Vosburgh, senior vice president of customer experience, Tarkett. "The product solutions our sales team is now able to provide our customers elevates our competitive edge in every market we serve.”

“The 2020 Top 125 winners demonstrate the magic that happens when organizations tie training to specific, measurable strategic goals, leading to the behavior change, business impact and employee engagement that drive success,” said Training magazine Editor-in-Chief Lorri Freifeld.

Well-known businesses ranked among this year’s Top 125 include AT&T, BB&T, Best Buy, Best Western, BNP Paribas, CVS, Dollar General, Mastercard, Nationwide, Visa and Walmart. A complete list of the 2020 Top 125 is available at TrainingMag.com.