Free T&D webinars for November 2014

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The year is racing along—here come darker days, with crunch-time to the holidays not far behind. Why not leverage this relatively calm time to build up your knowledge? November’s free webinars are full of innovative ideas, tips, and techniques to get you thinking about your business. We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Monday, November 3, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST:Generation Z: Understanding the Next Generation of Worker(Free for ATD members)

Having grown up post-9/11, in the wake of the great recession, and always connected online, Generation Z is an emerging group that your entire company needs to understand, from HR to marketing. Gen Z represents 23 million Americans born between 1994 and 2010. Dan Schawbel has spent the past year learning about Gen Z through a global research study spanning the world, from America to the UK to South Africa. The first of its kind, the study sought to understand the implications of this generation from both a workplace and a consumer perspective. Dan found that while Gen Y is more optimistic, Gen Z is realistic and has a strong sense of career management, philanthropy, and entrepreneurship. This self-sufficient and tech-savvy generation also poses new threats and opportunities for managers, marketers, and HR professionals. No matter what interests you about Generation Z, this webcast is tailor-made to fit your needs.

Tuesday, November 4, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Why Context Is King, Not Content – and What to Do in Your Learning Design

Learners are constantly on the go and demand rapid, short, and instant learning tools to perform on the job. Whether participating in structured courses or informal learning, they want knowledge acquisition to be fast and easy. Their leaders and businesses allow less time for training and expect shorter learning time. Most content is designed for DEEP DIVE LEARNING. However, learners' priority need is HIGH CONTEXT LEARNING to help them instantly find meaning and usefulness.

This webinar will share insights, techniques, methods, and tools on how to help organize your content so you aid the learner to determine what to learn first and how to learn it faster. This increases the application value of the content so they are equipped to solve problems and respond to on-the-job demands.

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Tuesday, November 4, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Women, Leadership, and Success(Free for ATD members)

Companies should not be run solely by men or be predominately male; nor should they be run solely by women. Generally, women offer different leadership skills and competencies than men, and these skills are every bit as important—if not more so. Women are more focused on organizational culture, the spirit of a company’s employees, and the long-term effects of decisions and actions. We need the best of both the male and female perspective in today's leadership.

During this webcast, you will learn to:

  • Empower women to continue their careers while attending to family responsibilities.

  • Communicate the accomplishments of everyone in the organization, including those working remotely.

  • Let go of limiting assumptions about women in business and the importance of being open-minded.

John Keyser will help you recognize the skills and competencies of talented women regarding leadership, client relationships, sales (such as creating new relationships), and the positive influence they bring to organizational culture.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014, 6AM – 6:30AM PST: Brandon Hall Group Membership: Dynamic Tools for Business Improvement

Whether you work within a Talent Management, Talent Acquisition, Learning and Development, or HR/Workforce Management function, a Brandon Hall Group Membership unlocks answers to questions that every organization needs in order to excel in today's fast-changing business environment.

Here are just a few findings from our latest research:

  • 68 percent of organizations say that coaching and mentoring is a highly effective learning method, but only 27 percent currently use it widely within their organizations.

  • Over 50 percent of organizations say their biggest regret when implementing HR systems is lack of training.

  • 64 percent of organizations operate without even a high-level strategy to guide their hiring strategy and initiatives.

If you are looking to enhance your human capital management processes, develop a better strategy, plan a major technology purpose or an organizational transformation initiative, Brandon Hall Group can help with its vast array of online resources and advisory and training services. Our members receive unlimited access to research and generous collaboration time with our team of expert analysts. Learn more about how BHG can be part of your team.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: The IBM Manager Experience: A Strategic Transformation(Free for ATD members)

IBM is currently leading its networked enterprise through a major transformation. New markets, new buyers, and new ways of working are demanding greater agility and speed like never before. In addition, IBM’s strategy to lead Cloud, analytics, mobile, social, and security has leaders at all levels working towards reinventing IBM to deliver a differentiated client experience.

Learn how the newly formed IBM Management Development Team turned its programs inside out and flipped the classroom, offering managers the tools and experiences needed to engage IBMers in delivering a new client experience. The director of this initiative, Wagner Denuzzo, will share how the management development team was able to design the experience, deploy programs, and gain senior leadership support within one year to create the New IBM Manager Experience.

During this webcast, you will learn:

  • How IBM is elevating the role of the manager to achieve the company’s strategic goals and change the landscape of management development.

  • What, how, and who to engage when initiating changes in your organization.

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Wednesday, November 5, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Behind the Screens: Secrets to Successful Synchronous Online Events

Just about anyone with a computer, an Internet connection, and a headset can produce and lead a virtual class, webinar, or other synchronous online event. Solid instructional design and good presentation skills will certainly help make these events effective, enjoyable, and successful, but challenges almost inevitably arise: Several of your participants can’t log in, no one responds to your carefully designed polls, your Internet connection drops just as you’re about to start the event, or that video … just … won’t … play.

