With autumn off to a spooky start, and rainy days ahead, it’s a great time to stay indoors, fortify yourself with a cup of hot chocolate, and enjoy the warm glow of a fire. Or is that the warm glow of the Internet? There’s a wonderful selection of free webinars being offered this month. We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Friday, November 1, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: ASTD Best Webcast Series: Migros Retail Academy: Success Formula for Results (Free for ASTD members)

2013 BEST winner, the Migros Retail Academy, had a mountain of challenges to overcome in developing its workforce. Chief among the challenges was the lack of a formalized education program in Turkey to prepare people for a career in retail. The company needed to start from square one—and make sure that the training delivered to employees aligned with business goals and the needs of multiple stakeholders. This session will share insights and tips about how Migros tackled this big challenge, including:

•  How to establish a successful corporate academy
• The importance of understanding business needs and being aligned across lines of business
• Managing different generations in the workforce

Tuesday, November 5, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Are Your Trainers Great Facilitators? Creating the Dynamic Experience with Facilitative Training Skills

Even experienced trainers sometimes find themselves standing before groups whose dynamics are all over the board. Everyone has an opinion, varying learning styles must be taken into account, and you’ve got to delineate difficult questions being thrown at you at warp speed. How do trainers handle these challenges in an effective, enthusiastic manner? Wouldn’t it be great to have the tools to regain control of the room every time? Join Certified Master Facilitator Michael Wilkinson as he introduces a training approach you can use right away— the facilitative approach. Learn about cutting-edge tools designed to make sessions more engaging, and proven techniques to transform the way audiences receive and apply your training material.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013, 10PM – 11PM PST: Teaching People to Learn (Free for ASTD members) 

Teams are the way we get work done. They are critical to innovation, growth, and risk management in our organizations. But teams are vulnerable to dysfunction from poorly aligned priorities, interpersonal tensions, and unproductive conflict. So why do we throw people together and hope for the best? In this interactive session, you will hear about a revolutionary new approach to teaching employees to team. By starting teams off on the right foot, you can accelerate productivity and reduce the impact of inevitable challenges.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013, 7AM – 8AM PST: Intercultural Communication: Leaping over Boundaries (Free for ASTD members)

As organizations become more global, they come across more challenges in intercultural communication. Unfortunately, a lack of intercultural communication skills sometimes deters collaboration amongst individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. In this webcast, you will hear how intercultural communication skills training can be applied to people from different countries and cultures. You will learn how to act, communicate, and change your paradigm for synergistic cooperation.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Learn How to Avoid "Crisis of Emptiness" in eLearning

Part of eLearning’s challenge is to recapture the lost warmth and interpersonal relationships many of us experience in face-to-face interactions. The common complaint from eLearners is that intimacy, empathy, helpfulness, and support are absent. This creates a disconcerting experience that leads to delays and resistance from learners. In this session you will learn practical and useful best practices to ensure the elevation of your eLearning design and delivery from sheer loneliness and apathy to curiosity, engagement, and better learning.

 

Thursday, November 7, 2013, 8AM – 1PM PST: Shifting the Performance Curve: A Human Capital Community Virtual Summit (Free for ASTD members) 

In these challenging economic times, no one can afford to let profit slip away. And yet, many organizational leaders do not realize that they can find the secrets to high profit (and higher performance) by looking inside their own organizations. But how can leaders ensure that they know how to tap into the talent and secrets of their star performers, and then implement these insights throughout the entire organization? During this half-day event, Paul Elliott and Al Folsom of Exemplary Performance will provide their innovative and cost-effective path to helping organizations translate employee performance improvement into measurable business results.

Thursday, November 7, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: De-Mystifying the LMS Selection Process

The LMS marketplace continues to shift and evolve as vendors consolidate and new technology features become available. Deciding to invest in a learning management system isn’t even half the battle. Once they walk through that door, companies are faced with a mind-numbing array of choices. Where do they start? Which system is right? How do you know? Attend this webinar and learn concrete steps and strategies to make the journey to LMS selection far simpler.

