If it feels like one-twelfth of your year is already gone (which it is), don’t panic! Give yourself a break about January—it’s one of the busiest and most stressful months for businesses and individuals. Move on to February and all its possibilities. What are you going to get done? Chances are one of the free webinars being offered this month can help.  

Wednesday, February 1, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: State of the Industry Webcast (Free for ATD members)

The State of the Industry report is ATD’s definitive review of training and development trends. In this webcast, Maria Ho, manager of ATD Research, will discuss learning benchmarking data from ATD’s 2016 State of the Industry report.

The webcast will explore trends in key learning metrics, including:

• Direct learning expenditure.

• The average number of training hours used by employees.

• The average cost per learning hour.

• What training methods companies are using.

• Content areas that companies are focusing on.

Maria will also look at these key metrics for ATD’s 2016 BEST Award–winning organizations, which were recognized for their commitment to talent development.

Thursday, February 2, 2017, 10AM – 11AM PT: Training Managers on Budgeting Basics (Free for ATD members)

The budget is a cumbersome and time-consuming experience, done once a year, and dreaded by all. Few organizations provide their managers with formal training on how to prepare a budget; those that do often teach budgeting in a vacuum, without explaining its relationship to the larger financial picture of the organization and the achievement of its long-term goals.

This webcast will discuss how to structure a training program to bridge the knowledge gap, leveraging the use of technology, live instruction, and mentoring to increase the ability of your managers to prepare and monitor their budgets more effectively. After this webcast, you’ll be able to:

• Identify the financial competencies required to budget effectively.

• Assess the knowledge gap of your key leaders.

• Outline a cost-effective training strategy to improve the budgeting skills of your management team.

Friday, February 3, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: Building Your Instructional Design Career (ATD member/subscriber content)

Being an instructional designer is like no other role in an organization, especially in an ever-accelerating environment that depends upon an agile workforce that can deal with the pressure to do more with less. Join us for this members-only Ask-A-Coach session with instructional designer and author Julie Winkle-Giulioni. Julie will facilitate a candid conversation about the instructional designer role, its unique challenges, how it’s changing, and how you can keep up with it. 

Monday, February 6, 2017, 10AM – 11AM PT: Unsung Heroes in Healthcare (Free for ATD members)

Do your administrative professionals have skills they’re not using? This webcast will explore how to leverage all their skills and how a program developed by University Health System accentuates and promotes critical thinking. Topics:

• The value of administrative professionals in healthcare.

• The programs used to help develop administrative professionals at University Health System.

• How to sustain the development of administrative professionals.

Tuesday, February 7, 2017, 7:30AM – 8:30AM PT: Focus on Integration: Connecting Learning to the Right Systems

As the talent management (TM) landscape expands and solutions become more specialized, integration has become more critical than ever. The challenge, however, becomes deciding what systems should be integrated and when the integration should happen. Organizations are quickly becoming home to an elaborate array of disparate technologies. How do we know which ones are the right ones to integrate?

Join David Wentworth, Senior Analyst at Brandon Hall Group, and Michelle Sullivan, Marketing Director for NetDimensions, as they discuss trends and best practices in integrating talent solutions.

Discussion topics include:

• Current research on TM integration.

• Different integration scenarios.

• Real-world examples of organizations integrating TM with enterprise systems.

Tuesday, February 7, 2017, 12PM – 1PM PT: Creating a Cost-Effective E-Learning Platform for Engaging Talent Development (Free for ATD members)

Developing talent through engaging e-learning is essential for effective training. Gamified content, badges, and certificates, and a best-of-breed content strategy through Moodle can inspire social learning, collaboration, and friendly competition that keeps employees engaged and productive.

In this webcast, you’ll learn:

• How Moodle engages employees by creating an online learning hub.

• How Moodle makes it easy to integrate with innovative e-learning tools to enhance the learning experience.

• How to create learning paths in Moodle for personalized professional development.

Wednesday, February 8, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: 3 Mistakes Even Smart Presenters Make that Keep Their Participants Bored and Disengaged

Without proper training, it's easy to copy the mistakes even smart presenters make that create disinterested, disengaged, and dissatisfied attendees—and prevent them from remembering and applying what you’re teaching them. These mistakes sabotage the time, effort, and cost that you put into your session plans.

