GM has a longstanding commitment to helping our employees continue to grow the knowledge and skills required to fulfill the company's vision of being the world leader in transportation products and services.  GM's investment in its people goes deeper than paying their salaries.  GM employees must be equipped with the skills and knowledge required to continuously improve and grow.  GM's policy is to educate our workforce to achieve the highest standards.

GM's learning strategy is linked to our business strategy and business goals.  Learning enables business performance through the development of mission-critical skills and capability.  The business strategy cannot be implemented successfully unless the learning strategy is in place and is effective – upgrading skills and performance globally.  Learning is aligned with business results and functional capabilities on a global basis.
GM offers centralized learning through GM University (GMU), a corporate university established in 1997, and the Technical Education Program.

GMU is a global network of learning resources designed to help GM employees continuously improve their competitive performance to drive success at GM.

GMU's vision is to provide leading-edge learning resources for developing personal and professional excellence resulting in technical and business leadership.  GMU seeks to improve business performance by:

• Building professional skills and capabilities linked to performance and results
• Fostering faster learning that can be leveraged globally
• Developing leadership/executive programs that build capability tied to business results
• Enabling corporatewide change initiatives to improve business results
• Helping develop a performance driven culture.

GMU offers more than 2,000 courses to its more than 80,000 executive, management, technical, and professional employees around the world.  GM also offers a Technical Education Program in partnership with universities, where employees can take courses and earn degrees in automotive subjects.

Having committed to training its workforce to the highest standards, GM needed to find the best way to provide this training to ensure it was both meaningful and efficient.  GM now offers its employees:

• Traditional classroom training, web-based learning, Interactive Distance Learning, and self-directed study through GMU (see below).
• The ability to further technical knowledge and skills while earning a degree through the award-winning Technical Education Program.

For Education initiatives outside GM, please see the Education section.

GM University

GMU has 14 colleges serving GM's global business processes.  Each college develops courses to meet the needs of employees from a functional, divisional, or regional perspective.  A "dean," typically an operating executive, is responsible for developing and delivering courses that improve results for that business function.  The president of GMU, with the Council of Deans, oversees learning operations and GMU strategic direction.  GMU integrates employee development and performance under GM's Performance Management Process (PMP).  This annual process helps employees align their individual performance goals with overall business goals.  Goal-setting, mid-year, and annual reviews provide opportunities to constructively discuss performance, recognize accomplishments and help employees understand how their individual performance contributes to overall business results.  GMU is committed to learning and development even in a challenging business environment.

GMU manages costs by:

• Focusing on the development and delivery of courses that are critical to the business
• Increasing the use of Distance Learning (DL), e-Learning, and ‘blended' learning solutions

Technical Education Program

Since 1984, the Technical Education Program (TEP) has partnered with leading universities to provide job-related education to GM professionals. University seminars, courses, and degree programs are offered in leading automotive topics.  Available degrees range from associate to doctoral, as well as certificate options, all targeted to GM's core competencies, competitiveness, and advanced technical work.  Delivered through the flexibility of distance learning technologies, the program makes high quality, flexible education from top-ranking universities easily accessible to GM employees.

Distance Learning

Distance Learning (DL) uses state-of-the-art equipment to train GM salary and dealership employees in North America, Canada, and Mexico.  DL uses a combination of live one-way video, two-way audio (for communication between the instructor and students), and an interactive keypad for quiz sessions.

On average, 400 live video broadcasts covering a wide variety of subjects on a variety of functional topics are delivered monthly via satellite to GM salaried employees in over 200 GM facilities and more than 6,500 GM dealerships in North America, Canada, and Mexico.

Originally created as a fast, flexible, and cost-effective way to convey new product training to GM dealers and sales and service personnel, DL is also used for communicating details about new product launches, as well as addressing new product issues that emerge during initial dealer rollouts.

e-Learning

E-Learning uses GM's Intranet to improve the global access and availability of GMU courses – 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  GMU gradually has been growing the percentage of e-Learning courses over the last few years.  Currently, approximately 34 percent of all employee learning is completed via the web.  GMU has launched 600 global e-learning courses in multiple languages.  The e-learning courses provide more flexibility in response to busy employee schedules.  At the same time, they eliminate the expense and inconvenience of travel to a classroom and promote common content across the globe.  In some instances, DL and/or e-Learning may be combined with classroom sessions to provide ‘blended' learning that can make the overall approach more effective and efficient for certain topics.

Partnership with the UAW

Since the early 1980s, the UAW and General Motors have jointly developed education and training programs that have provided workers with a variety of lifelong learning opportunities.

UAW-GM Center for Human Resources

At the national and local levels, union and management representatives work together to develop and deliver programs that have helped employees strengthen basic skills, earn college degrees, and better apply their technical skill and knowledge at work.

In 1984, the UAW-GM Center for Human Resources (CHR) was established through contract negotiations between the UAW and GM.  The CHR is a non-profit organization that develops and administers joint education, training and retraining activities, as well as specific services, for UAW-represented GM employees throughout the U.S.  The UAW-GM focus is on continuing development of education and training opportunities that address both organizational needs and strengthen employee job security.

The UAW-GM CHR staff jointly develops, supports, and delivers a wide range of programs and activities in four general areas:

• Health and Safety
• Skill Development and Training
• Work and Family
• Product Quality Involvement and Promotion

http://www.uaw-gm.org/

UAW-GM Quality Network

Since 1987, the UAW-GM Quality Network has been supporting quality improvement with a wide range of strategies and initiatives.  Through the direction and support of the UAW-GM Leadership Quality Council, it is implemented at UAW-represented GM locations across the organization. 

Fundamental to the Quality Network is a system of beliefs and values; “Customer satisfaction through people, teamwork, and continuous improvement.”  This means inviting all people to be full partners in the enterprise, working from a position of trust, putting quality into all processes, and more.

The Quality Network Suggestion Plan invites all people to be involved in continuous improvement.  Last year, about 77 percent of employees submitted ideas and 35 percent of all suggestions were adopted.  Remarkably, the first-year net savings came to almost $300 million.  In actuality, the savings are even greater, as the average idea can be implemented for two to three years.  Last year, there was a first-year net savings of $6.76 for every dollar GM paid for suggestion awards.

Quality Network Planned Maintenance reduces GM’s overall manufacturing costs.  First, it increases throughput which, in short, means that machinery and equipment are available when needed.  Second, it substantially reduces maintenance costs through a proactive process which focuses on preventing machine problems.

PEOPLE Make Quality Happen, known widely as “PMQH,” promotes joint teamwork and honors quality improvements at the local, group/divisional, and national levels.  Teams throughout North America have contributed significantly to quality improvement with a broad array of innovations.  Team results have resolved quality problems, improved worker safety, increased savings, reduced warranty claims, and more.

Global Learning

GM University Europe

GMU in Europe aligns with the organizational set up of its parent organization in North America.  Twenty-seven employees are based in different European locations including Germany, Sweden, and England.  GMU Europe supports GME with the implementation of global curricula and training as well as the development and rollout of European curricula, where appropriate and needed.  Furthermore, it supports the European region with the development and deployment of Change Management initiatives.

In 2005, more than 600,000 participants, including GM employees and dealers, received approximately 1.7 million hours of training with 23 percent of the hours spent in traditional classrooms, 34 percent on web-based learning, and nearly 43 percent on DL.  By increasing the use of e-learning and DL, GM saved approximately $8 million in productivity costs.

The quality of GM University programs has been recognized with awards from a number of respected trade organizations including: the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD), Training Magazine, Executive Excellence Magazine, the International Association of Continuing Engineering Education, Corporate University Xchange, and the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA).