Summary

This role involves technical skills training, soft skills training and working as a learning consultant to any of the approximately 2,200 Cognizant associates across Australia and New Zealand, and sometimes across whole APAC region more broadly.

Graduate training program

The graduate training program is designed to upskill entry-level associates and get them ready for client projects through usually 6 weeks of training depending on the training needs.

2019 intake 2, 17 June to 16 August 2019

This was the first group I conducted for the Quality Engineering and Assurance service line for five associates based on a curriculum of nine weeks. The program consisted of the following topics and I taught all of these except where noted.

• Induction (1.5 days)
• Cognizant 101: Introduction to the organization (0.5 days)
• Digital 101: Introduction to digital IT (eLearning) (1 day)
• Headstart curriculum: Soft skills training (4 days)
• Resume writing and interview skills (0.5 days, delivered by talent acquisition group)
• Enterprise IT 101: Key concepts of enterprise-scale IT (0.5 days)
• Core Java: Java SE 11 including core topics and JDBC (5 days)
• Enterprise Java: Java EE 11 for web development including servers, architecture, servlets, JSP and MVC (5 days)
• Quality engineering foundations, test automation and DevOps (6 days, delivered by eLearning)
• Software development lifecycle (SDLC) (0.5 days)
• Software testing lifecycle (STLC) (6 days)
• Selenium for test automation: Selenium IDE and Selenium WebDriver (3 days)
• SQL: MySQL 8.0 and MySQL Workbench 8.0 (3 days)
• Maven: Dependency management and build automation (0.5 days)
• Git/Github: Configuration management (0.5 days, delivered by another trainer)
• Jenkins: Build automation and continuous integration/delivery (0.5 days, delivered by another trainer)
• JIRA: Project management (0.5 days, delivered by eLearning)
• Project case study: Implementing Selenium for execution activities (5 days)
• Practice assessments: Core Java and SQL (1 day)
• Assessments: Headstart x2, Core Java, Quality Engineering Foundations, STLC, Selenium and SQL (2 days)

2021 intake 1, 21 June to 30 July 2021

Read the full blog article.

2021 intake 2, 30 August to 8 October 2021

Read the full blog article. See also Top Graduate Employer 2022 blog.

2022 intake 1, 11 April to 25 May 2022

Read the full blog article.

2022 intake 2, 14 June to 25 July 2022

Read the full blog article.

2023 intake 1, 13 February to 27 March 2023

Read the full blog article.

2023 intake 2, 19 June to 28 July 2023

One consulting graduate only, no article.

2024 intake 1, 12 February to 25 March 2024

Four consulting graduates.

Recognition

The Early Career Talent Bootcamp component won the Gold award for "Best Soft Skill Development Program" at the ETHR World Future Skill Awards (ETHR 2024) in India, 2024.

Adelaide traineeship program

The goal of the Adelaide traineeship program is to enable associates new to IT, providing Cognizant a novel method to tap the IT talent marketplace other than university graduates. The program ran between March and December in 2022.

Read the full blog article.

APAC LearnFest

The APAC LearnFest is our annual learning event for our local region. It aims to bring our associates together for an intensive burst of learning opportunity with a variety of speakers, programs and activities. This event is run by the full seven members of the APAC Learning & Development Team based in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore.

• LearnFest 2022, 21 November to 25 November 2022. 1,773 active participants, 10 learning sessions, 1,336 learning hours, 7 partner sessions, 158 active quiz participants.
• LearnFest 2023, 25 September to 27 October 2023. 51 collaborators, 7 companies, 100+ cloud certifications, 110+ GenAI enabled, 80+ top learners recognised, 88% favourable feedback, 25,000+ learning hours, 2,600+ participants, 150+ front line managers certified, 24 certified project managers, 250+ video playbacks of sessions.

APAC LearnFest 2023 won the Gold award for "Best Remote Learning Initiative" at the HR Employee Excellence Awards (EXA 2024) in Singapore, 2024.

APAC LearnFest 2023 won the Silver award for "Best Hybrid Learning Program" at the Brandon Hall Awards, Global, 2024.

APAC LearnFest 2023 won the Gold award for "High Impact Hybrid Learning Program" at the ETHR World Future Skill Awards (ETHR 2024) in India, 2024.

Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) certification training

This workshop covers the principles and (empirical) process theory underpinning the Scrum framework, and the role of the Scrum Master in it. Participants joining this workshop will gain an understanding of what is at the heart of the Scrum and Agile movement. This workshop is suitable training towards the Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) certification from Scrum.org. Participants may alternatively consider this workshop as learning-only for those who want a more in-depth overview of Scrum without the obligation to proceed to certification.

I wrote the materials for this workshop based on my own experiences from my Certified Scrum Master certification, Professional Scrum Master certification and exposure to Scrum in at Cognizant. This training caters for up to 24 associates per group. The training so far has been run on the following dates:

• 13 July 2020 (17 associates)
• 10 August 2020 (22 associates)
• 17 September 2020 (19 associates)
• 25 February 2021 (8 associates)
• 23 March 2021 (15 associates)
• 28 March 2022 (23 associates)
• 6 April 2022 (20 associates)
• 21 April 2022 (18 associates)
• 27 April 2022 (23 associates)
• 12 May 2022 (16 associates)
• 19 September 2022 (24 associates)
• 4 January 2023 (14 associates)
• 15 May 2023 (19 associates)
• 23 August 2023 (9 associates)
• 20 November 2023 (7 associates)
• 11 January 2024 (21 associates)
• 7 March 2024 (10 associates)

Read the full blog article for 2022 or 2023.

People Management Essentials workshop

People Management Essentials (PME) is a four-hour workshop that provides training for people managers in Australia with direct reports.

Synopsis: The training content covers the role of the people manager and the phases of the employee lifecycle:

• Onboarding: Experiences, responsibilities, checklists, onboarding app and probation.
• Performance: Feedback, coaching, difficult conversations, poor performance, goal setting and GoPerform.
• Engagement: Drivers, models, benefits, recognition, meetings and cadence.
• Development: Career, promotions and learning.
• Offboarding: Resignation, termination, redundancy and obligations.

Learning outcomes: After completing the training associates would be able to:

• Understand the role of a people manager.
• Perform people management tasks from the employee lifecycle.
• Execute Cognizant processes relating to people management.

Target audience: Associates who joined this training were Australian associates that met one of the following criteria:

• Current Cognizant associates new to the people management role with new (or coming) direct reports; or
• New Cognizant associates new to people management processes at Cognizant.

I extended and rewrote the training materials for this workshop based upon existing HR and business unit training materials. This training caters for up to 24 associates per group. The training so far has been run on the following dates:

• 20 April 2020 (11 associates)
• 17 July 2020 (11 associates)
• 15 October 2020 (17 associates)
• 9-10 June 2021 (19 associates)
• 23-24 August 2021 (28 associates)
• 27-28 October 2021 (11 associates)
• 3-4 November 2021 (11 associates)
• 12 January 2022 (8 associates)
• 10 February 2022 (19 associates)
• 2 May 2022 (11 associates)
• 27 May 2022 (12 associates)
• 24 January 2023 (16 associates)
• 7 January 2023 (13 associates)
• 13 March 2023 (16 associates)
• 14 April 2023 (8 associates)
• 19 May 2023 (8 associates)
• 16 August 2023 (11 associates)
• 12 September 2023 (5 associates)
• 17 October 2023 (8 associates)
• 23 November 2023 (4 associates)
• 13 December 2023 (15 associates)
• 29 January 2024 (14 associates)
• 29 February 2024 (17 associates)

Read the full blog article for 2022 or 2023.

APAC Sales Delivery Lead role

As of March 2021, I have taken on this role to coordinate the organisation and running of sales programs for the APAC region. The programs include the "Speed to Productivity" onboarding program for new hires in sales, and also several individual sales "enablement" programs that form the basis of the regular sales learning calendar. Duties include planning the calendar, organising trainers, purchase orders, administering program collaterals, checking pre/post-work progress, introducing the sessions, capturing feedback, and reporting requirements. This has been one of my larger roles since it started, and the following program list is indicative of the work done based on the programs listed.