By the end of this interactive session, you’ll be better able to:

• Avoid three common training mistakes that cause participants to become bored, unmotivated, and restless during training sessions and presentations.

• Use strategies to avoid these costly training mistakes.

• Plan techniques that increase trainee engagement and learning.

• Increase the chances that participants can use what you’re teaching them back on the job.

Wednesday, February 8, 2017, 10AM – 11AM PT: Research Spotlight: You Need to Fix Your Employee Engagement Problem…. Before It Is Too Late!

Most organizations do not realize how critical it is to have an engaged workforce. Without an engaged workforce, even an organization with the most innovative product, will suffer. Global competition and increased open communications through social media make having an engaged workforce an imperative. One lapse in customer service or one disgruntled employee can mean multitudes will hear about that matter through Facebook, Twitter, Glassdoor, and other sites. And, according to the Brandon Hall Group Engagement research, organizations that consider at least 60 per cent of their workforce to be highly engaged are more likely than the others to see over the past year an increase in revenue (63 per cent vs. 49 per cent) and an increase in customer satisfaction (56 per cent vs. 42 per cent).

It takes more than an engagement survey and a few events to have an engaged workforce.

Discussion topics include:

• Scope of engagement issues confronting organizations.

• The impact of a highly engaged workforce.

• Best engagement practices to galvanize your workforce.

Thursday, February 9, 2017, 6AM – 7AM PT: Leading an International Delegation to ATD 2017 (Free for ATD members)

The ATD 2017 International Conference & Exposition is the largest event for talent development professionals worldwide. It will provide you with the knowledge, strategies, and solutions you need to effectively train and develop talent. You’ll gain insights into the latest trends, best practices, and new solutions for designing, delivering, implementing, and measuring learning programs. ATD 2017 covers all industry subjects and provides in-depth guidance for what you need to know now to be successful. Come away with an outlook on what the future of talent development holds, and be prepared to address new challenges. When you reach your fullest potential, you can effectively develop the talent around you, giving your organization the ultimate competitive advantage—a workforce that is prepared to face the demands of today’s ever-changing business environment. Organizing a delegation is one of the most effective ways to cover the more than 300 sessions at ATD 2017.

This webcast will provide you with information and advice about international delegations and ATD 2017. You will hear from two of our returning and most successful delegation leaders!

This webcast will help you:

• Lead an international delegation to ATD 2017.

• Implement best practices from experienced delegation leaders.

• Review highlights from ATD 2016.

Thursday, February 9, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: The Art of Using Hyper-Stories in Learning

Many learning professionals say: “I’d love to add stories and storytelling in my lessons, but they are long, tedious and hard to do, not counting the fact that it’s costly.”

Today we’re bombarded by multiple stimuli from all forms of media. Studies have shown that we’re most likely to respond best to news, social media, and lessons that are hard-hitting and present vivid stories. We jump and respond quickly to the content, immersing ourselves in the story.

The challenge is: How do we as trainers, designers and developers, and subject matter experts (SMEs) use the most important part of the story to catapult our learning lessons into the minds of our learners?

• Why are learners easily glued to moving stories?

• What part of the story is so compelling that learners must respond?

• How do you select the hyper-story as the important lesson?

• How does one apply the 3-Step Hyper-Story Lesson Creation process?

Attend the webinar and receive demos and video examples in advance. 

Thursday, February 9, 2017, 10AM – 11AM PT: Business Writing for Managers and Leaders (Free for ATD members)

The ability to communicate is the single most important skill a manager can have, and good writing is at the heart of communication. Most issues that managers handle end up in writing, and solutions require the clear thinking reflected in good writing. This webcast will provide managers with the techniques they need to organize topics, capture attention quickly, express ideas clearly and efficiently, and make a message visually inviting. We’ll discuss how to handle difficult situations tactfully in email and how to influence an audience.

Friday, February 10, 2017, 8AM – 9AM PT: Reducing Burnout Within Healthcare Organizations (Free for ATD members)

Research has found that more than half of physicians show at least one sign of burnout, and that burnout has a negative effect on patient satisfaction and outcomes. Nurses and other healthcare workers are struggling too. The inevitable changes in healthcare from a new presidential administration increase the risk of burnout. Healthcare organizations need to act now to help guard their people from a heightened risk of burnout. In this webcast you will learn:

• Current factors in healthcare that increase the risk of burnout.

