ADVANCE is a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) wide initiative designed to invest in people development, workforce engagement and talent management for the improved delivery of healthcare, benefits and other services to Veterans and their families. It is led by the Office of Human Resources and Administration (HR&A). ADVANCE is an exciting new direction for the Department, for Veteran’s services and for our VA employees’ careers. ADVANCE is an unprecedented, long-term investment in the professional and personal growth of each and every VA employee nationwide. It provides VA employees the tools, training, and support necessary to advance their career and improve services to Veterans and their families. For the past several months and moving forward into 2011, VA staff has had numerous learning opportunities via webinars online and at live instructor led sessions in our local VA community area made possible through our ADVANCE program. Each VA has a designated learning officer (DLO) who can help link local VA staff learning needs with ADVANCE resources and opportunities.
Training is available for VA staff in general and also for targeted groups such as managers. Popular courses include time management, project management, communication skills, customer service, writing skills, and leadership development topics. Once staff identify courses of interest, they are encouraged to discuss training requests with their supervisors.
With greater skills, knowledge and training, staff will be better able to do their jobs effectively and to fill key leadership roles at VA in the future. These learning resources are important and at no cost to local VA staff. Learning opportunities will contribute to our succession planning needs.
Some of the program topics were developed because staff identified them as key areas of need in our all-employee survey. Others were developed as a result of competency gap analysis conducted in various program areas. These programs provide functional training as well as instruction designed to foster collaboration, creativity, and employee health and wellness.
The title of our VA employee health and wellness program is Wellness Is Now (WIN), a VA-wide, web-based employee health and wellness program. WIN is sponsored by ADVANCE. It is currently under development and will have flexible, customizable tools to help staff first identify existing health and lifestyle concerns, and then to support staff when they take steps to address them. WIN’s programs have been shown to reduce absenteeism and health insurance costs, reduce recovery time for injuries and, ultimately, increase worker productivity. WIN’s programs include a suite of online health resources, a Health Risk Assessment (HRA), Lifestyle Coaches and an incentive program to promote employee health and wellness throughout VA.
Our nationwide VA Learning Management System (LMS) is a web-based application for all VA employees to view national and local learning catalogs, register for available offerings, launch on-line courses; record completed learning activities, and access their learning transcript. Our LMS contains the ADVANCE training courses available.
