Hard to believe it’s already March! The short month of February flies by so fast that March tends to take us by surprise. If you feel like you’re on the back foot and could use a little coaching, why not check out a free webinar or two and get some fresh ideas?

Thursday, March 1, 2018, 9AM – 10AM PT: Open-Source vs. Closed-Source LMS: Why the Technology Your LMS Uses Matters

When looking for a new Learning Management System, there are a multitude of questions that must be asked, starting with: What do I need my LMS to be able to do to allow us to reach our eLearning goals? However, one consideration that people often overlook is the type of technology that an LMS uses, which is important to consider when evaluating whether an LMS will be able to provide the type of functionality you’ll need to meet your goals.

Therefore, when beginning the LMS evaluation process, one of the first questions you should ask yourself is whether an open-source LMS (like Moodle or Totara) or a closed-source platform (like SumTotal or Cornerstone) will be better suited to meeting your needs.

This webinar will discuss:

• The fundamental differences between an open-source LMS and a closed-source platform.

• Why the technology your LMS uses is important, including significant considerations regarding data ownership, security, LMS customization, product updates and support.

• The advantages and disadvantages of both types of platforms.

Thursday, March 1, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: Making of a Mindful Leader (Free for ATD members)

Did you know that 68.5 per cent of employees are disengaged at work? Organizations report 65 per cent lower share price over time and 18 per cent lower productivity because of disengaged employees. You have the power to positively influence employee engagement and organizational productivity by being a mindful leader. In this webcast, you’ll learn the steps to become a mindful leader. Come prepared for an interactive session that will provide you with takeaways that you can start using today. In this session, you’ll:

• Identify the benefits of being a mindful leader.

• Learn to meditate.

• Find ways to detox.

• Create a strategy to invest in yourself.

• Identify and practise the virtues of mindful leadership.

Thursday, March 1, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: The Power of Appreciation and Recognition in the Workplace

Appreciation is a cornerstone of society—existing in every culture on earth since the beginning of time. Statues are erected of people who impacted our world. Buildings and parks are named after great community leaders.

One place where appreciation is not often expressed is perhaps the one place where it’s needed most—at work.

But organizations that appreciate and recognize their employees—not just for blockbuster achievements but for meaningful efforts and results—get better business results than organizations that don’t, according to Brandon Hall Group research.

This webinar is designed to inspire organizations to do a better job of recognizing and appreciating their employees—because it is the right thing to do, and it makes business sense.

David Sturt, EVP of O.C. Tanner and co-author of Appreciate: Celebrating People, Inspiring Greatness, will share stories of real people in real jobs from around the world—some who hold moments of recognition near and dear to their hearts, and others who have leveraged those moments to build brilliant careers. Claude Werder, VP/Research Operations and Principal HCM Analyst for Brandon Hall Group, will add insights from research and his more than 35 years as a leader who understands the power of appreciation.

Friday, March 2, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: 5 Ways to Tell if Independent Consulting is for You—and 5 Indicators That It’s Not! (Free for ATD members)

Being an independent consultant has never been easier or more accepted than today. An independent consulting practice can generate significant income, provide you with flexibility and control over your schedule, and allow you to home in on the work you love to do most. Yet more than 50 per cent of these practices will fail in the first few years.

If you’ve pondered the idea of going out on your own, you’ll want to join this webcast led by Kris Taylor, who has had a successful, six-figure consulting practice for 14 years, and Katie Workman, who has launched a successful practice in under a year.

Kris and Katie will help you discern if you have what it takes to go out on your own and will share five indicators that independent consulting may not be for you. Going out on your own is a big step, and this webcast can help you determine if you should take the leap from corporate to consulting. By participating in Kris and Katie's webcast, you will learn:

• Helpful and clear ways to judge if independent consulting is for you.

• Key indicators that consulting may not be for you.

• Ways to go forward if you decide to pursue independent consulting.

Monday, March 5, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: 10 Strategies for Building Resilience (Free for ATD members)

Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from difficulties, become more adept at managing change, and come out stronger than ever, rather than becoming overwhelmed and drained. In a volatile and ever-changing world and workplace, resilience has become one of the most significant traits for managers and staff to develop. While some people seem to be more naturally adaptable than others, anyone can become stronger and more buoyant by learning and practising proven resilience-building strategies. In this webcast, you’ll learn:

• Three ways to build personal power and confidence.

• Two methods to foster change stamina.

• Habits to nurture and nourish your resilience.