Join us as we talk with three experts on designing and producing successful synchronous online events. Karen, Melissa, and Tammy are part of the team that has been producing The eLearning Guild’s Online Forums and various webinars for over a decade, they lead several Guild Academy courses on online-event design and production, and they have worked through just about every challenge to a successful online event imaginable. We’ll review several of these real-life challenges, discuss how we can meet these challenges with grace and ease, and learn what really happened.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Mental Game of Project Management: The Math of Project Lies

Pretend Lou just asked you how long it would take to you to design a job aid to support the new Hands-Only CPR process for your company. What would your answer be? Would you need more time to answer? Would you quickly Google to see what else is available or wing it on your own? And once you told Lou the number, would it be how long it would take you uninterrupted or how long it will take you on the calendar given your present workload? In other words, if you said two hours, would I get the job aid in two hours or two weeks from now when you have time to work on it?

At the Training 2015 Conference, Lou will be facilitating the Project Management Simulation clinic. During this session you will laugh and learn about:

  • The Lies we tell ourselves during our projects that prevent success.

  • The Lies our customers believe that prevent success.

  • The Lies our stakeholders and executives believe that prevent success.

  • How to eliminate guessing and just work back from the date.

Thursday, November 6, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Metrics that Matter in Onboarding Excellence

New Hire Onboarding sits at a critical junction in human capital management. As the process through which candidates become employees, it presents a unique opportunity for talent leaders to harness the momentum built up in the hiring process and launch new hires into a successful career within the organization. And yet, onboarding remains largely an administrative process for the majority of organizations today.

According to Brandon Hall Group’s 2014 State of Talent Acquisition Report, a mere 27 percent rated their onboarding process as more than moderately effective. By identifying KPIs and tracking the metrics that matter, these organizations are keeping ahead of the curve.

In this webinar, SilkRoad and Brandon Hall Group are teaming up to explore the metrics that matter most in high-performance new-hire onboarding programs. Questions this webinar will explore:

  • What are the most important metrics to measure in new-hire onboarding?

  • How do you gauge the impact of a more robust onboarding program?

  • What role does technology play in a high-performance onboarding program?

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Thursday, November 6, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Finding the Return on Investment in Blended Learning

Developing a blend takes investments in hardware, software, content development, and program design.  Implementing a blend requires investments in managing the program, marketing the program, and maintaining motivation through what might be a multiple-week (or month!) program for participants.

When we develop a face-to-face program, we know immediately after delivery what needs to change and we can adapt before we teach again. With blended programs, it might take six weeks to figure it out. After all this, how do we know if the blended learning program was worth the investment?  Sure, we can tell if people enjoyed the content using Level 1 evaluations, and if people LEARNED the content using Level 2 evaluations, but how do we evaluate at Level 3 (are they using what they learned on the job?) and ultimately Level 4 (was it worth the investment?).

These components together provide the background we need to calculate the Return on Investment (ROI) of our blended learning initiative. During this session we will discuss:

  • The pros and cons of virtual, on-demand and face-to-face learning.

  • How evaluation levels 1, 2, 3, and 4 relate to ROI.

  • Applying a five-step process to calculate ROI of a blended learning initiative.

Thursday, November 6, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Using Your LMS to Drive Customer Engagement and Deliver Results(Free for ATD members)

In a workplace with ever-increasing workloads, distractions, and information, getting potential learners to engage has never been more difficult. The days of an “If you build it, they will come” strategy are well behind us, and best-practice organizations are using a range of tactics to engage, excite, and build loyalty among learners.

Join us for a 60-minute session as we take a closer look at how one of those organizations, Bridgestone Americas, has put in place a multi-faceted engagement strategy with learning at the core. In this webcast, you will:

  • Hear how Bridgestone defined its business challenge and strategy.

  • See how Bridgestone implemented a learning portal that incorporates gamification, social learning, incentives, and more to engage its customers.

  • Discover a framework for effective customer engagement.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: Ensuring Happiness at Work

We have reached a unique time in history where no longer can we increase working hours and workloads expecting to maximize productivity and engagement. We can do better though—in a way that is both “good for people and good for business.” 

Contrary to what most of us have been told, our Success and Happiness formula is backwards. When we put happiness first everything changes. The science proves it. Want engagement? Want business success? Start with happiness. And sustain it. 

How do you do that?  How do you raise happiness levels for the long term?  How can you insure happiness?

In this webinar Shawn Achor and Gary Baker President of Nationwide Brokerage Services provide real-life examples of happiness efforts taking root. In this interview you’ll learn:

  • How one organization is creating sustainable business outcomes and ensuring happiness by embedding positive psychology in its work routines.

  • The latest in research findings on the application of positive psychology in the workplace.

  • The leader’s role in getting our brains and organizations to move towards both positive and engaged.

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Tuesday, November 11, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Who Is Going to Leave Your Company This Year?

Engagement is the greatest indicator of why an employee makes a decision to stay with their current employer. When employees are motivated to perform, overall business outcomes such as productivity, performance, and retention improve dramatically.

Although most companies recognize the benefits of a highly engaged workforce, few have the right strategies or tools to make it work. In fact, most companies are doing very little outside of simple engagement surveys. During this presentation, Brandon Hall Group analysts will share the top challenges, strategies and technology solutions for engaging and retaining your workforce. Key takeaways include:

  • The process for integrating engagement in overall talent management strategies, including performance and succession planning.

  • The technology and tools to help organizations improve engagement and retention levels.

