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TORONTO, Feb. 6, 2020 /CNW/ - Brandon Hall Group has recognized BMO Financial Group with a Gold Award in the Best Advance in Executive Development category for its Executive Leadership Program, Leadership EDGE (LEDGE). BMO is the only company to receive this prestigious recognition at the gold level in this category this year.
Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards recognize the best organizations that have successfully deployed programs, strategies, processes, systems, and tools that have achieved measurable results. The program attracts entrants from leading corporations around the world, as well as mid-market and smaller firms.
"We are very proud of this recognition by Brandon Hall Group for BMO's LEDGE program," said Karen Collins, Chief Talent Officer, BMO Financial Group. "It is a testament to the bank's ongoing commitment to developing our leaders for today and the future."
For more than 25 years, BMO has been at the forefront of corporate learning initiatives, investing more than $86 million annually for employee development. BMO is the only Canadian bank with its own corporate university, dedicated to the development and growth of its team members. In the coming decade, businesses will face unprecedented opportunities and challenges, with changing workforce demographics, the disruption of traditional business models, and rapid technology shifts. These shifts require an investment in skills.
At BMO, the belief is to be bold on talent, creating the conditions for human and machine partnerships, and building and nurturing a high-performance culture that sparks engagement and encourages learning, growth, creativity and innovation. This drives a focus on developing employees through upskilling, broad learning and experimentation.
BMO's Executive Leadership Program, LEDGE, is an innovative, cohort-based program for leaders at the most senior levels of the company. It explores three dimensions of leadership and targets the transformational skills needed to succeed in the rapidly-changing landscape. This includes higher cognitive and "human" skills, like empathy, that are vital for connecting us together and differentiating us from technology.
Now in its fourth year, LEDGE represents what it means to be a leader at BMO, to have bold goals and bring to life the intention to transform BMO together. So far, more than 85 per cent of BMO's top leaders have participated in LEDGE, and 100 per cent are expected to participate by 2021.
"Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards Program has recognized leading organizations for the past twenty-plus years for the latest trends in Human Capital Management," said Rachel Cooke, Brandon Hall Group COO and leader of the HCM Excellence Awards Program. "The initiatives that were honored are not only innovative but fit the unique needs of the business and create truly remarkable success stories."
The leadership curriculum at BMO consists of research-based, custom-designed programs incorporating formal, informal and experiential opportunities for BMO leaders at various career junctures. Additionally, best practices for leadership are available to employees, company-wide, through LeaderLens – an exclusive program accessed through BMO U, the bank's mobile learning platform, which empowers employees to choose what, where and how they build their skills. These examples highlight BMO's commitment to build the skills its leaders and employees need, for today and tomorrow, through a wide range of learning options - from formal classroom programs to online courses to bite-sized videos, articles, eBooks, infographics and on-the-job development activities.
About BMO Financial Group
Serving customers for 200 years and counting, BMO is a highly diversified financial services provider - the 8th largest bank, by assets, in North America. With total assets of $852 billion as of October 31, 2019, and a team of diverse and highly engaged employees, BMO provides a broad range of personal and commercial banking, wealth management and investment banking products and services to more than 12 million customers and conducts business through three operating groups: Personal and Commercial Banking, BMO Wealth Management and BMO Capital Markets.
Internet: www.bmo.com Twitter: @BMOMedia