"Shamrock Leaf" by Erik fitzpatrick IS LICENSED UNDER CC BY 2.0.

For many of us March is hectic: we’re racing toward tax time and possibly financial year end—and what is it about spring that makes the phone start ringing? Spring is certainly in the air, and all the can-do excitement that comes with it. Sign up for a free webinar this month and leverage that springtime energy!

Tuesday, March 1, 2016, 11AM – 12PM PT: Metrics to Measure and Evaluate Organizational Growth and Transformation (Free for ATD members)

In a world of continuous change, leaders realize all too well that long-term corporate survival without new value creation and adaptive change just won’t happen. While most leaders understand the need for growth and renewal, they're often missing tangible metrics to pinpoint where to initiate change efforts or accurately assess the organization’s readiness for change and growth.

The webcast will highlight a compelling comparison of results using pre- and post-measures of an organization currently in the midst of organizational transformation. The analysis will demonstrate how the organization leveraged a new organization development tool called the Organizational Growth Indicator to measure and evaluate its efforts.

Specifically, the webcast will demonstrate how the organization was able to:

Quantify a positive organizational shift to a more entrepreneurial mindset.
Evaluate the return on investment and level of impact of a training and development program focused on embedding creativity and innovation into the fabric of its culture.
Harness tangible metrics to build organizational momentum for change.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016, 9AM – 10AM PT: Introducing the LMS from Adobe: Set up and Deliver Training Programs within 90 Minutes

Join Jesse Novak, Adobe eLearning Evangelist, as he takes you through a brand-new LMS – Adobe Captivate Prime.

During this interactive session, you'll learn:

How to add users, create modules, and assign courses to learners.
How to leverage the gamification elements, badges, learning plans, certifications, and learning programs.
How to comprehensibly track your learners and train offline, ensuring accurate and hassle-free reporting.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: The #1 Secret to a One-Call Meeting

The #1 challenge salespeople face is getting to their decision makers quickly. Seasoned reps recognize that getting a meeting before clients know they have a need is even more critical. Some people say it takes seven to 12 touches to reach prospects. Is that how you want your team spending their time?

Every sales leader and sales rep agrees that generating referral leads is the most productive outbound prospecting strategy. Yet, 95 percent of companies haven't adopted a systematic, disciplined referral program with metrics, skills, and accountability for results.

When sales organizations implement a referral program, reps don’t need to jump through hoops to get meetings. They always get a meeting, because they receive introductions from their prospects’ trusted colleagues. It's the one-call referral meeting!

During this webinar, you’ll learn:

What it takes to master the one-call meeting.
How to get the gatekeeper on your side.
What gets in the way of referral selling.
Why reps can't automate referral leads.
How to jump-start referral selling with your team.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016, 11AM – 12PM PT: 7 Ways to Deliver More Engaging Training (Free for ATD members)

Are you struggling to capture the attention of your employees, sales team, or channel partners? Would you like your training to be more interactive, effective, and engaging? Does your learning management system leave your learners dazed and confused?

Join this webcast to learn how to use virtual learning environments to more effectively engage, equip, and energize your audience. You’ll learn best practices for:

Delivering a more intuitive, engaging training experience.
Training your global audience at a significantly lower cost.
Adding social learning and gamification to your training arsenal.

As a special bonus, the webcast will feature a case study on the Marriott Voyage program, the 2015 Bersin by Deloitte WhatWorks award recipient.

Thursday, March 3, 2016, 9AM – 10AM PT: Where Do I Put the Scores? An Introduction to Basic Concepts Using Adobe Learning Management System

If you're just getting started in eLearning, or just starting to need to track and report the results of quizzes and learning interactions, the world of Learning Management Systems and other solutions for course deployment and tracking can seem overwhelming. Join Dr. Allen Partridge, Sr. Adobe eLearning Evangelist, for this kinder and gentler introduction to basic concepts in Learning Management.

Dr. Partridge will explain reporting standards, like SCORM, AICC, xAPI (TinCan), and more. He will explain how content can be deployed and the differences between Cloud and other services.