  • The metrics to evaluate engagement and retention efforts.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: From Silence to Brilliance: How to Kick Off a Compelling Presentation

Lights! Camera! Crickets? Don't let the deafening silence of a disengaged audience derail your presentation. Immediately capture attendees’ attention by dazzling them with a wow-worthy introduction. Attend this live, interactive webinar to learn:

  • Confidence-building techniques to help kick-start presentations.

  • Pre-work that will increase the likelihood of engaging openings.

  • How to structure introductions that really motivate participation.

  • And more...

Wednesday, November 12, 2014, 6AM – 6:30AM PST: Working with Brandon Hall Group: Many Options, High Value(see below if you prefer a later session)

All solution providers need tools to connect with clients, and Brandon Hall Group  provides you with a wide variety. Our newest and best include:

BusinessBuilders: A research-based tool that helps organizations make a business case for new technology purchases. Available for licensing.

DataNow: Our new online platform that puts customizable research results in your hands as soon as our analysts close a survey. You can instantly filter data by company size, revenue, and region; reports on major verticals are also available. DataNow comes with all Ultimate memberships.

KnowledgeBlasts: Short research reports—on topics like technology selection and implementation—that deliver compelling data as well as tips on how to succeed. Available for licensing or as part of our Premier or Ultimate membership packages.

KnowledgeGraphics: Research data for your clients or prospects to put to immediate use. One-page, colourful graphics available for licensing or as part of Premier or Ultimate membership.

Learn more about these tools—and other services Brandon Hall Group offers to solution providers—at this insightful webinar.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014, 10AM – 10:30AM PST: Working with Brandon Hall Group: Many Options, High Value

A second web session is also available.

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Wednesday, November 12, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Top Ten Ways to Maximize the Value from Training 2015 (or any other learning event)!!

Who else has gone to training, or a workshop, or a conference—gotten inspired, perhaps overwhelmed with all the information—and 60 days later—no matter how great the experience—has to admit that they have not applied anything (okay—very little)? Our learners have this happen more often than we'd like—and if we are honest as trainers, we do it too!

But that ends as soon as you attend this webinar! In just 60 minutes Bob Pike will help you explore a powerful ten-step plan that you can implement immediately to maximize your next learning experience—hopefully Training 2015! Many trainers can attend one conference or event per year—if they are lucky—and often the next year it's someone else's turn. Following the steps Bob lays out will give you a plan that will demonstrate so much ROI to your organization that there are sure to be many more learning events in your future!!

Wednesday, November 12, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Creating Engaging Learning Video(Free for ATD members)

More people than ever are turning to video to learn new skills and obtain knowledge. Whether it’s on demand or as a part of webinars and eLearning products, learners are demanding visual content.

In this webcast, popular author Jonathan Halls will explain how video works in learning and what makes good video. He’ll also discuss the skills that trainers need in their personal development plans if they want video to be an important part of their professional toolkit. You will learn how video works as a communication medium, and explore the psychology behind why people watch and don’t watch video. Halls will highlight how you can make your videos more engaging and provide tips to help you shape your video so it’s focused on providing real learning. In this webcast, you will learn how to:

  • Make people want to watch your video.

  • Create video that engages learners.

  • Shape your video so that it provides real learnin.

Thursday, November 13, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: eLearning Essentials for a Device-Rich World(Free for ATD members)

Is mobile learning the next logical leap from online learning? Should you be ramping up your mobile solutions?

We have turned a corner in mobile-learning authoring with the availability of the easy-to-use, responsive authoring now found in Adobe Captivate 8! Join Allen Partridge for an introduction to responsive design and authentic learning for mobile devices.

Key takeaways:

  • Learn how to deliver high-quality, seamless, responsive, and device-aware learning experiences without any programming.

  • Choose from a selection of out-of-the-box responsive themes to render customized content for multiple devices.

  • Create award-winning simulations, HD videos, interactive modules, games, and more using Adobe Captivate 8.

  • Discover best practices for tweaking content on specific devices, and using the in-product preview to see how your project will appear on various screens.

  • Learn how to publish the course as a single project and automatically deliver the most appropriate experience for your learner’s device.

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Thursday, November 13, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: mLearning: What’s Working

Mobile devices are playing an increasingly large role in the delivery of learning, but organizations are still struggling to identify the most effective ways to use them. According to Brandon Hall Group’s Mobile Learning 2014 survey, only 42 percent of organizations are doing anything more than allowing limited access to learning via mobile web browsers, but 87 percent agree that the use of mobile for learning will increase over the next 12 months.

Join David Wentworth, Senior Learning Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Mark Simon, Senior Training Specialist for Hi Mark Solutions, as they examine some of the strategies organizations consider the most effective, as well as examples of companies successfully leveraging mLearning today.

Discussion topics:

  • The current mLearning landscape.

  • What’s working.

  • Security challenges.

  • Examples of mLearning.

Friday, November 14, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Best Webcast Series: Measuring Talent Development at Valvoline Instant Oil Change (Free for ATD members)

When measuring the impact of their programs, talent development departments too often settle for Level 4 data that doesn't connect to the needs of the business. In this session, you will see how Valvoline Instant Oil Change correlates actual employee business metrics with granular data from the employee training program. You will also look at methods for calculating a reasonable return on investment when the data you want isn't available.

Key takeaways from the webcast include:

  • The true measure of training is actual employee job performance.

