Cooper's Hawk Winery & Restaurants and Westgate Resorts each took Gold in the Learning & Development category at the 2026 Brandon Hall Group HCM Excellence Awards, recognizing workforce training programs powered by Schoox, the intelligent learning platform built for frontline enterprises.
Cooper's Hawk Transformation
Cooper's Hawk earned Gold for Best Learning Program Supporting a Change Transformation Business Strategy. The wine-focused casual-dining group replaced a manual, paper-based training model with a centralized, automated learning system serving more than 10,000 team members. Integrated with Paylocity HRIS, the Schoox-powered approach created a single source of truth for training completion, compliance tracking, and reporting — a critical infrastructure upgrade for a brand expanding into new markets and restaurant concepts.
"As Cooper's Hawk continues to grow, learning is more important than ever — and our approach to learning must grow with us," said Angela Brantley, VP of Learning & Development at Cooper's Hawk. "When our people grow, our teams perform better, our hospitality gets stronger, and our business grows." The revamped system drove training completion rates well above industry benchmarks while meaningfully cutting administrative workload for managers. For multi-unit restaurant operators weighing similar transitions, that combination — consistent role-specific content delivered at scale, with reduced back-office overhead — represents the core value proposition of modern restaurant technology platforms.
Westgate's Leadership Overhaul
Westgate Resorts won Gold for Best Unique or Innovative Learning and Development Program, anchored by its LIFE (Leadership Immersion for Excellence) initiative. The program replaced a costly, classroom-heavy leadership curriculum that had been accessible to only a few departments with a flexible, competency-based model deployed enterprise-wide on Schoox. The redesign produced a strong internal promotion rate in its pilot cohort and dramatically reduced the cost and time required to develop a manager-ready leader.
"Innovation isn't just about technology. It's about finding better ways to solve business challenges," said Stephanie Ketron, Vice President of Learning & Development at Westgate Resorts. "By unlocking talent in places we had never reached before, we're building a stronger leadership pipeline and a stronger future for Westgate." For the broader hospitality industry, where labor shortages have made internal promotion an operational necessity, a scalable leadership pipeline built inside the organization carries direct bottom-line weight.
What the Awards Signal
Both programs reflect a wider shift in how hospitality and foodservice operators are approaching workforce development — moving away from compliance-first training frameworks toward systems designed to improve measurable business outcomes. Schoox's platform, which the company says can forecast expected training ROI before a program launches, counts Five Guys, Wingstop, The Fresh Market, and Sonesta Hotels among its customers alongside the two award winners.
Sandra Moran, Chief Marketing Officer at Schoox, noted that both winning programs started with a business result rather than a training format. "Both teams started with a business result they were accountable for, not a training format they were attached to, and used Schoox to work backward from there," she said. That outcome-first discipline is increasingly the standard cited by judges at industry benchmarking programs — and a framework gaining traction across restaurant and hospitality workforce development as operators face persistent staffing and retention pressures.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