He'll also walk you through the basic chain from project concept to reporting, and help you understand the value your contributions can make to your business or organization—providing a clear, authentic reporting chain that can help everyone in the company meet their personal objectives, and the objectives of the organization.

Thursday, March 3, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: 60 Seconds and You're Hired! Acing the Job Interview (Free for ATD members)

In this webcast, career counsellor Robin Ryan will discuss hiring strategies from her bestselling book 60 Seconds & You’re Hired.

She’ll share her proven interview techniques, interview pitfalls to avoid, and the best ways to answer tough interview questions; plus, you’ll learn the formula for successful salary negotiations.

You'll also learn about:

New hiring trends and employer practices on recruiting, screening, and hiring.
The latest research on salary negotiations.
How to use a new self-promotion strategy during the job interview.
Strategies that'll support your motivation and self-confidence during the hiring process.

Thursday, March 3, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Call for Learning Solutions

Learning trends sound great conceptually, yet provide myriad challenges when putting them into action. Come join this unique event where you're part of the experience, creating and/or observing application of important learning innovations.

During this unique webinar event, the facilitators will explore current best practices across these challenging concepts and, most importantly, set the foundation for an upcoming design challenge competition open to all participants, including learning technology vendors, learning design service providers, and individuals. Participants will create and showcase their approach to a contextual scenario in any of the categories (listed above). If you don't want to create a solution, that's all right. They also need judges for the competition to evaluate approaches throughout the summer of 2016, culminating with a grand event at 2016 Online Learning, September 20-22 in Chicago.

Tuesday, March 8, 2016, 10AM – 11PM PT: How to Engage Modern Learners: When to "Push" and When to "Pull"

Does your personal expectation of learning align with how you learned 10, 20, or even 30 years ago? Of course not. Because you're a modern learner! You have a choice in how you learn, and so do the learners you're developing and designing training content for.

The modern workplace requires you to develop strategies that engage your learners, keeping your audience and the anticipated learning environment in mind. Not all learning needs to be formally scheduled or assessed. As a matter of fact, most modern learning takes place in the moment of need. The design of the learning will be influenced by where and when learning is anticipated to occur, and success will be dependent on the technology selection, implementation strategy (stand-alone, blended, or micro-learning), and design approach.

To address these topics, this session will incorporate lessons learned from multiple experts in the field—integrating topics such as the “5 Moments of Learning Need," “Principles of Modern Workplace Learning,” and comparing the “Push” training culture to the “Pull” learning culture.

Tuesday, March 8, 2016, 11AM – 12PM PST: TD: How to Fix Leadership Development (Member/subscriber content)

According to leading research, leadership development is in crisis. Senior business and HR leaders do not believe it is effective or value the results. Five key factors can help strengthen leadership development, including top management commitment, managerial support, evaluation, coaching reinforcement and application, and the right content and delivery. This webcast will help you gain a better understanding of these factors and determine how effective they're in your organization’s leadership initiatives.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Micro-learning Formats for User-Generated Content

Micro-learning is video-based content under one minute in length that is primarily consumed on mobile devices. The rise of user-generated content in the micro format has required the use of rapid storyboarding and predefined video content structures. As the length for the video decreases, so does the optimal format of the video.

Participants in this session will learn the process for implementing micro-learning in your organization, including governance, micro-video formats, content creation applications, and implementation. You'll explore the need to put in place a workflow for the creation of micro-content in the learning and performance organization. You'll leave this session with a cohesive workflow for a micro-content ecosystem and steps for implementation.

In this session, you'll learn:

What a micro-video format is.
The structure of a micro format.
Applications for micro-video creation.
How to establish governance and workflow.
How to deliver micro-content in your organization.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016, 11AM–12PM PT: Transforming Winning Sales Managers Into Effective Sales Coaches (Free for ATD members)

Recent research reveals that an overwhelming 77 percent of firms don’t provide adequate coaching to their salespeople. This gap exists despite the fact that the same research shows an effective sales coaching strategy can improve revenue and profit achievement by nearly 20 percent. So why are so many companies still missing the mark when it comes to sales coaching?