  • Talent development departments should measure the knowledge, skills, and abilities that impact performance at a granular level.

  • When you can't get the data you want, reasonable ROI calculations are still possible.

Monday, November 17, 2014, 9AM  – 10AM PST:The Self-Aware Leader: Reinventing Yourself, Others, and the Business (Free for ATD members)

Our work constantly challenges us to find faster and better ways of doing things—to reinvent. Yet the speed of business pushes leaders to maintain a pace that is exhilarating one day and exhausting the next. Leaders who move too fast risk missing important pieces of data that feed solid decision making. Self-aware leaders slow themselves down to speed themselves up. They recognize patterns around them to increase momentum and productivity. This interactive session presents practical and relevant guidelines based on the research of more than 700 leaders. The pillars highlighted will change the way you approach your work, your team, and your business. All participants of this webinar will have access to two special promotions: First, buy 50 copies of The Self-Aware Leader: A Proven Model for Reinventing Yourself and receive a free and perpetual license to the new one-day training program based on the book. Please note that 100 percent of all book proceeds go to City Year. Second, all participants in this webinar will gain access to an online self-assessment based on the research conducted to validate the model introduced in The Self-Aware Leader.

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Tuesday, November 18, 2014, 9AM  – 10AM PST:The Coaching Approach: A Key Tool for Successful Managers (Free for ATD members)

In this webcast, ATD Research discusses the current state of the use of coaching as a managerial tool, and provides insight on how learning leaders can more effectively develop and sustain successful coaching programs. Although coaching is a powerful tool, only about a quarter of organizations incorporate it into their talent-development portfolio.

Key questions that will be discussed:

  • Have organizations identified the skills that managers need to be effective?

  • Do learning leaders provide managers with the learning assets associated with the necessary skills?

  • Do organizations emphasize, measure, and recognize coaching?

  • What are the best practices related to implementing, growing, and sustaining coaching, as identified by our research?

Tuesday, November 18, 2014, 10AM  – 11:30AM PST: Webinar Series: Building Better Leadership, Decision Making & Agility into Your Organization – Session 1: Kirk vs. Spock: Building Better Decision Making into Your Organization (Free for CSTD members)

Are you on a five-year mission to seek out better decision-making, to boldly go where no trainer has gone before?

We literally face dozens of decisions daily, from the ordinary to those more akin to intergalactic warfare. Decision making is a skill with many facets: how do you deal with a challenging stakeholder, when is enough analysis enough, how do you move the process forward, how can you add the most value, and how can a leader harness the most value from their crew? The Starship Enterprise has two great decision makers on board: Captain Kirk and First Officer Spock. Which of them does your organization need making decisions, and how will your training best prepare them?

Join us for a 25th-century view of decisions and learn what the future has to offer your organization today. You will take away tips from the latest research in neuroscience, develop new insights for targeting your training, and rethink the roles of your first officer and other crew members in the decision-making process.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014, 10AM  – 11AM PST: Best of DemoFest 2014: Award-winning eLearning in Action

This webinar showcases some of the award-winning eLearning projects presented at eLearning DemoFest 2014, now available to all through this special online presentation.

Each year at DevLearn, dozens of conference participants show off their latest and greatest eLearning projects at eLearning DemoFest, offering their fellow attendees the opportunity to see a wide variety of solutions to common eLearning challenges, and sharing information about the tools, technologies, and processes used to build them.

Meet several of this year’s winners in this complimentary Best of DemoFest Webinar. Learn about their award-winning projects and get some great ideas to apply to your work!

Wednesday, November 19, 2014, 10AM  – 11AM PST: The Business Side of a Successful Performance Consulting Practice: Session 5 – Unravelling Contacts

This series is for you if you are new to consulting or are thinking about starting your own consulting practice in the areas of training, eLearning, process improvement, or performance improvement.

Session 5 is about how contracts are structured and the implication of terms and conditions as they apply to operating a successful consulting practice. You will understand what your client’s procurement office is really wanting in its agreement with you and what you can negotiate.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014, 11AM  – 12PM PST: Moving the Middle: Motivating Existing Sales Teams to Perform Better (Free for ATD members)

Every sales organization can be categorized into top, middle, and bottom performers. Top-performing sales reps can be counted on for hitting quota and making those deals happen that didn't look possible. Most reps, however, fall into the middle category. Consider that a simple 5 percent gain in the middle 60 percent of your sales performers can deliver more than 91 percent greater sales than a 5 percent shift in your top performers. What if you could bump up your middle performers by just 5 percent? Join our webinar to better understand:

  • The art and science of understanding your middle performers.

  • Practical tips to help motivate those sales reps.

  • The full financial impact of motivating your middle performers.

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Thursday, November 20, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: 7 Strategies for Learning Leaders: Driving Agility, Accountability, and Results (Free for ATD members)

Much is expected of today’s learning leaders. They must ensure that their organization has the learning opportunities and resources it needs, measure the business value the department provides, and stay on top of their evolving role. This session is designed to help learning leaders build personal and organizational agility and success through learning. The seven strategies introduced in this webcast will help you stay at the top of your game.

