"Apple, Green Apple, Tree" by condesign is public domain.

Hard to believe it’s September already! Whether you’ve had a relaxing summer, or whether it’s been business as usual, the month of September has a tendency to bring on the urge to regroup, think about what we’re doing effectively and consider what we can do better at business. Why not check out a free webinar or two and get some fresh ideas?

Thursday, September 1, 2016, 11AM – 12PM PT: Developing a Coaching Culture (Free for ATD members)

Many of us continue to develop creative ways to introduce and sustain coaching in our organizations. How do we take that to the next level? How can we build a culture in which coaching is used to give feedback, solve problems, discuss strategy, and support continuous improvement?

This webcast covers the theory, tools, and techniques for defining coaching cultures, as well as the three most important building blocks:

Learning and practicing basic coaching tools and mindsets.
"Living in" coaching language.
Hard-wiring coaching into the underlying infrastructure.

Take part in this lively webcast to dig deeper into the benefits and challenges of building coaching organizations.

Wednesday, September 7, 2016, 10AM – 11:30AM PT: HCM Excellence Awards 2016 Announcements

Join Brandon Hall Group executives as they announce the winners of the coveted 2016 HCM Excellence Awards in a live web event.

Brandon Hall Group presenters will be Chief Operating Officer Rachel Cooke, the head of the awards program; Chief Executive Officer Mike Cooke, and VP/Research Operations and Principal HCM Analyst, Claude Werder.

Wednesday, September 7, 2016, 11AM – 12PM PT: Trained to Skill: Soft Skills That Drive Success in the Emerging Workforce (Free for ATD members)

Young adults entering the workforce are the most technologically savvy individuals of any generation. Multitasking and multiscreen is the only reality they have ever known. But these emerging workers are also launching their careers with some significant skill gaps. Whether the gaps are generational, gender influenced, or role-based, addressing them early on can help ensure a more rapid and successful onboarding, and lay the foundation for higher levels of contribution to the organization.

In this webcast, you’ll:

Identify the most common skills gaps found in today’s new workers.
Learn best practices of successful companies training for success.
Make the most difference in the shortest amount of time with the most efficient use of your budget.

Thursday, September 8, 2016, 9AM – 10AM PT: eLearning Superpowers 102: Using Stock Assets to Create Awesome eLearning

Wouldn’t it be great if you could create training material quickly and easily without having to spend a whole lot of time and money designing your assets from scratch, or having someone do them for you? Have no fear: Kid Captivate is back for another, more advanced round of Adobe Captivate 9 magic.

In this informative, intermediate discovery session, you will:

Learn how to gain access to more than 50,000 free learning assets.
Explore themes, cut-out people images, interactions, and games.
Learn tips for using assets inside Captivate and integrating content from Adobe Stock.

Join Dr. Allen Partridge to learn about this secret ingredient to make the most of free characters, themes, games, and more to build engaging and interactive eLearning courses, without breaking a sweat. In this second-level session, Dr. Partridge will demonstrate techniques for rapidly creating interactive course content with stock solutions. The session will focus on soft skills simulations and interactive experiences using out-of-the-box content as the backbone for your projects.

Thursday, September 8, 2016, 11AM – 12PM PT: State of Sales Training Research Webcast (Free for ATD members)

Recognizing the importance of sales professionals to the overall success of an organization, this webcast takes a deep dive into the current state of sales training, drawing on data from an ATD research survey of 227 sales enablement professionals. Specifically, this webcast focuses on the way that sales training is delivered, how salespeople learn best, and the frequency of training for sales professionals. The webcast will also discuss the average annual sales training expenditures as well as several of the top barriers to delivering effective sales training. Finally, the webcast will present recommendations for overcoming barriers and creating more effective sales training programs.

The key data points presented in the webcast are taken from the new ATD research report 2016 State of Sales Training, which is available at www.td.org/sales2016.

Monday, September 12, 2016, 6AM – 7AM PT: Explore the Training Cycle with Global Master Trainers (Free for ATD members)

In this webcast, a global panel of Master Trainers will share step-by-step techniques of how they engage multicultural participants through Master Trainer knowledge.