Join this complimentary webcast as Ray Makela of Sales Readiness Group and Lisa Clark of Qstream share data-driven best practices for implementing a sales coaching program that will help your organization. You'll learn to:

Develop a coaching culture and mindset.
Apply a five-step coaching model.
Overcome common sales coaching barriers.
Support managers with real-time data and insights that motivate positive coaching behaviours.

Thursday, March 10, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Microlearning and Proven Methods That Facilitate the Ongoing Learning Process

Delivering learning to employees is only the first key step in improving performance. Employees have to retain the gains in knowledge and skill, or the time, energy and effort that went into the program was for nothing—wasted.

According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, 87 percent of teachers said technology is creating an “easily distracted generation with short attention spans.”

The challenge for many organizations and professionals is that we focus so intently on developing employee learning resources, we overlook the importance whether our employees retain any of what they learn. As it turns out, reinforcement of lessons learned is a powerful part of learning, and vitally important.

Recent research is helping us learn more about exactly what reinforcement methods really work, and why.

In this session, Dean Pichee, CEO of BizLibrary and training industry veteran, discusses “the forgetting curve” and methods, techniques and tools (including video) that can reverse the forgetting curve and lead directly to much higher returns on investments in improved performance.

You’ll leave this webinar with actionable steps you can take to increase learning retention and overall performance in your organization.

Thursday, March 10, 2016, 11AM–12PM PT: Engaging Activities for Live Online Meetings Webinars and Virtual Training (Free for ATD members)

Whether it's an online meeting, a webinar, or live online training, engagement is on everyone's mind. Will it be worth the time to attend, or will it be an opportunity to check email? Interaction is the key to engagement, and using a platform’s features is the key to interaction. However, the features alone do not engage the participants. It is what you do with those features that will make the difference in your next online event.

Join us for this one-hour webcast to learn what you can do to build interaction and engagement to get results. You’ll learn:

How engaging live online meetings, webinars, and training events are delivered.
The appropriate level of interaction to create impactful live online events.
How to optimize the investment in your virtual classroom technology using a platform-features checklist.

Thursday, March 10, 2016, 11AM–12PM PT: Turn Your Workforce into Superheroes by Delivering Knowledge at the Point of Need

Today’s employees live and work in a mobile world, so why are so many companies continuing to invest in file-based knowledge sharing? Printed binders, static PDFs, and clunky slide presentations are the villains of modern communication.

The leading content platforms for enterprise are the ones that make it easy to create and deliver engaging content to your audience. By employing responsive, living HTML documents, you can edit, store, and securely distribute your content to mobile devices and PCs, bolstering your team’s productivity—and sanity.

Turn your employees into learning superheroes by:

Making once hard-to-find content available at their fingertips.
Saving users from drowning in cluttered storage and content management systems.
Enabling content creators to deliver interactive, mobile-ready content that will actually engage your workforce.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016, 12PM–1PM PT: Micro-Coaching: The Impacts of Continuous, Short and Instant Learning and Feedback

Many learning specialists and leaders have very limited time to plan and organize regular and scheduled formal coaching sessions. Instead coaching is done in micro-events—as needed, as it happens, in conversations and usually in combination with web tools and mobile devices. In these situations, micro-coaching becomes the only link between learners and workers and their leaders or trainers. The success of micro-coaching, therefore, leads to better performance.

Topics covered:

What is the difference between formal coaching and micro-coaching?
What events trigger micro-coaching?
How do you implement micro-coaching, e.g., instant assists, feed-back loops, self-guided reviews, deliberate applications, and others?
What leader and trainer skills to develop in micro-coaching?
How do you effectively use web tools and mobile apps?

Wednesday, March 16, 2016, 11AM – 12PM PT: You Are Already Leading, Just Not Frequently Enough (Free for ATD members)

Organizations report having major concerns about a lack of strong leadership. Why is this? It’s definitely not because there aren’t enough people capable of leading. Research shows that one person in a million lacks the skills to lead. It’s because of inhibiting assumptions, failure to create context for growth, and not making leadership development a daily habit.

