LEAD Awards 2018: Interview with Melissa A Thompson, Mood Media

Boosting Your Career Development

  Category: Best Executive Coaching Program
  LEAD AWARD RANK: 6
 
  Organization: Mood Media
  Program: Mood Lunchtime Learning: Express MBA Program
  Program Administrators: Melissa A Thompson - PHR, SHRM-CP, Human Resources Manager
  Hillary Maxwell - Training & Development Manager
  Kimberly Wolff - VP Marketing & Business Operations
  Michelle Schoggin - Human Resources Manager
  Visit: https://us.moodmedia.com
 
   
Our editorial team interviewed Melissa A Thompson from Mood Media at the LEAD2018 Awards this past February. Here are some excerpts from the exclusive interview.
 
What is the overall objective of your program?
The Mood Lunchtime Learning: Express MBA Program offers employees an opportunity to learn more about all aspects of the business as a means to further their career development at Mood. As the world’s leading in-store media solutions company dedicated to elevating the Customer Experience, Mood translated its creative prowess in the marketplace toward developing this 28-week training program. Led by executive staff, it caters to employees looking to increase their understanding of general business principles and practices (Finance, Marketing, Operations, Licensing, etc.) and helps them gain a more comprehensive understanding of our business and why we operate the way we do. The courses not only give students a chance to connect with Mood leadership, but also enable them to learn more about specialized areas and functions of the company.
 

The curriculum includes 16 virtual classroom sessions with department executives and leaders. At the end of the classroom sessions, teams are tasked with putting their newfound knowledge to use by preparing final projects that propose a solution to improve a product or process within the company, which are presented to Executive Staff and classmates. In this regard, the program also serves to empower employees and give them a direct voice with Company leadership regarding ideas for improvements.
 
Who do you impact with your program?
This Mood Media program is targeted toward employees who are looking for opportunities for personal growth and professional development. It aims to provide up and comers in the organization with additional tools to understand the business, gain valuable access and exposure to company leaders, and make connections across departments.
 
What are the lessons you’ve learned this year from facilitating your program?
The executive facilitators of the Mood program are diligent and dedicated to garnering feedback, suggestions and critiques from all participants (students and faculty) in order to proactively make the program as successful and impactful as possible. Feedback surveys are distributed following each class in order to gauge how they resonated and uncover potential areas for improvements, which can be submitted anonymously so as to encourage true and honest opinions, even if critical. Since its inception in 2015, student feedback has resulted in us expanding the time given to students for their team project work, adjusting select course presentations as well as incorporating international employee students from our Romania office into the program. 
 
How do you measure the return on investment and success of the program?
Student feedback received in the end-of-program survey is consistently overwhelmingly positive, as many appreciated the chance to learn more about areas of the company that they wouldn’t have learned about had they not participated. Students expressed that their general understanding of different business disciplines has definitely increased. Specifically, participants gained a deeper grasp on how things work at Mood and why we employ some business practices over others. From an interpersonal standpoint, the students also built lasting relationships with other members of their class – many in different departments that they never would have encountered otherwise – and are more comfortable approaching Leaders for insight and feedback due to the facetime they had during the program. They are now encouraging co-workers to join upcoming classes as well as going directly to each other to collaborate and resolve issues.
 
This program reinforces that Mood leadership is invested in our staff. Additionally, the team project component has already led to uncovering some strong, purpose-driven proposals for improving the company that are actively being explored.
 
What lies ahead for the program and how will it continue to succeed?
We are now in our third year of Lunchtime Learning: Express MBA and we continue to grow the program through the student surveys. We’ve found it to be quite successful because the students are driving the changes they desire with their open and honest feedback.
 
With the inclusion of our international employee students this year, we look to explore having international executive staff to teach or co-teach classes in the future. While the Lunchtime Learning: Express MBA has been a great success for us, we have also built other training programs under the umbrella like our LEAD – Manager/Supervisor training and will continue to do as such. We have several concepts around inter-departmental training that could be a great addition to the Mood offering as well.
 

 

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