Read this piece on Apple's corporate university, and picked out five principles you could emulate in your organization. I'm not promising your training program will lead your company into the stratosphere of success Apple has achieved, but if you're going to emulate practices- may as well do it from one of the best.

Yes, it takes time, effort, and money to get training & development right but when done right- its one of those competitive advantages that is difficult to copy by your competitors.

I'll let the piece do most of the talking (you can read it by clicking here), but here is the gist of it:

1. Provide learning and development opportunities so rich, that getting employees to enroll is rarely a problem.

2. Meticulously plan learning experiences for your people.

3. Not all trainers are created equal; don't skimp on your trainers.

4. Tailor the learning to your staff's positions and backgrounds.

5. Leverage the case study method of teaching; Use business cases from your company's past to develop critical thinking aligned to your organization's values.

Alex is a co-founder and Managing Member of Collabor8 Learning, LLC, an instructional design and performance management consultancy. His firm collaborates with organizations to enhance the way they develop and train their employees and/ or customers. To learn more about Collabor8 Learning, click here.

Alex can be reached at 786-512-1069, alex@collabor8learning.com or via Twitter@collabor8alex.