In this webcast, Jim Kouzes will present a framework for reinventing how individuals and organizations approach the leadership development at all levels. You'll learn:

The evidence that leadership capability is both needed and also more readily available than popularly assumed.
The Five Fundamentals of Becoming an Exemplary Leader and their implications for the development of leaders.
Practical steps emerging leaders can take to put their leadership development into action, and how HR professionals can support them.

Thursday, March 17, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Creating Highly Functional Virtual Teams (Free for ATD members)

Can a virtual team be as effective as a collocated team? This is a question that organizations are debating, and the arguments on both sides are compelling. Factors such as work-life balance and organizational savings need to be balanced with the value of face-to-face collaboration and managerial oversight.

Regardless of whether you personally embrace the concept, you likely will be a member of a virtual team during your career. The reality is, a virtual team can be very effective if the correct conditions are met and maintained. It's about putting together the right personalities, ensuring that they have the right tools, and leading the team successfully.

This webcast will discuss the arguments for and against establishing a virtual team, and use real-life examples to address six key enablers for success. Attendees will learn how to:

Form a virtual team by identifying the profile of an effective virtual team and its players, and how to engage existing team members in selecting new team members.
Enable a virtual team by ensuring that the right technologies and processes are in place to ensure success.
Maintain a virtual team by creating inter-reliability, trust, and teamwork.
Protect a virtual team by identifying and managing issues before they become destructive.
Lead a virtual team by establishing credibility while maintaining the right balance of oversight and empowerment.
Reward a virtual team by creating long-distance team-building opportunities.

Friday, March 18, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Emotional Intelligence 2.0: How to Use EQ to Increase Leadership Capacity and Job Performance (ATD member/subscriber content)

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is responsible for more than half of workplace performance and is the number one predictor of leadership excellence. Better understanding this “science of emotion” can help you increase the effectiveness of your leadership development initiatives.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: The Current State of Social Selling – Hype Versus Reality

Barbara Giamanco, one of the first evangelists of leveraging social media in sales, wakes you up to the reality of selling in today’s digitally driven marketplace. Buyer behaviour has changed, with CEB reporting that customers do early-stage research on products, people and companies 57 percent of the time before engaging sales. This shift in buyer behaviour and expectations heightens the need for salespeople to implement a social selling strategy to achieve measurable results. The problem is that many sellers are using social selling tactics to shortcut the selling process, leading to wasted time and no solid ROI.

During this webinar, you’ll learn:

What buyers want you to know.
What it really takes to succeed with social selling.
Why using social media isn’t all you need to close deals.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Fatal Kirkpatrick Model Execution Errors – Practical Tips for Identifying and Correcting Them

The Kirkpatrick Model is the most-used training evaluation model in the world. This does not, however, mean that it's always implemented correctly. What does misapplication put at risk? The image that training holds in many organizations, the future of your training department and, ultimately, your job.

Attend this informative webinar with Jim and Wendy Kirkpatrick, creators of the New World Kirkpatrick Model, to find out the most common execution errors, what is at risk if you make them, and how to avoid them in the first place. Pick up practical tips that any training professional can implement to maximize their program value and demonstrate it to their organizations and stakeholders.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: xAPI in Practice – Moving Beyond SCORM to a Big Data Future

The Big Data floodgates have opened, yet most organizations have very little insight into the learning they are delivering beyond who took and completed a course. The problem is that learning technology has traditionally been unable to capture much else. The advent of the Experience API (xAPI) seeks to fundamentally change the way organizations deliver, track, and measure learning.

As the learning ecosystem expands to include social, mobile, collaborative, and other informal experiences, organizations need a solution to track and measure their efforts in these areas. xAPI is poised to set organizations free from the restrictions of SCORM and allow them to explore new learning opportunities.