• Three elements of burnout.

• Signs and effects of burnout to watch for.

• The surprising solution to protecting people from burnout.

• A simple, memorable, and actionable framework to create a culture that increases resilience.

• Five proven practices that help protect people from burnout.

Monday, February 13, 2017, 10AM – 11AM PT: The Importance of Coalition Building (Free for ATD members)

In pursuit of technological development and scientific advancement, too often innovation is created in a vacuum with little to no foresight into the broader applications and usability beyond the intended customer or market. It’s easy to have tunnel vision when sprinting toward the finish line but that laser-focus that drives product development can significantly deter long-term success.

Many times the failure doesn’t stem from the technology or field of study itself, but rather the lack of storytelling. It’s one thing to communicate your ideas. It’s another to communicate the impact of your ideas in a language others understand. All too often ideas fail because coalition building is ignored or deemed unnecessary.

Bridging the chasm between applied research and technology transition is difficult. The trick is to build effective coalitions so you don’t have to forge the path alone. Successful transition is rarely a linear path and business opportunities are still people-driven. In this webinar, you’ll learn the key steps to building a successful coalition, including:

• Discovering your value proposition.

• Creating a messaging strategy to properly communicate value and impact.

• Identifying end-goals and planning the path ahead.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: Microlearning for Transformation, Not Information Transfer

The modern employee has 1 per cent of their week to focus on training. What can they do with that roughly 24 minutes a week?

Turns out, a lot.

Armed with digestible and easily accessible microlearning experiences, we can create meaningful changes in behaviour across our organizations. Along the way, we can help elevate the role of L&D from order takers to change makers.

Join Alex Khurgin, Director of Learning Innovation at Grovo, as he explains the importance of leveraging microlearning when training modern employees and how to create a microlearning strategy of your own to meet the needs of your audience and goals of your company.

In this session, you’ll learn to:

• Overcome the three misconceptions that block most L&D initiatives from being successful.

• Create microlearning experiences that capture attention, motivate action, and make learning stick.

• Prove and report on behaviour change, not meaningless learning metrics.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: Is Your LMS Breaking Your Heart?

Valentine’s Day may be coming, but many organizations are not feeling the love when it comes to their learning technology. In fact, according to Brandon Hall Group’s 2016 Learning Technology Study, 44 per cent of companies are actively looking to replace their existing learning management system (LMS).

Organizations are looking for modern, flexible systems that can adapt to the evolving needs of the business and its learners. Join David Wentworth, Principal Learning Analyst with Brandon Hall Group and Caitlin Bigsby, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Saba, as they discuss the evolving learning technology landscape and strategies for finding the right LMS for your organization.

In this webinar, you’ll gain insights on:

• Best practices for finding an LMS that engages your workforce, reduces training costs and elevates skills to maximize productivity.

• How to future-proof your learning strategy with an LMS that allows you to keep up with the latest trends in learning and development.

• Connecting the dots between learning management and business performance.

• A proven technology migration framework, with practical steps you can take to ensure a successful LMS transition.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017, 10AM – 11AM PT: Learning from Each Other (Free for I4PL members)

Social Learning sounds great, so why hasn't it become more of a focus for L&D professionals? Join Warren Cohen, VP, Coaching Ourselves, as he shares the true challenges being voiced by HR professionals and some real-world solutions to spark people to learn from each other in the most human ways! This is a webinar you won’t want to miss!

Wednesday, February 15, 2017, 12PM – 1PM PT: The Sales and Service Training Shift: Technology’s Impact on Effective Learning Methods

Technology has not only impacted the way we think, it has also shifted into high gear how we receive and consume information. This plays out across all divisions of business, and sales and service organizations are no exception. Embracing new technologies, and accommodating personal learning styles, generational expectations, and varying skill levels, requires a comprehensive learning approach—one that combines traditional and modern modalities that fit your company, your team, and your culture.

Join Byron Matthews, CEO of Miller Heiman Group, and Sam Herring, CEO of Intrepid Learning, for an engaging discussion on:

• The modern learner, and why you need to care about what they want.