Tuesday, March 6, 2018, 12PM – 1PM PT: What Castomers™ Want: A Disney-Inspired Approach to Employee Care

The Disney philosophy doesn’t start with customers. It starts with "castomers." The formula is simple. A great castomer experience leads to a great customer experience. Castomer care involves four elements summarized in the acronym TEAM.

• Teach – Develop employees so they can reach their full potential.

• Engage – Involve employees in decisions that affect them.

• Appreciate – Acknowledge and thank employees for their efforts.

• Manage – Provide employees with the tools and assistance they need.

In this session drawn from his book Care Like a Mouse: The Key to Disney Quality Service (Theme Park Press, January 2018), Lenn Millbower, The Mouse Man™, shares Disney-inspired TEAM techniques for meeting your castomer needs.

Topics covered will include:

• The arc of the castomer training experience.

• Processes Disney uses to involve the castomer in decisions.

• Recognition, rewards, and perks that honour castomer effort.

• The Disney expectation of its managers.

Wednesday, March 7, 2018, 9AM – 10AM PT: Serious Game Success Stories

Various organizations utilizing eLearning are developing Serious Games to increase both engagement and interest during employee training programs. This is due to game mechanics being an effective way to teach today’s learners, resulting in higher motivation and desire to complete training. However, many people face challenges in the development process, unsure of exactly what is needed for planning and implementation. Fortunately, this does not have to be the case.

Many companies have successfully designed Serious Games for training and obtained the desired results that were aimed for. This session will review steps that should be taken during Serious Games development and share some of the best practices utilized in the industry to ensure specific goals are met. In addition, various Serious Games success stories will be highlighted, identifying the attributes that led to their positive results.

In this session you’ll learn:

• What makes a Serious Game a success or failure.

• Best Practices to use when creating Serious Games.

• Serious Games success stories.

• Serious Games resources.

Wednesday, March 7, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: Blended Learning: A Five Dimensional Puzzle of Technology, Design, People, Place, and Time (Free for ATD members)

Has your organization made blended learning a priority? Are you confused about what blended learning is, and how it can affect learning results? Perhaps you’ve seen many blended learning programs fail and want to make sure your initiative is successful. If you are involved with blended learning design in any way—or want to be—you need tools, resources, and a blueprint to move forward. To ensure the success of modern blends, it is necessary to lay a strong foundation to manage the change from more traditional models.

Whatever your situation, this is a good place to begin your journey. This session, a preview to Jennifer Hofmann’s new publication, What Works in Talent Development: Blended Learning (ATD, February 2018), will help you to set the stage for more effective programs.

This live online session will explore how to:

• Design blended learning campaigns.

• Implement a content strategy, facilitation plan, and content curation plan.

• Evaluate the results of a blended learning campaign.

• Ensure ongoing success for your campaign.

Wednesday, March 7, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: Upskilling for Successful Digital Transformation

As organizations undergo digital transformation of processes, procedures and protocols, one part is often missing: people. There is much focus on the tools and technologies required to make this shift, but companies are finding themselves with skills gaps.

Learning and HR departments should be stepping up in a couple of ways. First, companies need a strategy to upskill their people for a new digital environment. Second, learning and HR teams need to undergo this transformation as well, acquiring new skillsets that keep them ahead of the curve.

Join David Wentworth, Principal Learning Analyst at Brandon Hall Group, and Becky Willis, Vice President of Enterprise Engagement from EdCast, as they discuss the impact digital transformation will have on learning and HR, both from a delivery and strategy perspective.

Discussion topics include:

• Digital transformation.

• Upskilling the workforce.

• Digitizing learning.

• New learning skills and tools.

Thursday, March 8, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: Is Your Organization’s Performance Recognition Program in Alignment with Employee Preferences?

According to Brandon Hall Group’s Rewards and Recognition research, the majority of organizations implement their rewards and recognition program to improve employee engagement (78 per cent), show appreciation (77 per cent), and improve culture (70 per cent). But what do employees think about their employers’ rewards and recognition programs, and how are those programs impacting their perceptions about their employers?

As an example, Engage2Excel’s recent Trendicators report reveals that employees from organizations with a performance recognition program are nearly twice as likely as their cohorts (without the program) to indicate: I am proud to tell people I work for my organization.

Topics discussed include:

• Rewards and recognition practices and their impact.

• Preference variations by different segments (gender, age, etc.).

• Importance of specific program features.

• The logistics of implementing the program solution.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018, 9AM – 10AM PT: 3 Strategies for Making Training Videos Easier to Search... and 5 Reasons Why It Matters

When it comes to enabling on-demand learning, search is absolutely critical. After all, if a resource can’t be found, no one will be able to benefit from it.