• Speed to Productivity program, 10-23 March 2021, 3 sessions
• Initiating New Client Opportunities, 16 March 2021, 1 session
• Fundamentals of Corporate Storytelling, 25&30 March 2021, 2 sessions
• Fundamentals of Corporate Storytelling, 20&22 April 2021, 2 sessions
• Helping Clients Succeed, 2130 April 2021, 3 sessions
• Initiating New Client Opportunities, 5 May 2021, 1 session
• Tracom Social Styles Debrief, 18 May 2021, 1 session
• Speed to Productivity program, 25 May to 16 June 2021, 7 sessions
• Digital Education Workshop, 9-10 June 2021, 2 sessions
• Negotiations, 15-16 June 2021, 2 sessions
• Initiating New Client Opportunities, 24 August 2021, 1 session
• Tracom Social Styles Debrief, 25 August 2021, 1 session
• Speed to Productivity program, 15 September to 6 October 2021, 7 sessions
• Fundamentals of Corporate Storytelling, 12&14 October 2021, 2 sessions
• Constellation Selling program, 12-29 October, 8 sessions
• Initiating New Client Opportunities, 10 November 2021, 1 session
• Helping Clients Succeed, 11-17 November 2021, 3 sessions

First Time Manager training program

The First Time Manager (FTM) training program is internal training intended for mid-level associates that are new to management and have direct reports. The program is a mixture of virtual instructor-led training (VILT) and eLearning across 8 weeks. The VILT component comprises of three conference (Webex) calls comprising of a launch call to commence the program, a mid check-in to discuss knowledge and progress to date, and a skills practice to practice real-life management scenarios together. The eLearning component comprises of five weekly topics:

• Manage self
• Team communication
• Manage your network
• People management
• Drive your effectiveness

Associates also complete a pre-assessment at the start of the training to assess their prior knowledge and a post-assessment to demonstration their competency at the end.

The ideal intake for this training is 20-25 associates per group. To date, I have led the following groups:

• 14 October 2019 to 6 December 2020 (21 associates)
• 16 December 2019 to 21 February 2020 (25 associates)
• 24 February 2020 to 17 April 2020 (32 associates)
• 27 April 2020 to 19 June 2020 (18 associates)
• 27 July 2020 to 18 September 2020 (18 associates)
• 26 October 2020 to 18 December 2020 (29 associates)

Account and Business Unit capability development

Consulting includes connecting to leaders of key accounts and business units to identify their learning needs and to help their associates to advance their learning. This involves meetings to identify skilling requirements that I would propose solutions for. Regular reports are also generated and provide to share information about the learning progress and consumption of their associates.

So far I have taken responsibility with the following accounts:

• ICare NSW (insurance) (2020)
• MetLife (insurance) (2020)
• QBE (insurance) (2020)
• Woolworths (retail) (2020)

I have also worked with the following business units:

• Cognizant Digital Engineering (CDE) (2020)
• Cognizant Digital Business Interactive (CDBI) (2020)
• Quality Engineering and Assurance (QEA) (2020)

Technical and enablement training

I have conducted singular technical or organisation training sessions to either Australian or APAC associates on the following topics. Each training has run for one or more instances:

• Getting Started with Agile Certification (Scrum and SAFe)
• Getting Started with Cloud Certification (AWS, Azure and GCP)
• Introduction to Agile Scrum
• Introduction to Bootstrap
• Introduction to jQuery
• Java New Features Overview

Annual Developmental Planning

Cognizant uses an internal tool called "SkillUp" for annual developmental planning. With this tool, associates nominate a certain number of learning goals for the calendar year, and then complete the learning throughout the year to complete those goals. The progress is also reported back to our internal performance management system. My role has been to advocate for this system, conduct approximately monthly SkillUp information session webinar to explain, demonstrate and promote its usage, engage with associates through mailer campaigns, and report on progress. The monthly SkillUp Information Session webinars conducted so far were between January 2020 and September 2020, between March 2022 and October 2022, and again from March 2023 to October 2024.

Learning at Cognizant

Cognizant runs a monthly learning evangelisation webinar called "Learning @ Cognizant" to help newer associates become familiar and empowered with our learning systems and processes. These monthly webinars were run by myself nearly every month from November 2021 through to February 2024.

Learning Concierge

Consulting is also often ad-hoc in that a range of queries are dealt with that come to us such as identifying training materials, recommending learning pathways, usage of eLearning platforms and bespoke requests. We refer to this as our "Learning Concierge" service.