Thursday, November 7, 2013, 1PM – 2PM PST Rescheduled for Friday, November 8, 2013, 10AM - 11AM: The Future of Learning

Is there anything that isn't changing? Industries, organizations, jobs, work, and even peoples' expectations are shifting. So it's only to be expected that learning will also adapt. This webinar will explore a broad range of topics such as:

• Social learning and how it will continue to evolve to meet new social technologies
• What the Kahn Academy could mean for corporate learning
• The role of accreditation in providing "trophies" to the next generation of learning
• Eight strategies for accelerating development of new employees as experienced employees leave the workplace
• Augmented reality and the implication for just-in-time learning

And in the spirit of social learning, YOU are the content.  Bring your ideas to the table to collaborate on understanding the future of learning.

Friday, November  8, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Developing Global Talent at UPS (Free for ASTD members) 

Learn how a new type of executive training program was deployed in May 2012 to be delivered in conjunction with UPS’s logistics coordination role at the 2012 London Olympic Games. The program objectives were to drive profit and return-on-investment capital (ROIC) by building the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of UPS’s international country managers.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013, 9AM – 10AM PST: From Functional Expert to Organizational Leader: Making a Successful Transition (Free for ASTD members) 

Making the shift from technical or functional expert to a broader organizational leader is often not easy. It is a road paved with pitfalls, stalls, and few guideposts. In today’s changing and competitive business environment, making this shift is ever more critical; companies and organizations need such capability, and individuals need to grow. By looking at what it takes to make the shift and where to focus, we can map out the path and accelerate the process.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Creating Culture That Rocks

This interactive session is effectively designed to highlight best practices to create, maintain, enhance, or even revolutionize a company’s culture in all areas of the business. Jim Knight, former Hard Rock Training executive and more recently founder of Knight Speaker, will discuss key strategies to transform any organization’s culture. Key concepts will include: a Definition of Culture (finally!), Hiring "Rock Stars," Brand Differentiation, Employee Engagement, Virtuous versus Vicious Circles, and Retention Strategies. The time allotted is filled with visual slides, out-of-the-box thinking, quotes, industry statistics, and case studies…all told through the spirit of Rock ‘n’ Roll. If you’re a fan of unpredictability and thinking about things differently, come hear what all the noise is about.

 

Wednesday, November 13, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Best of DemoFest 2013: Award-winning eLearning in Action

Each year at DevLearn, dozens of conference participants show off their latest and greatest eLearning projects at eLearning DemoFest, offering their fellow attendees the opportunity to see a wide variety of solutions to common eLearning challenges, and sharing information about the tools, technologies, and processes used to build them. Meet several of this year’s winners in this complimentary Best of DemoFest. Join us and see their award-winning solutions in many of the following categories including Acedemic, Augmented Reality, Blended Learning, Business Processes, eBooks, Game-based, Immersive/Simulation, Mobile, Onboarding/Employee Orientation, Performance Support, Sales Training, Soft Skills, Software Systems, Social Media or Online Communities and Virtual Classroom.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Enabling Healthcare Learning with Technology

Ninety percent of healthcare organizations are having difficulties finding skilled workers; 33 percent say the lack of skilled workers impacts their ability to comply with external quality standards and regulations. How can we address these issues through greater development opportunities and better talent practices? Attend this webinar to learn key findings from Brandon Hall Group’s new research on the skills gap in healthcare organizations. In addition we’ll have award-winning case studies and insights from healthcare industry experts.