Historically, search has been the single biggest drawback to including video in training programs. Video may be a more engaging format, but no one was willing to watch a 90-minute recording just to find a specific two minutes’ worth of details, especially when a quick keyword search could turn up the right page in the handbook.

But that’s all changed. Today, a growing number of strategies are helping learning & development teams make the contents of their training videos more searchable. Learn more, including 2018’s new best practices for using tags, transcriptions, and technology to make your training videos easier for your employees to search.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018, 10:30AM – 11:30AM PT: When Sales Enablement Fails: Discover the Pitfalls That Can Sabotage Your Program (Free for ATD members)

You’re familiar with a to-do list. In this webcast, we’ll tackle your sales enablement don’t-do list, with a look at the common mistakes practitioners make when designing, executing, and measuring their program investments. Our discussion will cover a range of topics, including identifying sales enablement’s unique purpose for your company; building consensus on goals and objectives; navigating the mandate for interlock with contributors in sales leadership, sales operations, and product marketing; and mastering the metrics that matter to your most important KPIs. In this webcast, you’ll learn:

• How to strike a balance between scoping and building a successful long-term program while managing short-term expectations.

• Best practices for setting specific, measurable program goals that support all constituents.

• The critical metrics for linking sales enablement to desired business outcomes, and growing your budget over time.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018, 11AM – 12PM PT: Want Results from Your Sales Training? Design for It

If it is true that many organizations spend $10 – $12 thousand on hiring individuals and only $2 thousand per year on sales training, that means that what organizations do spend on sales training needs to count. Making sales training and enablement count requires program design that aligns with the needs of the business.

Join this interactive webcast with Jack and Patti Phillips as they describe how you can design for and demonstrate results of your sales training.

After attending this webcast, you’ll be able to:

• Define the data sets possible for your sales training and enablement.

• Identify the drivers for impact and ROI.

• Design your programs to deliver results.

Following the webinar, participants will receive an application guide and a case study describing a simple application of the process to sales training. 

Wednesday, March 14, 2018, 8AM – 9AM PT: Decoding L&D Jargon: How Learning Can Use Machine Learning and AI (Free for ATD members)

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning could prove to be invaluable as solutions to both hiring and modern skill development challenges. The problem? Many of us don’t actually know the differences, and most tech providers that say they do AI don’t actually provide exactly that. Join this webinar to get a better understanding of these terms and how they can be used to benefit both employees and L&D management. In this webcast, you’ll learn:

• The differences between AI, machine learning, and personalization.

• How these principles can and should be applied to learning operations.

• Suggestions for bringing AI into your learning organization.

Wednesday, March 14, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: What Learning Theories Teach Us About Learning in VR

This webinar showcases one of the best-rated, most popular sessions, speakers, or topics from Realities360 2017 Conference & Expo, now available to all through this special online presentation.

Virtual reality (VR) is receiving more and more attention as a training medium. Providing unique, immersive, and highly personal experiences, VR genuinely has much to offer. But it is very different from other training media, and it can seem unapproachable, expensive, and even game-like. Despite all the attention, VR is just another medium, and the rules of learning apply here: As instructional designers, L&D professionals, and trainers, you have all the tools you need to assess the VR options that are coming your way.

In this session, you’ll learn initial ideas and frameworks for how to use virtual reality for learning. Specifically, you’ll learn what virtual reality is particularly good at, and why. Participants will then take that list and create a simple grid framework that can be used with whatever learning theories you believe are most important. Cognitive load theory will be used as an example. 

Wednesday, March 14, 2018, 12PM – 1PM PT: Trends in Learning: Where Should I Focus Today?

Join in for this in-depth look at what tools, design and technologies we should be focused on in learning today, what’s just around the corner, what technology will be enhancing learning, and what we need to get excited about and start planning to integrate into our solutions. What can we learn from the buzz and new tools appearing in the consumer and corporate environments and how can we take advantage of them to help our users learn?

This fun session will give you dozens of ideas and reboot your brain for fresh perspectives on how to enhance your learning today. 

Thursday, March 15, 2018, 9AM – 10AM PT: How to Ensure Your Training Solutions Are Enterprise-Ready

Join Allen Partridge to discover how your eLearning programs can match up to the growing demands of technology and business today. Learn the critical aspects of enterprise-readiness in the 21st century, including Integration: connectivity and extensibility; Security and reliability; Scale: data access, speed, performance, reporting, visualizing multi-source data; Discoverability: search capacity, performance, modernization, speed; Brand compliance; Alignment of skills and talent to business goals; and compliance to industry standards and regulatory support. 