Friday, November 21, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Understanding What’s Next in Talent: The People Cloud Future (Free for ATD members)

Companies in the future will have two key assets to manage—their technological infrastructure and their human capital—with an increasing overlap between the two. We are all familiar with Cloud Computing—the ability to share, store, and deliver computing services over the Internet in real time. In the future, the concept of the Cloud will jump from software to “wetware,” resulting in open-source talent sharing that will in effect create a “People Cloud.”

In this world, work will be shared, collaboration across the globe will be instantaneous, and “Cloud” employees will work for multiple enterprises on a variety of projects simultaneously. The essence of the People Cloud is rooted in the emerging pattern of work becoming more social. As boundaries between internal and external social networks continue to blur, companies have begun to embrace the wisdom of crowds to execute their business strategies. The People Cloud will give rise to not only a new approach to the employee lifecycle, but a new way of doing business altogether. As a result of the  webinar, you will:

  • Explore the trends pointing toward the future of the People Cloud that will completely reframe your organization and the employee lifecycle.

  • Expand your field of vision around the possibilities of the future so that you can make better maps and decisions in the present.

Monday, November 24, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Developing High-Performance Leadership Teams (Free for ATD members)

During the past couple of decades, organizations have increasingly become enamoured with the power of teams. However, if the team you are working with is a leadership team, comprised of "leaders of leaders," it will be difficult for them to build collaborative team-oriented relationships with their peers and hold themselves mutually accountable to achieve meaningful results.

By attending this session you will be able to:

  • Define what leadership teams do and ensure that you have the right leadership team structure.

  • Identify the specific benefits your organization will receive by investing in leadership team development and how to measure success.

  • Launch a new leadership team.

  • Address the unique challenges facing leadership teams.

  • Assess the competencies required to be a successful leadership team member and to lead a leadership team.

  • Support a leadership team’s development as a leader, trainer, coach, or facilitator.

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Tuesday, November 25, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Developing the 30-Second Perfect Learning Moments

Pictorials, symbols, emoticons, visualizations, and snapshots are 30-Second Learning Moments. However, they are challenging to create and construct because of pressure to deliver massive amounts of content. There is fear that our learners may not grasp what we want them to learn. This is the “They Must Learn All Content” mindset of trainers and designers.

Unfortunately, we are missing out on opportunities to help learners accelerate their need for learning and engagement. There exists the tendency to ignore or overlook new opportunities for instant and micro learning moments.

Attend the webinar and download Ray's “Chaos in Learning – Story Book,” a colorful pictorial of learning in a chaotic world. This is only available for those who attend the webinar.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014, 10AM  – 11:30AM PST: Webinar Series: Building Better Leadership, Decision Making & Agility into Your Organization – Session 2: Who’s Got the Ball? – Building Dynamic Leadership into Your Organization (Free for CSTD members)

An evolution of leadership thinking is afoot, driven by the need for greater collaboration, creativity, and efficiency in organizations. When we think of leadership as a dynamic role—a role that we all play at time—it opens up huge, untapped potential.

There is a second role—followership—that is just as important as leadership, but not well understood. When you combine leadership and followership, it produces partnerships which are the building blocks for the future, whatever it might bring. Through a series of interactive exercises you will uncover practical takeaways that create stronger leadership, more engagement, and greater organizational capability. It will change how you view leadership (and followership) forever.

Free T&D webinars for October 2014

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Out with the flip-flops, in with the rain boots—and if you’re lucky enough to be inside, the comfy slippers. It’s a great time of year to cozy up inside and get some of that work done that you might have been tempted not to do in summer. Why not redouble your motivation with a free webinar or two? October has plenty to choose from—we hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Thursday, October 2, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: Social Learning: Get Started

Although it seems that social and collaborative technology tools for learning have been around for quite some time, many organizations are truly just beginning to understand how to leverage them. According to Brandon Hall Group’s Social and Collaborative Learning 2014 survey, the majority of organizations are still in the emerging/developing stages of social learning.

Join David Wentworth, Senior Learning Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Kelly Young, Learning Program Manager at Humana, as they explore where the market is (and where you are) on the social learning spectrum. They will also share Humana’s journey into social and collaborative learning and what it takes to get started. Discussion topics:

  • Social Learning Maturity.

  • The importance of getting started.

  • A focus on engagement, alignment, and adoption.

  • Humana’s experience with “Buzz” and more.

Thursday, October 2, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Mastering Difficult Conversations

Nobody likes to deliver bad news, discuss a sensitive subject, or talk about a project or meeting that's gone wrong. The mere thought of these conversations can fill you with anxiety and distract you from your work. Because you can't always avoid these type of topics, you've got to be ready. You've got to take control and talk through them effectively. But how? Join Dr. Mark Goulston, international best-selling author and former FBI hostage negotiation trainer, as he shares practical, hands-on techniques for taking the stress out of toughest employee discussions. Attend this interactive webinar to learn how to:

  • Handle difficult discussions about behaviour, performance, or pay.

  • Keep the conversation calm when emotions run high.

  • Decrease your fear of confrontations.

  • Respond properly to employee pushback.

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Friday, October 3, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Journey to Sustainable Leadership: Creating a Leading-Edge Leadership Plan (Free for ATD members)

It’s no secret that public-sector organizations have a reputation for being process-oriented, with a more conservative culture and traditional hierarchical structure. Some might say this perception can create limitations when it comes to innovation and thinking outside the box in certain business areas, including training and development. Erin Mahoney, commissioner of the environmental services department at York Region, is taking this notion and tossing it in the trash—or closest recycling bin. Through a more progressive and strategic approach, Erin and her team have created, and are in the midst of rolling out, a new leadership plan that is unlike most existing in the public sector today, proving that when it comes to leadership development, there is plenty of room for innovation.