Using the Training Cycle they will share:

How a needs assessment is done in Africa.
What special steps are used for designing learning in the Middle East.
Which criteria are used in South America to determine activities for use in training.
How various performance evaluations are done in the United States.

Learn what tweaks are necessary to make these best practices work in your corner of the world.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Learning Analytics: Measurement Innovations to Support Talent Development

Learning analytics is changing learning and development (L&D) departments dramatically, and the departments that effectively leverage analytic processes will create substantial competitive advantage for their organizations. This webinar focuses on defining new measurement needs and describing new analytic solutions that can dramatically boost the impact of talent development programs. Critical areas of focus include:

Gathering measures that serve as leading indicators of success, isolating the impact of programs.
Developing actionable results for C-suite decision making.
Using technology to provide instant insights.

Learning analytics is an indispensable tool for generating tangible value for organizations. Analytics is the only way L&D can link learning to business impact. Analytics is the only way that L&D can answer questions when the C-suite calls. It is critical to the future of L&D. Attend this webinar to learn how.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Seven Strategies to Elevate the Virtual Classroom

Only 46 percent of training is now delivered in a traditional classroom setting by a stand-and-deliver trainer, a significant decrease over the past 15 years. The larger the organization, the less likely that it is continuing to rely on this face-to-face delivery method. Training has increasingly moved online and is becoming more mobile. In fact, almost 32 percent of training is now delivered using blended learning techniques, while about 26 percent of training is delivered completely online, including virtual, instructor-led training. Organizations continue to use web conference platforms to reduce training time and travel costs, yet many are not implementing virtual classrooms well.

If your organization relies on virtual classrooms, you must maximize the effectiveness of this delivery method or your investment in the technology will be wasted. This webinar introduces seven strategies to ensure your return on investment (ROI) and engagement (ROE). Cynthia Clay, author of Great Webinars: How to Create Interactive Learning That Is Captivating, Informative and Fun, will demonstrate the engagement and interaction techniques used in the best online learning programs.

After this one-hour webinar, you will be able to:

Apply seven strategies adopted by forward-thinking organizations to elevate the virtual classroom.
Ensure your company’s successful transition to virtual learning.
Leverage best practices for virtual design and delivery.

Wednesday, September 14, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Best of DevLearn: Ten Cool Tools to Support Learning

As technology changes day-to-day life, it is fascinating to imagine what the future will bring. As a learning and development professional, however, it’s very hard to keep up the pace. What technology will be trending and will change the way people live and learn, and what technology will be nothing but hype? Will augmented reality really disrupt learning? And how about virtual reality and wearable tech? And, more importantly, will you ever be able to afford those technologies as learning-supporting tools?

During this session, participants will discuss some of the latest technologies by exploring some really cool free or inexpensive tools and apps that can amplify learning. Those tools and apps could change the way L&D supports learning and can have an impact on your employees. After this session, you will be on top of the latest trends and technologies, and you’ll see the benefits of adopting those tools as verified learning partners.

In this session, you will learn:

About the latest tech trends for learning.
About 10 free or inexpensive tools.
About the benefits of technology for performance.
How to embrace technology as a learning partner.

Wednesday, September 14, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Bibbity Bobbity Boo - No More Boring Lectures for YOU! Write Activities to Make Boring Lectures Disappear

Whether online or in the classroom, you’ve felt the pain: training so lecture-laden that you wish you had a magic wand to make it all go away.

Well, now you can. The webinar facilitators will show you how to use your powers for good and change up how you write activities so that your learners will be engaged instead of disengaged.

Experience five activities (alternatives to lecture) that will help you produce high engagement and retention in any learning environment.

In this highly interactive session, you will learn how to:

Write directions and rules for a learning simulation.
Prepare participants beforehand for the learning session.
Develop information-search activities with processing questions.
Create the components of an observation activity.
Craft demonstrations with skill performance checklists to be used in the training environment and back on the job.

