Learning and Leadership Development

Two female PPG workers wearing PPE discussing next to computer

Our people are our most important competitive advantage.

We help people develop and succeed at every level of their careers through extensive resources and capability-building.

73%

of eligible employees participated in the performance review process

80%

of eligible employees completed The PPG Way to Lead assessments to confirm career development, up 27% year-over-year

53,000

PPG Way to Lead recognition awards have been given since the initiative's launch

PPG Way to Lead

The PPG Way to Lead is a research-based behavioral competency model based on The PPG Way. The model identifies specific behaviors that employees at all levels of the organization can use to become better leaders. 2023 marked the first full year that the PPG Way to Lead was implemented across the company, and we have continued to align our training and developmental resources with the core competencies defined in the model.

We are continuing to actively develop competency pathways, with the goal of providing more structured educational curricula across each of the nine competencies covered in The PPG Way to Lead.

Sustainability learning modules

Environmental and social issues impact every job at PPG, but we don’t expect that everyone comes to their role as an expert. To help drive sustainability awareness, capability and accountability among our employees, we launched three new sustainability-focused modules on our learning management system in 2023. Each of these modules is available in 10 languages to ensure that they are accessible by the majority of our workforce.

The interactive modules focus on explaining the costs and impacts of climate change, the sources of global greenhouse gas emissions, and the ways that emissions are categorized into scope 1, 2 and 3. These topics were selected based on PPG employee feedback to provide the most useful information possible. The learning modules supplement existing materials that we make available to all PPG employees, including an internal sustainability website with resources and our 36-part sustainability audio series. As we continue on our sustainability journey, we will be regularly updating and expanding on these modules.

One PPG Mentoring

A focus of our leadership development efforts over the past year was the expansion of One PPG Mentoring, our online mentoring and coaching program. One PPG Mentoring aims to support insightful, respectful connections across PPG by pairing employees with qualified mentors to support their professional development. In 2023, we significantly expanded participation in the mentoring platform, as proven by almost doubling available mentors and having over 150 active mentorships.

Improving access to PPG training programs

In 2023, we focused on improving the accessibility and utilization of our learning programs. The Learning and Development (L&D) team centralized our training programs on an internal site and promoted the platform across PPG to increase participation. We have also taken significant steps to ensure our training programs are accessible and inclusive of the diverse needs of PPG employees. The L&D team have reviewed our training offerings to ensure programs are available in multiple languages and that images and diagrams have high-quality, alternative text. We have also improved our eLearning modules to better support those with visual impairments, including enhancements to color contrast and screen reader interaction. Together, these changes help ensure that everyone at PPG can access the resources they need to succeed and grow in their careers.

Updating how we measure progress

In 2023, we evaluated and adjusted the way that we measure the success of our training programs. In the past, PPG relied on scores that measured user loyalty, satisfaction, and enthusiasm. While this ensured that PPG employees were satisfied with the training they received, it provided a limited understanding of the lasting benefits that programs provided. Going forward, we are using the Phillips return on investment (ROI) Model, which is a methodology and process that allows human resources teams to tie the costs of training programs to actual results. The Phillips ROI Model considers a combination of participant reaction, actual learning outcomes, behavioral changes, and cost of administration to understand the effectiveness and ROI of our training programs.

To support the continued growth of our programs, we also recognize the need to invest in our Learning and Development Center of Excellence. In 2024 and beyond, we are investing in capabilities to support the continued advancement of people throughout PPG.

For more information about how we approach learning and leadership development, see below.

Our approach to learning and leadership development

Our approach to leadership development focuses on experience, exposure and education. We offer a wide array of development opportunities that include performance and learning plans, extensive on-the-job training, ongoing formal and informal feedback, structured development programs, peer learning opportunities, coaching and mentoring.

The PPG Way to Lead

The PPG Way to Lead, our core leadership competency model, establishes a consistent understanding of leadership knowledge, skills, and abilities that applies to every PPG employee. This framework provides clarity and consistent guidance for what great leadership looks like at PPG.

The PPG Way to Lead defines six core competencies for all employees and three additional competencies for people leaders. Developing these competencies results in increased retention, stronger engagement, better business performance and helps our employees grow their careers. The framework is also fully integrated into our annual goal setting process, ensuring that employee advancement and career development align with its focus areas, and keeps our people engaged.

Leadership development

When filling leadership positions, we balance internal promotions and external hiring to leverage the skills already present across the enterprise while bringing new talent and diverse ideas into the company. We provide development opportunities across PPG so our people can grow into effective leaders and advance in their careers.