Monday, October 6, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: End the New Hire Blues: Get the Critical Information You Need to Prevent Disengagement and Turnover (Free for ATD members)

The cost of ineffective onboarding goes beyond the cost of disengagement and turnover. As anyone who remembers their own new employee experience can attest, ineffective onboarding extends the amount of time it takes to become a productive contributor. Thus, better onboarding means your new employees provide value sooner. To prevent the engagement decline that occurs after the honeymoon phase of the new-hire experience is over, you need to know how you can improve your company’s onboarding process, the new-hire experience, and your new hires’ relationships with their managers. In this webcast, you will learn:

  • Why your new hires probably aren’t telling you the truth—and the price you (and they) pay for it.

  • Language managers you can use to help engage new hires in constructive conversations that help them gather important information and promote engagement.

  • Processes you can use—from informal to more structured—that will enable you to gather key information and foster ongoing, open, unguarded conversations between new hires and their hiring managers.

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Tuesday, October 7, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: High Impact Sales Coaching (Free for ATD members)

Research shows that effective sales coaching can dramatically improve the performance of sales teams—in some cases driving up revenues by 20 percent or more. However, all too often sales organizations find it challenging to develop a sales coaching program that's embedded in a coaching culture.

This webinar offers best practices and strategies for developing an effective sales coaching program for your sales organization. You will learn to:

  • Create a coaching culture that empowers your sales force.

  • Use key performance indicators to maximize sales-coaching ROI.

  • Transform sales managers into highly effective coaches.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Learning Analytics as a Game Changer

Manage learning and development like a business by gathering the right metrics, driving continuous improvement, and reporting results up to the executive level.

This session will provide you with tangible recommendations and real-world examples for advancing your learning measurement maturity with a focus on the following key areas:

  • Scrap Learning: what is it and what should I do about it?

  • How to use business impact and ROI the right way.

  • Actionable reports for each role.

  • Quarterly executive reporting.

  • Establishing a sustainable approach to measurement.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Why Web Meetings Stink and What to Do About It (Free for ATD members)

Join internationally recognized communication expert Wayne Turmel to learn why about two-thirds of online time is wasted, and what we all can do about it. In this high-energy, candid, and informative interview you’ll learn:

  • Why web meetings are painful for the same reasons regular meetings are.

  • Why technology makes things worse.

  • Five tips for getting people to participate fully.

  • Four tips to stop getting silence when you ask if there are any questions at the end of the meeting.

At the end of this session, you’ll leave with the ability to save time, money, and brain cells by assessing your current virtual meetings, and identifying easy ways to make them better. And two lucky participants will receive a signed copy of Wayne Turmel’s book, Meet Like You Mean It: A Leader’s Guide to Painless and Productive Virtual Meetings.

Thursday, October 9, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Extend the Shelf Life of Your Training: Lessons You Can Implement from the Flipped Classroom

We’re sure you’ll echo our sentiment when we say that lecture-style training sessions can be quite the bore. Maybe even to the point of your business experiencing a case of “death by PowerPoint” (think rolling eyes and uncontrollable yawns). Since that’s no way to keep employees pleasant and productive, let’s see what we can do to switch things up in the boardroom.

Turn to education for a bit of inspiration and use an instructional method that’s giving the traditional model a run for its money: flipped learning. In the typical flipped classroom model, students review short video lectures at home before class, while in-class time is devoted to hands-on projects and exercises. Our discussion will address the following to help you get started:

  • Why the flipped model works in education, and how it’s an effective method for professional development.

  • How to implement video/visuals in your training.

  • Typical time savings for trainers and participants.

  • Ways to create video for your next training, including tech tips and best practices.

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Thursday, October 9, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Finding Your Inner Confidence When You Need It (Free for ATD members)

Has a lack of confidence ever kept you from pursuing your goals? Have you ever experienced self-doubt to the point where you talked yourself out of pursuing a job, a promotion, or a relationship? Have you ever gotten feedback that sounded anything like this?

  • “You always sound like you’re asking a question.”

  • “If only you could command the room.”

  • “You need to speak up more.”

If you answered yes to any of these questions, this session is for you. The above quotes are from bosses of female professionals who were passed over for a promotion. All three women were grappling with self-doubt, and it showed. You don't have to feel so uncertain or hesitant when the stakes get higher and the situation calls for some risk-taking. Nothing gets you closer to achieving your goals than a healthy dose of self-reflection and new-found awareness of your strengths and capabilities. After participating in this webinar, you will see how hesitancy and uncertainty are speed-bumps to be stepped over, and be willing and able to take considerable action toward advancing your career.

Thursday, October 9, 2014, 10AM – 1PM PST: Online Workshop: Creating Highly Effective Virtual Teams (Free for CSTD members)

Can a virtual team be as effective as a co-located team?  This is a question that organizations are debating, and the arguments on both sides are very compelling.  Factors like work-life balance and organizational savings need to be balanced with the value of face-to-face collaboration and managerial oversight.  Whether you personally embrace the concept or not, chances are you will participate as a virtual team member during your career.