Wednesday, September 14, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Research Spotlight: Metrics and More: The Measurement of Learning

Organizations put huge amounts of time, money, and energy into delivering learning, but real insight into the impact that learning has on a company remains elusive. Most companies do a good job of tracking who has completed what training, but that isn’t really telling the whole story, let alone helping determine the ROI of learning.

Join David Wentworth, Principal Learning Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, as he reviews the results of Brandon Hall Group’s 2016 Learning Measurement Study, identifying what organizations are measuring, what they aren’t, and how to move forward more effectively.

Discussion topics include:

The pressure to gather metrics.
The metrics organizations are using.
The outcomes organizations are measuring.
The use of the Kirkpatrick Model and others.
How High Performers approach measurement.

Wednesday, September 14, 2016, 11AM – 12PM PT: Modernize Store Operations (Free for ATD members)

If you’re running a retail store or restaurant chain, building consistent positive customer experiences is crucial for your brand. With the power of social media, bad experiences have a tendency to go viral, which can cost your business thousands of dollars and the permanent loss of potential customers.

You have the opportunity to modernize operations for your employees with interactive, mobile-ready statements of purpose (SOPs) and job aids. Employees closely following policies and procedures will consistently deliver exceptional customer experiences. Join this webcast and learn how other retail chains are leveraging new technology to effectively communicate and engage their workforce.

The webinar facilitators will discuss:

The challenges of traditional forms of communication.
Best practices to enable your millennial workforce using technology.
How your peers are harnessing the strength of interactive, mobile SOPs.

Thursday, September 15, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: No One Needs Training: How to Contribute Strategic Value

As organizations strive to address their clients’ critical business issues, T&D professionals play a vital role in creating and implementing talent development solutions for their organizations. In a recent study by Deloitte LLP, human capital strategy is seen by many CEOs as one of the top priorities for growth, presenting an exciting opportunity for learning professionals. To address this crucial role of connecting talent development to an organization’s complex growth strategies, T&D must strategically go beyond the need expressed by one person, one department, or one executive, and help to define what the business truly needs. After all, no one needs training . . . they need the outcomes of training.

In this webcast, the webinar facilitators will examine:

The steps to build a consultative relationship with internal clients and add value at each step of the process.
How to gain an in-depth agreement with the internal client by discovering the true nature and scope of the problem to be solved.
How to connect your services to their issues with real value, as defined by your internal clients.

Thursday, September 15, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: The Right Content Right Now: Closing the Skills Gap

It seems cliché, but business is moving faster than ever. Organizations need their learning functions to be more agile and responsive, and many companies are using on-demand content resources to do just that.

In this webinar, David Wentworth, Principal Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Reggie Hanson, Customer Success Manager at lynda.com, will explore the consequences of skills gaps and look at how companies are trying to address them by focusing on building an agile and responsive on-demand learning program.

Topics will include:

Extent of the skills gap.
The impact on the business.
The challenges with traditional content.
Examples of how organizations are using on-demand content.

Thursday, September 15, 2016, 12:30PM – 1:30PM PT: Talent Trends and Challenges in Healthcare (ATD member/subscriber content)

Motivated by the anticipated shortage of healthcare professionals by 2020, as reported by the Association of American Medical Colleges, employers are adopting new talent management practices, implementing non-traditional recruitment strategies, and developing their employees. If they don’t keep up, many healthcare organizations may fall behind their competitors in retaining and attracting talent. Research has shown a strong connection between talent development programs and retention.

Friday, September 16, 2016, 9AM – 10AM PT: CPLP Certification: What’s New? Why Now? 3 Things You Need to Know! (Free for ATD members)

Talent development professionals are critical to ensuring organizational relevance and success. The Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) credential is your opportunity to advance your own knowledge base and gain instant credibility in the organizations that you serve. Earning the credential can build and validate your skills, increase your earning potential, differentiate you in a competitive job market, broaden your career opportunities, and unite you with an elite community of professionals.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of CPLP program, as well as the replacement of the Work Product with the Skills Application Exam, a test of knowledge application to real-world scenarios.