Discussion topics include:

What is xAPI and why does it matter?
What are the practical applications of xAPI?
Examples of xAPI in practice
The future of learning standards

Wednesday, March 23, 2016, 11AM – 12PM PT: Developing Leaders Who Engage, Inspire, and Move People to Act (Free for ATD members)

In this webcast, bestselling author Suzanne Bates will reveal the 15 qualities proven by her firm’s research to enable leaders to build trust and goodwill, earn credibility and followership, and inspire above and beyond effort.

The discussion will be based on Suzanne’s brand new book, All the Leader You Can Be: The Science of Achieving Extraordinary Executive Presence, to be released by McGraw Hill this month. Participants of the webcast will receive a free copy of the book when it’s released.

During this webcast, you’ll learn how:

The 15 qualities fit within a three-dimensional model of character, substance, and style.
These qualities can be assessed and measured in leaders.
Talent development teams can incorporate a robust model of leadership engagement into their development practices.

Thursday, March 24, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: The Art of Executive Reporting

All roads lead to an executive. Have you ever had to share information with an executive and wondered if what you put together was effective? Whether it’s a funding decision or communicating the value of a training program, it’s critical to be able to effectively communicate information to tell your story. The methods you use to communicate can make or break your message and potentially impact your results.

This session will focus on:

Effectively engaging with an executive.
Understanding what’s important to them (KPI Identification).
Identifying the best way to communicate information.
Visualizing data and telling the story you want to tell.

CEB is well versed on engaging and reporting to executives, and the best part is that much of this content can be applicable to any stakeholder. We look forward to helping you develop your skills in this area!

Thursday, March 24, 2016, 11AM – 12PM PT: Enabling Mobile: Empower Employees with Access to Your Training Anytime, Anywhere (Free for ATD members)

If your workforce is growing, you need to make your training and support resources accessible so your employees have the tools and resources they need—when they need them—to be successful.

This webcast will show you how to give your employees access to business-critical information anytime, anywhere, to optimize their performance. Leverage a mobile knowledge-sharing platform to make updates to your content in real time and share across multiple devices, so your team is always equipped with the best, most accurate information. You’ll learn:

Why mobile is critical to your growing workforce.
The value of accessing the right information at the right time.
The importance of searchable, accurate, and consistent content.

See a brief demo of how Inkling can empower your employees through mobile training.

Friday, March 25, 2016, 9AM – 10AM PT: Ask-a-Coach E-Learning Expert Connie Malamed (ATD member/subscriber content)

If you're an instructional designer or just looking for information on designing better programs, don't miss this special members-only Ask-a-Coach webcast with instructional designer and e-learning coach Connie Malamed. Connie, author of Visual Design Solutions and Visual Language for Designers, will answer frequently asked questions as well as queries posed by you.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Overcoming the Top 5 Challenges of Video Training

Video is a unique beast. It’s more engaging than a training manual, but it’s a pain to record and produce. It helps you scale your training worldwide, but it can bog down your corporate network. It’s a great solution for mLearning, except when it’s incompatible with employees’ devices. And it’s ideal for just-in-time learning, if only it could be effectively searched.

In this webinar, you’ll learn how advances in video technology are helping L&D teams overcome the five biggest challenges of video-based training.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Do You Write Like a Leader?

Companies spend huge sums to develop leaders, but neglect their writing. For many, writing will be the roadblock that prevents them from advancing. The truth is that as a leader, you spend precious time making your email messages and reports reflect your hard-earned leadership skills. Are you using the latest writing strategies to distinguish yourself as a leader and influence corporate culture? Are you modelling reader-centred writing to drive outcomes—to make writing an asset rather than a drain?

Elizabeth Martin, the Instructional Quality Manager of Better Communications, will kick off this session targeted specifically to the writing strategies that support leadership growth and success. She'll present content focused on these three leadership traps:

Leadership matador: Being evasive.
Hiding the keys: Giving hidden or unclear action requests.
Leaders as bad cops: Being too critical in writing.