Tuesday, November 14, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Build Greater Acceptance and Increase Adoption of Training through Coaching

The training industry ebbs and flows in terms of its acceptance. We use teaching aids, eLearning systems, etc.—but what if management supported our training by assisting in the coaching process? Training would be more accepted and employee development would escalate. This webinar will teach specific strategies for using coaching to gain greater acceptance and understanding of your training programs.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013, 8AM – 9AM PST: Talent as a Business Risk 

Organizations regularly assess their financials, information technology, and operation risks. However, concerns around talent—or human capital—tend to receive little attention. Join Brandon Hall Group and KPMG as they share research findings from 1,200 organizations across 54 countries on talent risk. This research comprehensively sets out the degree to which businesses are concerned about various types of talent risks, and the extent to which they are managing these concerns. Event topics include:

•  A Global Talent Risk Profile
• Top 10 Talent Risks
• A Talent Risk Disconnect: Business Leaders versus HR
• A case study from a global organization addressing its talent risks

Tuesday, November 19, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: “DUDE, WHAT’S MY JOB?” Developing and Training Millennials in Today’s Global Workforce 

Millennials are infiltrating the workforce, while managers and older generations are scrambling to understand and work with this fascinating group. The phrase “What’s up with the kids these days?” is not a new one, but with Millennials, there seems  to be an entirely new set of challenges and opportunities. By 2015, Millennials will outnumber Boomers in the workforce—are you ready?

In this engaging webinar, participants learn everything they need to know about Millennials around the world. What makes this generation tick? What are their assets, liabilities, communication preferences, and top motivators? Importantly, how do Millennials differ from country to country? How are Millennials from India impacted by their emerging middle class? How have Millennials in China been affected by family planning laws? Brad Karsh provides a plan of attack on how to manage, train, and motivate Millennials across the world.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Putting Instructional Design in the Hands of End Users (Free for ASTD members)

User design provides an alternative to top-down expert-driven design processes. Grounded in systems theory, user design empowers frontline stakeholders to design and create their own innovations, which in turn may lead to greater adoption and diffusion of those innovations. During this webcast, we will discuss the role of instructional designers—specifically how they provide resources and facilitate the work of the design team rather than impose their expertise upon team members. We will discuss a range of user-design tools, including ethnography, cooperative design, design-based research, action research, and scenario-based design. Learn how the user-design process unfolded at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and the critical lessons learned as a result.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Sustaining Development: How to Make It Stick! (Free for ASTD members) 

Have you ever been excited to launch a development program, only to see it fade away? Have you ever witnessed a leader go through a training program, resulting in no indication of newly developed skills? A "yes" to either question means you need to re-evaluate your sustainability measures. Sustainability can be looked at in two ways: the learner level and the program level. Join us to learn how you can maximize your efforts by implementing a strategic approach to sustainability at both levels.

Thursday, November 21, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Exploring the Learning Experience Canvas

This presentation introduces you to the Learning Experience Canvas, a tool for designing learning experiences. Join Peter C. Honebein, an expert in designing product and service innovations that enable customers to be co-creators of value. Explore the eight key elements of the canvas from the perspectives of design thinking, customer experience, instructional theory, and human performance.

Thursday, November 21, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Inspiring Millennials: The High-Impact Learning Culture (Free for ASTD members) 

On average, one Baby Boomer retires every eight seconds. By 2014, Millennials will represent almost 47 percent of the workforce, and 75 percent by 2025. The right skills are in short supply, and talent pipelines are shrinking. Younger people are getting bigger jobs faster; and they think, learn, and behave differently. To become the kind of employer that attracts and retains both today's and tomorrow's talent, organizations need to create a workplace that is agile and nurtures learning—a high-impact learning culture. Join us to learn:

• The key elements of a high-impact learning culture
• Common obstacles to creating that culture, and how you can overcome them
• Steps you can take today to start creating the high-impact learning culture you will need for tomorrow

Thursday, November 21, 2013, 12PM – 1PM PST: Identifying and Nurturing Emerging Talent

A 2012 report by Deloitte identified eight trends in human capital that will have the most business impact over the next 18 to 24 months. One of the trends identified was the development of next-generation leaders. Identifying and nurturing emerging talent increases the availability of experienced, capable employees prepared to drive future growth. During this session, Alan Fine will explore the fundamentals of a high-performance environment, and the basic activities that create empowerment, accountability, and trust for managers and the emerging talent they lead. You will discover the three elements at the heart of high performance and will learn how to recognize and address obstacles that are getting in the way. Finally, you will explore a simple and reliable process that reduces interference, creates focus, and unblocks performance breakthroughs.