After this webcast, you’ll be able to:

Determine if CPLP certification is right for you.
Identify the individual value proposition for pursuing the CPLP credential.
Identify the three requirements that you must meet to become a CPLP.

Monday, September 19, 2016, 11AM – 12PM PT: Be Influential and Indispensable: Building Your Brand on LinkedIn (Free for ATD members)

You work every day to advance your career—to stand out in your job, separate your business from the competition, or outshine other candidates for a new position. Do you understand how to build your brand and use LinkedIn to position yourself for these opportunities?

In this webcast, personal branding expert Marie Zimenoff will provide tools for you to:

Unearth your ability to achieve your career goals.
Communicate the story of your value to those who need to know it.
Use LinkedIn as a tool to build your brand in just a few minutes every day.

Join us to learn how to identify your value, communicate your brand, and use LinkedIn to be influential, indispensable, and happy at work!

Tuesday, September 20, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: The Learning/Performance Nexus

For many organizations, the outcome of learning is learning. Did people finish the class? Did they like it? What was their score? Good data to have, but is the learning actually impacting the business?

The true outcome of learning is performance. And when considered as such, learning has the potential to have a much more significant impact on both individual and organizational performance than anything else. Rather than tracking attendance, we can consider: Are people more effective at their jobs? Are health and safety incidents lowered? Are we driving change and innovation throughout our organization? Are we achieving what we set out to do?

Join David Wentworth, Principal Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Anita Bowness, Global Practice Leader, Consulting Services with Halogen Software, as they examine how learning and performance intersect, and why learning consultants are actually performance consultants.

Discussion topics include:

An overview of the learning/performance connection.
New learning models.
Best practices for linking learning and performance.
Examples of companies using best practices.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: The Power of Perception: Leadership, EQ and Gender (Free for ATD members)

Women now account for more than half of the U.S. workforce and outpace men in the number of bachelor, master’s, and doctoral degrees. Despite these achievements, only 4 percent of CEOs at Fortune 500 companies are women. Given these statistics, a shift to a more gender-balanced senior management should be a reasonable, expected outcome.

In addition, we know that emotional intelligence (EQ) is a key driver of both work and life success. EQ assessments have found women and men to be equally emotionally intelligent, but strong in different areas considered gender-specific—and these differences affect the perception of women leaders. Finally, research shows clear differences between men and women in virtually every aspect of business—how we work within a structure, network, conduct meetings, interpret information, take risks, communicate, work in teams, and lead.

This webcast will discuss findings from the presenter’s research on leadership, EQ, and gender and how they affect the perception and promotion of women, and provide practical strategies for organizations and individuals. Topics will include:

Current leadership gender gap statistics.
Barriers to leadership.
Gender-specific EQ competencies.
Gender culture differences.
Recommendations for organizations to increase diversity and inclusion practices.
Practical strategies for both women and men to improve EQ and overcome barriers.

Wednesday, September 21, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Top 5 Moodle Plugins to Enhance Productivity

Whether you’re new to Moodle, or an experienced user, knowing which plugins to choose and how to best implement them can be a challenge. Lambda Solutions' Moodle experts regularly review plugins and advise and help their clients select the best plugins based on their learning and training needs. In this live demonstration, you will see in depth, the top 5 plugin choices that help with tracking learning engagement, reporting, and overall user experience.

Attend the live webinar to learn which Moodle Plugins will allow you to:

Enhance learner productivity and improve performance.
Reduce employee turnover, and increase learner engagement.
Improve training and learning processes, and see consistently better learning results.

If you can’t attend, register anyhow and you'll be sent a recording of the webinar.

Wednesday, September 21, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: How to Use Standard Competency Models to Accelerate Learning Transfer (Free for ATD members)

The responsibility of the talent development function is to provide the best opportunity for learning transfer to occur, such that the required skills are acquired and business results follow. Competency models identify what the organization needs people in a particular role to do so the organization can succeed and create a competitive advantage. They motivate people by providing a road map for how to succeed in any position. There are three steps to accelerating learning transfer with competency-based learning:

Create a competency model.
Make your competency model actionable.
Accelerate learning transfer through competency-based, personalized learning.