Thursday, March 15, 2018, 9AM – 10AM PT: Aligning Training to Business Goals

For any organization to have a successful training program, it is critical to align business goals and strategic initiatives. Hear from BizLibrary experts on how to effectively align goals, track progress, and measure results.

Key objectives:

• Identifying business goals and initiatives.

• Aligning training goals to the business.

• Setting milestones to track progress.

• Developing tools to measure results.

• Reporting results.

Thursday, March 15, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: The Power of Dialogue (Free for ATD members)

Progress in technology is leading us to regress in language. Conversations in the workplace and elsewhere are often marked by misunderstanding and confusion, resulting in lost time, rework, damaged relationships, and wasted resources. Skillful use of dialogue can result in more effective and more efficient communication, relationships, and results. If you want to communicate clearly, candidly, and with care, this webcast will reveal seven components of dialogue and the language that supports each one:

• Focus: Identify your desired outcome for any conversation or meeting.

• Listen: Create a space that supports your attention to others.

• Question: Design and incorporate questions that promote fuller, richer conversations.

• Reveal: Share your thinking to increase a common understanding.

• Challenge: Come from a place of curiosity, and encourage perspective taking.

• Negotiate: Collaborate to create solutions that stick.

• Commit: Clarify next steps and follow up to ensure progress.

Take part in this lively webcast to dig deeper into the benefits and challenges of dialogue and how to make this practice an important part of your toolkit.

Tuesday, March 20, 2018, 9AM – 10AM PT: Expanding the Reach of Your Classroom with Video

Are all of your employees able to take time away from work for classroom training sessions? Do you have an unlimited travel budget to allow them to attend training? Are they fully engaged and meeting your learning objectives?

For most of us, the answer to these questions is “no.” But it is possible to provide training to all employees, 24/7, 365 days a year, on any device. Join this complimentary Training Magazine webinar, sponsored by ej4. Kathy Irish, Director of Operations at ej4, will share how video can extend the reach of your classroom and achieve your learning goals when you combine it with traditional methods.

This interactive webinar provides easy-to-understand insights on how video:

• Can stretch your budget.

• Can support and reinforce your classroom training.

• Supports the evolving role of your trainers.

Tuesday, March 20, 2018, 11AM – 12PM PT: Accelerate L&D Impact With Integrated Digital and High-Touch Experiences (Free for ATD members)

Leaders want “just-in-time, just-for-me, just-enough” learning. Your stakeholders demand leadership development that delivers maximum impact with minimal disruption. How can you satisfy everyone’s needs? While the digital classroom enables most L&D to shift to the virtual world, in-person classroom sessions, coaching, and development projects won’t go away. DDI’s latest research shows that technology, when integrated with high-touch methods, accelerates learning impact and leadership growth. Join this webinar to learn:

• How L&D teams can personalize and enhance leadership development experiences in and beyond the classroom.

• How to maximize the value of technology to fuel learning that results in positive personal and organizational impact.

• What to look for in an ideal virtual learning environment to develop leaders.

Tuesday, March 20, 2018, 12PM – 1PM PT: Case Studies on Microlearning Savings, Cost Reduction, Business Growth

The main purpose of microlearning is to help workers fix, solve and improve work issues. One way to do this is to help provide smaller or chunked content. However, this unique strength of microlearning presents a problem. It’s hard to collect and report data on microlearning impacts. Therefore, it’s hard to justify the investments.

This webinar will cover these topics:

• Why are microlearning impacts difficult to track and capture?

• How to set-up a “just-for-the-moment” analysis to collect the usefulness and impacts of microlearning?

• Where and how to find the microlearning impacts?

Cases studies will cover:

• Savings from “minimalist” learning design.

• Accelerating cash flow from earlier implementation of projects.

• Reducing wasteful wait time that stops performance.

• Making compliance courses easy, seamless and useful rather than avoided by learners.

• Protecting against errors and mistakes from missed information or lack of updates.

• Rapid updates of knowledge as it changes daily or almost anytime.

Join the webinar and get a copy of Ray Jimenez’s “Microlearning Impacts Analysis Checklist.” 

Wednesday, March 21, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: Effective Talent Development in 2018 and Beyond

Brandon Hall Group’s latest research shows that more organizations understand that their talent practices in this global and digital economy must quickly evolve from separate processes to a truly integrated approach driven by the need to improve individual and business performance.

When asked about their top human capital management priorities for this year, organizations responded with one overwhelming answer—better alignment with the organization’s business goals.