After discussing the arguments for and against establishing a virtual team, this interactive workshop will use real-life examples to address six key enablers for success:

  • How to form the virtual team: Identifying the profile of an effective virtual team and its players, and how to engage existing team members in selecting new team members.

  • How to enable the virtual team: Ensuring the right technologies and processes are in place to ensure success.

  • How to maintain the virtual team: Creating inter-reliability, trust, and teamwork.

  • How to protect the virtual team: Identifying and managing issues before they become destructive.

  • How to lead the virtual team: Establishing credibility while maintaining the right balance of oversight and empowerment.

  • How to reward the virtual team: Creating team-building opportunities across the distance.

For each step in the process, tools and worksheets will be provided.

Monday, October 13, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: BEST Webcast Series: IBM – The Adaptive Learner: Making Every IBMer an Innovator (Free for ATD members)

IBM Learning has researched the behaviours that drive innovation. Hear how practical and simple promoting innovation through learning can be. This webcast will be sure to spark ideas about how your organization can be even more innovative.

Key takeaways include:

  • How to drive innovation through learning.

  • How new ideas are generated.

  • Practical learning design approaches.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Finding the Return on Investment in Blended Learning

Developing a blend takes investments in hardware, software, content development, and program design.  Implementing a blend requires investments in managing the program, marketing the program, and maintaining motivation through what might be a multiple-week (or month!) program for participants.

When we develop a face-to-face program, we know immediately after delivery what needs to change and we can adapt before we teach again. With blended programs, it might take six weeks to figure it out.

After all this, how do we know if the blended learning program was worth the investment?  Sure, we can tell if people enjoyed the content using Level 1 evaluations, and if people LEARNED the content using Level 2 evaluations, but how do we evaluate at Level 3 (are they using what they learned on the job?) and ultimately Level 4 (was it worth the investment?)? During this session we will discuss:

  • The pros and cons of virtual, on-demand and face-to-face learning.

  • How evaluation levels 1, 2, 3, and 4 relate to ROI.

  • Applying a five-step process to calculate ROI of a blended learning initiative.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014, 8AM – 9AM PST: ATD Human Capital Virtual Summit: Leadership For Today's Workplace (Free for ATD members)

Developing leaders in your organization starts with knowing your workforce. Implementing the wrong leadership strategy can mean losing time, resources, or even your employees.

The Human Capital Virtual Summit: Leadership for Today's Workforce is the second annual event hosted by ATD to take a deeper dive into leadership's role in developing talent. This event is focused on the different strategies available to today's leaders, and how each can best align with their unique workforce to drive results. During this summit, you will learn:

  • Strategies for leadership development from thought leaders in the human capital field.

  • Leadership tactics and how they work in various organizational environments, including virtual/remote employees, self-management, and "flat" organizations.

  • The pros and cons of different leadership styles, and how to dynamically change between them to fit your organization's current situation.

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Wednesday, October 15, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Three Keys to Making Your Internal Coaching Program a Success

For many years, costly coaching programs were reserved for senior executives and emerging leaders. Organizations now offer coaching beyond the executive suite. The difference is that these new coaching programs and services are provided by internal coaches: individuals who may not be certified in coaching, but are trained in a set of coaching skills to support a specific business need and produce monetary business impact. Attend this session and learn how to create a successful internal coaching program.

Learn about:

  • Internal Coaching: What it is and why is it important today.

  • Three examples of Internal Coaching Case Studies.

  • Three things to begin today.

Thursday, October 16, 2014, 10AM – 10:30AM PST: ATD Research Presents: Change Management Research (Free for ATD members)

This webcast is based on the recently released research report from ATD and the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), titled Change Agents: The Role of Organizational Learning in Change Management. The report aims to provide learning professionals with insight into the learning practices most likely to make a positive difference in an organization’s change-related capabilities. Join Patrick Murray, Vice President of Employee Surveys at i4cp, as he explores the findings of the report and how organizations

Thursday, October 16, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Wake up to the Digital Skills Gap! Update Your Employees' Competence in a Fast-Changing Cloud World

Technology is constantly evolving and learning materials are not keeping pace. The irreversible path towards Cloud-based applications is deeply impacting businesses of all sizes and from every sector. But most companies have yet to realize that their workers need now more than ever to adapt their digital skills to these rapid changes. The skills gap, accompanied by the fact that learners are changing their own behaviour, is urging their L&D teams to embrace a new era of online training: open to everyone, Cloud-based, fully localized, and always up-to-date. 

The session will cover:

  • Why is digital transformation launching a new era for L&D management?

  • Why should you take care of the digital skills gap now?

  • How to innovate with a global, multi-lingual solution for your worldwide workforce.

Thursday, October 16, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: Drive an Accountable Collaborative Culture in a Virtual World

Two of the enemies of productive teamwork are tension and conflict. Many employees have yet to develop the skills to navigate these tensions when they arise, either face-to-face or in virtual teams. The result may be breakdowns in communication and productivity that, over time, diminish trusting relationships. How can you increase the capacity of groups within your organization’s virtual teams to be accountable to each other and to their common goals? It starts by showing employees how to resolve conflict directly, contribute constructively, and build relational capital in every interaction.