You'll leave with a new vision of how to:

Use writing as a strategic tool.
Write for action—accelerate change.
Handle sensitive issues appropriately.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Using Learning to Improve the Patient Experience

Improving the patient experience is one of the biggest priorities for healthcare organizations, according to Brandon Hall Group’s 2016 HCM Outlook Survey. This is a challenging goal for any organization, but especially for those in the ever-changing, chaotic healthcare industry. We like to think that learning can influence organizational outcomes, but can an L&D strategy really move the needle on metrics like patient satisfaction? The truth is, L&D is one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox for achieving organizational results.

Join David Wentworth, Principal Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, David Hare, Vice President of Leadership Development at Trilogy Health Services, and Leigh Ann Barney, EVP-Chief Operating Officer at, Trilogy Health Services, as they look at the role learning has in helping organizations achieve results. The webinar will feature an extensive look at how Trilogy has been able to use learning programs to improve customer satisfaction in a high-turnover, high-growth, highly regulated environment.

Discussion topics include:

The talent challenges within healthcare.
How industry uses learning to close skills gaps.
How learning impacts business metrics.
An inside look at Trilogy’s strategy.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016, 11AM – 12PM PT: Employee Development as a Differentiator in the Coming Talent Crisis (Free for ATD members)

High employee turnover should be worrisome to any employer. Simply consider the expense to recruit, interview, and train new employees, and it’s easy to see why retention is such a high priority for the C-suite. And as the economy continues to pick up and the job market grows, employees now have more options—meaning organizations have to work harder than ever to engage and retain top talent. So what strategies can learning and development (L&D) professionals employ to remain competitive and avoid a talent shortage during the economic uptick?

Join this webcast to learn strategies for creating a collaborative learning culture that will enable L&D professionals to prepare for—and beat—the impending talent crisis.

You’ll gain insights on:

The upcoming talent crisis, and why implementing a collaborative learning culture is the key to solving it.
What workers expect in their employers’ approach to L&D.
Making the right investments in your learning strategy to avoid the L&D “spend paradox.”

Thursday, March 31, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Research Spotlight: Employment Value Proposition – Harnessing the Power within Your Organization

If you're unsure as to how to define, communicate, and execute your organization’s employment value proposition, you are not alone. Brandon Hall Group’s EVP research shows that only 15 percent of organizations have a well-defined and communicated EVP and 67 percent do not understand the components of their organization’s EVP.

Take this opportunity to learn how to define an organization’s EVP and how it impacts talent acquisition, talent retention, employee engagement, and more. One of the highlights of this session will be the introduction of Brandon Hall Group’s EVP Framework that was based on our recent research. This framework provides a roadmap that clarifies what all types of organizations need to consider when defining their EVP.

Thursday, March 31, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: The State of Healthcare Training (Free for ATD members)

Developing the skills and knowledge of workers is front of mind for many healthcare employers as they face talent shortages and high turnover. And skills development is increasingly important as the critical services and responsibilities of healthcare teams expand in volume and scope. ATD and Relias Learning, the leader in online training and compliance solutions for the healthcare market, conducted a survey of 123 facilities that provide healthcare services in the United States (including both acute care hospitals and facilities providing other services). The result was The State of Healthcare Training, a comprehensive picture of staff development and training (SD&T) activities, efficiencies, and expenditures across healthcare. This webcast provides key findings from the research, which will allow healthcare facilities to benchmark their SD&T investments and programs.

Thursday, March 31, 2016, 12PM–1PM PT: Creating Simple Rules-Based Learning from Complex, Technical and Compliance Courses

Simplifying learning content cuts learning curves and speeds up performance on the job. However, most complex, technical, and compliance learning content remain to be inaccessible for learners to use and learn from. Consequently, learners grow frustrated and waste their time and energy trying to learn complex ideas. In this webinar, you'll understand the rules of simplicity by using rules in designing and delivering content.

Topics covered:

Why does most content stay complex and is hard to understand and learn?
What are case studies showing improvement in performance using simple rules?
How do you methodically simplify your content and build rules for easy use?
What are the six types of rules and where do they apply?
View examples of simple rule-based learning with technical, scientific, process and compliance content.