In this webinar, Claude Werder, Vice President/Research and Principal HCM Analyst, will discuss Brandon Hall Group’s vision for Talent Development in 2018 and beyond. Werder will explain how HCM and the business can become better aligned by:

• Doing a better job of matching the DNA between job candidate and organizational culture.

• Creating a learning strategy to drive learning from short-term memory to long-term memory. This involves a much stronger commitment to creating content to match the learning styles of digital natives.

• Reinventing leadership development to build emotional intelligence in leaders, while still focusing on competencies and skills.

• Improving linkage between employee engagement efforts and individual performance development.

• Creating an organization-wide focus on humanizing HCM technology.

Thursday, March 22, 2018, 9AM – 10AM PT: Making Leadership Happen, at Scale: Combining Collaborative Approaches to Leadership with Emerging Digital Learning Tools

Today’s interconnected, fast-changing and unstable world demands a new kind of leadership. Instead of putting the entire weight of leadership on individual managers and their capabilities, we need to examine how the whole system is involved in making leadership happen.

Along with a system approach to making leadership happen, we need approaches to leadership development that also focus on the collective, not the individual, and that happen at scale.

This webinar will look at:

• Why is a ”whole system“ perspective of leadership required?

• What does it mean to “make leadership happen”?

• How are managers involved in making leadership happen?

• What does leadership development look like when the whole system is involved in making leadership happen?

• How do we create collaborative leadership development in a digital context?

Join the webinar and click here to download the FREE “Making Leadership Happen” white paper by Cindy McCauley and the Center for Creative Leadership.

Thursday, March 22, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: A Day at the Troubleshooting Range – Persistence in Finding Assistance

They say the best way to get the answer you want is to continuously ask better questions. This master class uncovers some of the tools you can use to improve your troubleshooting process, where to look when trying to pinpoint your problem, and how to frame your questions so that you are better equipped to solve your problems more quickly. 

Thursday, March 22, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: Why Management Skills Matter (Free for ATD members)

Managers are the bedrock of work. They are also the reason that many people hate their jobs. Most new managers have a strong desire to be successful, and for their team members to enjoy working for them. But because they lack the skills they need, they spend a long period—typically up to 12 months—in a trial-and-error mode. And while they make those errors (and slowly learn on their own), they frustrate their team members. This webcast will talk about the results of a study that ATD conducted to better understand how to close the management skills gap, identifying five core skills that managers need to be successful:

• Accountability

• Collaboration

• Communication

• Engagement

• Listening and assessing

These skills make up the ACCEL model, which presents a clear road map to help new managers master the transition to management. The webinar will discuss practical strategies for developing these skills, as well as tools and resources that will help new leaders navigate this change in mindset and behaviour quickly and efficiently!

Tuesday, March 27, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: The Manager’s Role in Employee Continuous Learning Journeys

As more organizations move away from just-in-time learning to a more continuous, microlearning model, the challenges come in supporting, measuring, and accounting for the shorter frequency of learning. While learning professionals can leverage technologies to address these concerns, it’s critical for managers and supervisors to plug into this process in a meaningful way. After all, they’re the ones who are best positioned to follow up, evaluate and implement the skills and knowledge that comes from their employees’ learning.

Join David Wentworth, Principal Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and David Williams, Sr. Director of Bridge Marketing at Instructure, as they look at the role managers must play in supporting the ongoing learning journey.

Discussion topics include:

• The shift from just-in-time learning to continuous microlearning.

• The manager’s role in assigning, assessing and advancing the learning.

• Learning strategies that enhance continuous microlearning.

Thursday, March 29, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: Polarity Management: How to Develop Physician Leaders’ Abilities to Leverage Polarities for Organizational Success (Free for ATD members)

Polarity management is a universal framework and set of principles applied to problem solving and conflict resolution. It helps individuals identify and manage chronic issues that are seemingly unavoidable and unsolvable. While some issues are problems with a definite answer, the more challenging issues are polarities—situations in which either side has benefits and drawbacks. In this webcast, Amy Martinez, Cone Health's executive director for organizational effectiveness, and Abigail Dunne-Moses, senior faculty with the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), will discuss their process for developing Cone physicians’ capacity for polarity management. They will discuss how polarity management increases in value as the issues faced increase in complexity, diversity, and resistance to change. By participating in this webcast, you’ll gain a better understanding of:

• How polarity management can help address complexity within healthcare systems.

• How organizations can manage polarities without alienating diverse groups.

• Which polarities are common to healthcare.

• How polarities show up in an organization’s strategic objectives.

• Why leaders, teams, and organizations that better leverage polarities outperform those that do not.

• Why individuals who can leverage polarities are better innovators that those who do not.