However, creating competency models is perceived as heavy lifting, particularly in large organizations. That’s where standard competency models come in. What if you could use a standard competency model instead of creating one? Then you could complete all three steps and accelerate learning transfer in just weeks.

In this webcast you will learn:

The components of a standard competency model.
How to make it actionable in weeks.
How to accelerate learning transfer, leveraging the 70-20-10 framework.

Wednesday, September 21, 2016, 12PM – 1PM PT: Structuring Your Social Media Strategy to Prevent and Manage Healthcare Crises (Free for ATD members)

We’ve all seen articles about the latest company to commit a social media faux pas or experience backlash from the online community, but plenty of companies manage to avoid those headlines and preserve their reputation. Are they just lucky or do they have some social secret? The truth is the best crisis management strategies aren’t crafted after the fact—they’re carefully planned for and implemented well in advance.

This webcast will provide the tools to learn how to:

Create a social strategy that clearly outlines plans for crisis management.
Structure your team to rapidly mobilize during an incident.
Perform immediate mitigation while planning for long-term response.

Thursday, September 22, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: How Cisco Delivers Amazing Learning Experiences through Effective Content

According to Brandon Hall Group’s 2016 Learning Technology Survey, the number one reason companies look to replace their current learning technology solution is the need for an improved user experience. For learners that choose (and fund) their own certification programs, the stakes for an intuitive user-centric experience are even higher.

With this increased focus on the learner experience, it is critical that learning content is developed with this in mind. The most user-friendly platform in the world cannot make up for content that is clunky or irrelevant to the learning audience.

Join David Wentworth, Principal Learning Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, Kathy Yankton, Learning Architect and Joe Stratmann, Senior Manager of Learning Enablement and Software Development at Cisco as they explore the research around designing learning content for the learner experience, as well as take a look at how Cisco has been meeting this challenge head on.

Discussion topics include:

The impact of the learner experience.
Current best practices in learning content.
Design considerations for the modern learner.
Real-world examples from a leading learning organization.

Thursday, September 22, 2016, 11AM – 12PM PT: How to Leverage Informal Learning to Create a Learning Culture (Free for ATD members)

Workers don’t confine development to their offices or to the average learning and development (L&D) catalogue. According to recent Degreed research, 70 percent said they learn from peers and reading online every week.

You need to understand the changes occurring in learning habits in today’s workforce, and what L&D professionals of all levels can do to address them. In this webcast, you’ll learn how Purch began valuing informal learning and realigned its L&D strategy to support employee learning and performance. Additionally, you’ll learn how to:

Measure and recognize informal learning activities.
Improve your learning strategy and invest effectively in learning technology.
Take advantage of learning preferences and behaviours.
Determine what learners want out of their learning.

Friday, September 23, 2016, 5:30AM – 6:30AM PT: Blended Learning (Free for ATD members)

Blended learning occurs when the best delivery methodologies available for each specific learning objective are incorporated into a curriculum. While you may have been blending pre- and post-program elements into your training mix for years, the increasing prevalence of learning technologies and tools requires a more strategic look at the most effective ways to integrate delivery methodologies.

In this webcast, you’ll learn how ATD’s Blended Learning Certificate Program can help you define blended learning and how to integrate it into traditional instructional design processes.

Friday, September 23, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Implementing Mindfulness at Work (Free for ATD members)

Do your employees feel unproductive, overwhelmed, or stressed? Do your leaders need clearer focus and sharper strategic thinking to make better decisions? Did you know our minds can be trained for better performance with a simple practice: mindfulness?

Believe it or not, most of the time, we don’t control our minds. Our random thoughts divert our attention. When we are not in tune with the present, we are distracted by past or future events, neither of which we can control.

Join the ranks of Google, General Mills, and many others that have incorporated mindfulness into their talent development programs. Mindfulness training has been shown to reduce employee stress and improve focus, decision making, and strategic thinking. This webcast will share ideas to help you:

Identify mindfulness behaviours, rather than mindless behaviours.
Learn how to effectively answer stakeholder questions about mindfulness.
Introduce simple mindfulness activities proven to improve employee performance.
Launch a pilot mindfulness training program.
Avoid pitfalls when promoting mindfulness activities.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016, 9AM – 10AM PT: How to Create Webinar-based Training So Engaging that People Have to Pay Attention!

