NIIT conferred Best Training Award from ASTD, USA

New Delhi: Indian IT training pioneer and software major NIIT has been conferred the prestigious Best Training Award by the world's premier professional association for workplace learning, the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD).

In all, 23 organisations from the US, Canada, Hong Kong and India were recently honoured with the 2003 ASTD Best Awards. NIIT topped among the Indian organisations to receive this award from India this year.

The ASTD Best Awards recognise organisations that demonstrate enterprise-wide success as a result of employee learning and development. NIIT's practice of providing on average 14 days training per person every year to keep its employees abreast with the latest technologies and behavioural skills is perhaps the highest for any Indian company.

Says ASTD chief operating officer Tony Bingham: "The winners of the 2003 ASTD Best Awards use learning as a strategic tool and have the support of senior leaders who champion a learning culture. These winners demonstrated that learning is vital to individual and organisational performance and training is not a discretionary item, and even in times of uncertainty and downturn, continued investment in employees is the key to future success."

Says NIIT CEO Vijay K Thadani: "The ASTD award further strengthens our commitment to benchmark our human resource initiatives against the best and ensure that NIIT continues to evolve innovative HR practices."

NIIT spots the best talent and places a special emphasis on their induction in the organisation, continuous training and retraining at its internal residential training school — School for Employee Education and Development — and then nurtures them through challenging assignments that demand innovation and learning at every step.