Highlights of our structured leadership development programs include:

Essentials of Leadership: Our frontline leadership program, Essentials of Leadership (EOL), focuses on developing leaders and managers across the organization. EOL provides new leaders with the right mindset, skills and tools to lead more effectively, which ultimately builds engagement from participants and their teams. The program is delivered in six modules by virtual or in-person sessions. EOL's structured curriculum ensures global alignment and consistent guidance for developing managers and supervisors.
Emerge: The Emerge Leadership Program helps guide our future executives through an 11-12 month program. Participants are nominated for participation based on exemplary performance in a people leadership role and potential to grow into a larger-scale role. The program is a series of four facilitated sessions focused on peer coaching, mentorship from PPG's leadership team and networking skills. Participants are given opportunities to practically apply their insights to real business challenges and learn from their peers.
Leader as a Coach: The Leader as a Coach program aims to develop coaching capabilities in our senior people leaders. Over three months, participants in the program learn how to develop trust with their teams, improve their coaching skills, increase their confidence as leaders and ultimately drive better business performance.
Online mentoring: Any employee at PPG can access our online One PPG mentoring program. The program aims to support insightful, respectful connections. Prospective mentors are asked to take a series of e-learning courses to understand what good mentorship looks like, and then set up a profile with their qualifications. Employees interested in signing up as mentees can search through profiles to select the right mentor to support their personal development.

Learning and skill development

We invest in learning and skill development initiatives to ensure our employees are properly trained, productive and engaged at every stage of their careers. Our global learning strategy, built on The PPG Way and The PPG Way to Lead, is focused on delivering training to the right people, at the right place and at the right time. We leverage our performance management process to ensure our employees discuss with their managers and document their growth goals every year. This allows them to explore new projects, leverage existing programs, tools and resources to develop individual needs and interests, and, in turn, develop organization-wide capabilities. Our ongoing offerings include a range of virtual facilitator-led workshops, self-paced external learning platforms and Evolve, our Learning Management System (LMS) available through Workday.

When employees complete a course across these platforms, we ask them to respond to a brief survey on their experience. We calculate net promoter scores (NPS) based on these survey results and review any programs that fall short of our expectations. We also hold focus groups with program participants to understand the strengths and weaknesses of our programs. These feedback mechanisms give our dedicated training team an indication of how we can improve our suite of training modules over time.

Highlights of our ongoing internal training programs include:

DE&I capability building: As part of our efforts to drive diversity, equity and inclusion throughout PPG, we offer training through our LMS as well as facilitated, interactive workshops on unconscious bias to our people managers and employees. Our virtual prerequisite is offered in 10 languages, and in-person sessions are offered in 11 languages to ensure that they are widely accessible to our staff. The training focuses on understanding the harmful prejudices that stem from the tendency to organize social worlds by categorizing groups and people.
Developing sales capabilities: We offer a suite of virtual training modules and virtual instructor-led sessions based on our best-in-class sales training programs. Anyone in our sales organization can take the Selling Skills program to learn how to develop rapport with clients, close sales and retain customers. Managers are encouraged to take courses on professional sales coaching to help develop their teams. This allows us to provide our sales organization with a development process to effectively hire, develop and reward sales employees.
Supporting professional development: We offer all of our employees access to virtual Career Growth Workshops to support their professional development. The workshops guide employees through the process of creating a career development plan and preparing for effective conversations with management about their professional growth. We also provide training to our people managers to ensure they understand how to support their teams, including best practices for empowering their staff and giving useful feedback.
CliftonStrengths Workshop: This online assessment measures the intensity of employees' talents in each of the 34 CliftonStrengths themes, representing what people do best, ultimately enabling them to hone their strengths. Participants have the ability to learn about their individual strengths, their co-workers' strengths and their team's strengths through a series of interactive exercises. Teams using a strengths-based approach are proven to be more confident, have higher engagement, are more likely to achieve their goals and are more effective at developing and growing.
360 feedback: Used to assist leaders in understanding their strengths and weaknesses, this tool gathers feedback from key stakeholder groups on how they lead and manage. As a result, participants are more aware of their strengths and development opportunities and how their self-perception could differ from how they are viewed by others. The tool was built around The PPG Way to Lead to ensure that managers are embodying and living our principles every day.
Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i): PPG utilizes EQ-i to measure workplace performance and leadership effectiveness within the context of emotional intelligence. The tool looks at five areas: self-perception, self-expression, interpersonal, decision making and stress management. The report also provides a detailed interpretation of how effectively employees are using the EQ competencies and how, by balancing these competencies, they can improve wellbeing, workplace and leadership performance, interpersonal relationships and communication.

We supplement our internally managed training by providing access to external learning platforms. Examples of the resources available to our employees include:

Rosetta Stone: Rosetta Stone is a series of best-in-class language programs that we use to offer PPG employees eLearning and live tutorials in 24 languages. Many of our employees in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East use Rosetta Stone to take English language classes, as well as U.S. learners that take Spanish classes, which helps foster global collaboration across PPG.
Udemy Learning: Udemy offers courses that cover a range of topics including development, IT, design, leadership, sustainability and marketing. The platform includes personalized learning and actionable insights to help participants stay engaged and reach their educational goals.