• Best practices for effective and engaging learning programs for sales and service people who can’t afford wasted time away from the job.

• How to align your business goals, your audience, and your modern learning programs.

• How changing your organization’s mindset around modern learning makes for better business results.

You CAN get salespeople to voluntarily take and utilize training—but only if it’s built for the modern learner.

Thursday, February 16, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: Primer to Skill-Based Learning – 5 Ways to Identify and Grow Skills in Your Organization

Deciding to use skills can be an important and strategic part of enabling your organization to understand where your bench strength is strong and where you may need to train. Having skills can help to do this, but where do you start?

Join Jesse Novak in looking at five things to consider when implanting skills in your organization and how this can apply to jobs, learning, engagement, reporting, and your LMS. 

Thursday, February 16, 2017, 10AM – 11AM PT: Learning Strategy for the Digital Age

This webinar will look at research and case studies that explore how technology, organization, and skills are shifting for learning teams as the impact of digital tools grow in learning.

With rapidly changing and improving learning technology, the ever-evolving composition of the workforce, and competitive pressures, your learning strategy must evolve to keep up.

Join Max Meadow, Principal HCM Analyst with Brandon Hall Group as he looks at the research and presents case studies of organizations going through the journey to a digital learning future.

Discussion topics include:

• The changing landscape of content, mobile learning and web-based learning tools.

• How shifting learning delivery and measurement strategies are changing learning team organization.

• What is being measured as learning changes.

Friday, February 17, 2017, 11AM – 12PM PT: Creating Accountability in Mentoring Relationships (Free for ATD members)

Mentoring relationships can have a real impact on job performance and careers. They can even create powerful strategic results. However, true change requires participants to invest in the relationship and hold one another accountable. How do you create accountability within mentoring relationships to make sure participants are gaining momentum and seeing results?

This webcast will examine the role of accountability in mentoring success and view four resources for creating accountability within mentoring relationships. You’ll walk away with actionable best practices and tools based on the industry’s only model for developing mentoring programs. Register now to discover how to create accountability in mentoring programs!

Monday, February 20, 2017, 11AM – 12PM PT: 19 Ways to Be a Bad Boss (Free for ATD members)

There’s a reason Hollywood produced a movie called Horrible Bosses. Listen in on conversations at a happy hour on any given Friday, and you’ll hear all about them: Bad bosses can be found at every level of management, and they often display the same characteristics.

During Kevin Sheridan’s leadership development workshops and keynote speeches, after teaching how important the manager-employee relationship is to improving employee engagement, he challenges participants to become someone’s “best boss.” He then explores the qualities of a best boss.

However, it’s just as valuable to consider the opposite. What traits do horrible bosses most often exhibit? This webcast will help you realize if you are working for a bad boss, but also help you to determine whether you’re exhibiting any of these traits yourself.

This webcast will teach participants the key traits of being a great boss, in addition to providing actionable best practices for being a best boss to your direct reports. 

Tuesday, February 21, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: Becky Pike Pluth’s Favourite NEW PowerPoint Tricks to Create Electrifying Presentations

You asked for it, and you’re getting it. New PowerPoint tips, tricks and application uses. Stand out in your next meeting or training session and amaze your colleagues with new skills. This interactive webinar is a must for any PowerPoint user.

Objectives:

• Explore new PowerPoint tools you can use immediately.

• Discover how to make PowerPoint engaging.

• Examine 10 PowerPoint design tips and tricks.

Tuesday, February 21, 2017, 11AM – 12PM PT: The Happiness Advantage at Work: Rewriting the Formula for Success (Free for ATD members)

Creating a happy and engaged culture requires leaders and their organizations to embrace a new formula for success. This webcast will explore how some of the world’s most innovative organizations have used their happy work cultures as a strategic advantage to outpace their competition. You’ll:

• Learn about the Happiness Advantage and how the formula for success used by most businesses is backwards.

• Hear in-depth examples from pioneering organizations that are using happiness as a strategic, competitive advantage.

• Begin a personal action plan that will start you on your own happiness journey at work.

Wednesday, February 22, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: Developing Your Leaders’ Emotional Intelligence to Improve Organizational Performance

New research is showing that emotional intelligence is no longer a “nice-to-have.” It’s a need-to-have in today’s workplace and serves as the building block for professional success. It’s not a building block that’s isolated to a few professions or job roles. It’s just about as universal as a success principle can be.