In this training, presentation expert and PowerPoint MVP Ellen Finkelstein will model engaging webinar training for you while showing you the principles so you can use them yourself. There are many advantages of webinars over live training, but one disadvantage is how easy it is for people to multitask.

You'll learn:

The controversy over using the webcam, what Ellen recommends, and why.
How to use animation during webinars—and how not to use it.
Ways to draw attendees back to the slides.
Interactive tools you can—and should—use.
How to follow up after a webinar.
And more.

Wednesday, September 28, 2016, 9AM – 10AM PT: I-Engage – Your Personal Engagement Roadmap

This talk can best be described as a paradigm shift in engagement circles... and based on feedback, you might experience your own personal journey of self-reflection and self-discovery. At the least, you will leave with a better understanding of the role leaders need to play to boost engagement within their organizations, and the need for personal accountability at the employee level.

Gallup and others claim that in spite of an improved economy, only 32 percent of your employees are engaged! We think we know why! Based on our research for I-Engage!, engagement continues to be an issue because engagement efforts focus on the organization, leadership, the manager, and culture. Learn why tomorrow’s engagement efforts also need to engage the whole person, with a focus on individual accountability.

In this exhilarating 75-minute keynote, you will learn:

Why you might be struggling with gaining momentum with your own engagement.
Why what happens after work is important to engagement at work.
The secrets to being a more engaged employee, and/or boss.
Why empathy is the most important leadership competency.

Thursday, September 29, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: The Talent Activation Continuum: How Connected HR Technologies Deliver Better Business Outcomes

For a long time, the use of disparate HR technology solutions throughout the talent lifecycle has streamlined paperwork and tasks, but has not effectively engaged employees and has even hindered their contribution to organizational business outcomes, such as productivity and revenue. In addition, demonstrating the value of these technologies to the C-Suite was difficult as best.

Brandon Hall Group will show through its research how an engaging “user” experience, whether it be the candidate or employee, can empower talent at every stage of the lifecycle, from recruitment through onboarding, talent management, and learning and development. By having connected HR Technologies that foster employee engagement, HR professionals will be able to clearly align their strategies with organizational goals, deliver on business outcomes, and prove the value of their solutions and practices to the C-Suite.

In this webinar, join Daria Friedman, Principal Analyst for Talent Acquisition at Brandon Hall Group, and SilkRoad as they show how organizations can engage their talent through the effective use and selection of HR technology.

Thursday, September 29, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: Automation – Delegating to Robots! (Free for Institute for Performance and Learning members)

Have you ever found yourself staring down hours and hours of the same, boring, low-value task? Stop gritting your teeth and doing things manually- there are a lot of tedious technical tasks that you can automate, leaving more time and brain power to the areas you can add more value.

In this session, you'll learn how to use a variety of tools and common software packages to:

Convert/optimize/edit large batches of images, video, or audio.
Rename files.
Search and replace in many files.
Run common tasks on your computer.
Create HTML learning objects from Word.
And more.

With these powerful tips and tools, you'll be more efficient and able to do more in less time than ever before.

Thursday, September 29, 2016, 10AM – 11AM PT: The Three Secrets to Building Your Coaching Habit (Or Any Habit)

If you're a busy mentor, trainer, manager, or leader, then developing a strong coaching habit can help you work less hard and have more impact.

And who doesn't want that?

But building a new habit isn't necessarily easy. Have you heard the line "do it for 21 days and it becomes a habit"? Someone just made that up.

Luckily, there's new science from the world of behavioural economics, neuroscience, and psychology that tell us exactly how to build a sustainable habit.

In it you'll discover:

A quick recap of the five essential questions for the busy manager.
The three dysfunctional roles that everyone gets sucked into. (Which one will be your default?)
What the lies are and what's truth when it comes to building habits.
The New Habit Formula.
And much more.