EQ, however, is widely misunderstood as something people either have or don’t have.

This webinar will outline a development plan for your leaders, managers, and key employees to help improve EQ across your organization.

EQ can be learned, developed, and improved. It’s a critically important core business skill, and as you see your employees reach higher levels of mastery, you will see higher levels of performance across a broad spectrum of business skills and professional skills.

• Learn why EQ is necessary to business success.

• Learn the markers of low and high EQ.

• Discover how to create an EQ development plan for your organization.

Wednesday, February 22, 2017, 10AM – 11AM PT: Research Spotlight: Putting People Back into Performance Management

Performance management gets a lot of attention in the popular press, but most of it focuses on a few organizations that have done away with the annual performance management evaluation or review. Annual reviews are not the critical element of performance management. Success depends on ongoing communication—performance conversations—and clear performance goals that are discussed and adjusted as needed to account for the ever-changing business environment.

Attendees will learn:

• What it takes to move from a process-focused to a people-focused performance management strategy.

• What coaching for development looks like and how it works.

• How Baker Hughes, Sears, and other companies are able to improve business results through strategic performance management.

Wednesday, February 22, 2017, 11AM – 12PM PT: Outfit Your Managers to Weather the Change Storm (Free for ATD members)

No matter where you live (unless you’re lucky enough to live in San Diego), you have to be prepared for the weather to change on a dime. That means having all the appropriate gear: umbrellas, snow scrapers, salt, sunscreen, hats.

Now consider the corporate equivalent. Are your people—in particular, your managers—prepared to weather the change storm happening in your business? Do they have the right gear or tools they need to thrive? Join this webcast for a fresh perspective on what it takes to prepare managers to thrive in and drive change. You’ll learn:

• Why managers are critical to change.

• What holds them back.

• How you can outfit them to best drive change.

• The most effective skills and tools for supporting change.

Thursday, February 23, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: Mobile eLearning for Beginners

Are your learners coming to you with constant requests to make the learning content available on mobile devices? Does everyone ask why you can't put your videos into mobile-friendly format and stream them to mobile phones? Are you just worried you might be falling behind the mobile curve?

Join Bhim Kaul for this beginners-only session on mobile-responsive eLearning design and development. You'll learn the fundamentals of mobile eLearning, without all the technical jargon. Discover how you can easily create projects that fit properly on phones and tablets, even when they rotate.

Learn how to take advantage of Captivate to let it do the heavy lifting for you, and keep your focus where it belongs, on the learning.

Friday, February 24, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: Making the Move to Management (ATD member/subscriber content)

Do you think you'd like to be in a management role someday? Are you preparing to move into a management position soon? Are you unsure if you'd enjoy a management role? Join us for this members-only Ask-A-Coach webcast on making the move to a management role. 

Friday, February 24, 2017, 1PM – 2PM PT: Evaluate Succession Planning Program (Free for ATD members)

In healthcare, effective succession planning is a leadership imperative. Yet what is the definition of effective? How are the results of a succession-planning program being evaluated? Which metrics are most meaningful to executive champions? Many metrics are suggested to measure the effectiveness of succession planning, such as pipeline population numbers, percentage “ready-now,” and “time to fill.” However, these measures often fall short in resonating with leadership. The key is to connect measures to strategic business outcomes. This is possible by applying the Rothwell Model, which continues as the framework of webcast 5 in this five-part series.

This webcast will:

• Examine the Rothwell Model and step 7: Evaluate program results.

• Explore how to communicate succession program effectiveness.

• Review benchmarked measurement practices for succession planning.

• Discuss a real-world case study in healthcare.

Tuesday, February 28, 2017, 9AM – 10AM PT: 6 Ways Every Training Team Should Be Using Video (and How Technology and Millennials Can Help)

Melissa is a rising star at your company. She’s been promoted five times in as many years, and is on track to join your leadership bench program. And unfortunately, she just gave her two weeks’ notice.

Capturing the knowledge of exiting employees is one of the ways you could be using video, but probably aren’t. This session will explore six examples of how companies are improving their learning strategies with video, and also examine trends driving the shift to video, and how you can tap them within your business.