Join us in this one-hour webinar to learn how to build accountability and collaboration in your organization. This webinar introduces the practical, proven methods contained in Peer Power: Transforming Workplace Relationships, by Cynthia Clay and Ray Olitt, applied to work in a virtual world.

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Friday, October 17, 2014, 10AM – 10:30AM PST: 7 Best Practices To Boost Employee Engagement (Free for ATD members)

In the average organization three out of 10 employees are engaged, while in the best organizations the number climbs to six or more. The low rate of engagement hasn't budged in more than a decade. Why? Employee engagement surveys and programs are not enough. Higher engagement is rooted in a culture whose language, attitudes, and behaviours make people feel connected to one another, rather than unsupported, left out, or alone. Employees in an organization with a high degree of connection are more productive, engaged, collaborative, and less likely to leave. In fact, research demonstrates that there is a set of learnable leadership behaviours that can ignite the workforce so individuals do more than survive—they thrive.

Sharing knowledge integrated from multiple fields, including neuroscience, organizational behaviour, psychology, sociology, history, and proprietary research, Michael Lee Stallard, president of E Pluribus Partners, describes the “connection culture” that every organization needs to boost employee engagement and to thrive for sustained periods of time.

Monday, October 20, 2014, 6AM – 7AM PST: BEST Webcast Series: Teknosa – A Career Road in Retail (Free for ATD members)

The Career Road in Retail program was designed in consideration of the strategic goals and route map of Teknosa, a Turkish retail chain. Consisting of interchangeable modules, this program was structured with targets to enhance performance and affect the Teknosa Key Performance Indicator. Career Road in Retail is carried out through processes such as performance management, talent acquisition, succession planning, and career planning.

During this session, you will learn:

  • How to make a competitive career plan in the retail industry.

  • Ways to create a common culture among employees and managers.

  • How to quickly implement large-scale movement with blended learning methods.

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Tuesday, October 21, 9AM – 10AM PST: Ally or Adversary? Navigating Professional Relationships (Free for ATD members)

"Difficult to manage relationships sabotage more business than anything else." – John Kotter, Harvard Business School.

For most of us, our early careers are spent developing technical expertise—and that's typically how we assess our value. Yet research and experience show that, as you progress through your career, it is the quality of your working relationships that has a greater impact on your success. This webcast draws ideas from the bestselling book Cultivate: The Power of Winning Relationships by Morag Barrett.

After this webcast you will be able to:

  • Articulate why quality working relationships matter—the business and personal impact.

  • Apply the Relationship Ecosystem to diagnose the health and quality of your professional relationships.

  • Determine the next steps to develop ally relationships and learn to manage adversarial

Tuesday, October 21, 9AM – 10AM PST: Building Leadership Skills and a Coaching Culture (Free for CSTD members)

Learn how developing leaders and creating a coaching culture can address:

  • Succession planning.

  • Strengthening leadership bench strength.

  • Cultivating teamwork.

  • Recruiting top talent.

  • Increasing retention and engagement.

  • Improving customer service, safety, and wellness.

  • Higher sales and higher profits.

Extraordinary leaders and coaches don't have to be rare—they can be developed by building on just 3 to 5 existing strengths, and following a proven process. In this learning-rich and fast-paced 60 minute webinar Jim Clemmer will outline how to build a culture of exceptional leadership and coaching in your organization.

Wednesday, October 22, 11AM – 12PM PST: Virtual Strategies for Social Learning (Free for ATD members)

Learning has always been a social process: It is human nature to learn from one another. What’s changed, however, is how social media and virtual learning technologies have made it possible for workers to collaborate in ways that were almost unimaginable a decade ago. Companies are now rethinking their approaches to corporate training, and are beginning to harness social technologies to increase learning outcomes.

In this webcast, you will learn to:

  • Create interactive employee networks.

  • Connect novices with coaches and mentors.

  • Foster greater interaction with subject matter experts.

  • Share knowledge through communities of practice.

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Thursday, October 23, 10AM – 11AM PST: Enabling Virtual Learning by Design (Free for ATD members)

We all know that the use of virtual classrooms, eLearning, and blended learning has gone beyond a trend to become an accepted and permanent part of the learning mix. It’s hard to find a subject that isn’t, in some form and at some level, taught online. With so much content and technology readily available, why don’t people seem to be learning more? And why do so many people feel like they’re being forced to learn online?

Join Jennifer Hofmann, president of InSync Training—the leading source for blended learning and virtual training design and delivery—as she looks closely at implementing five critical elements that set our learners up for success.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Bite Size Is the Right Size: How Microlearning Shrinks the Skills Gap (Free for ATD members)

We’re in the midst of a learning crisis. Rapid technological change has led to a skills half-life of just 2.5 years, according to Deloitte. At the same time, the way people consume information, and thus how they learn, has changed as well. Attention is a diminishing resource in the digital age. To defeat these twin challenges, we learning professionals must lead a revolution. Our secret weapon? Microlearning. Through case studies, anecdotes, step-by-step instructions, and group discussions, you will learn:

  • What microlearning is, and the science behind its effectiveness.

  • How to quickly create engaging microlearning that covers everything a learner needs to know.

  • How organizations of various sizes are putting microlearning into practice.

  • How to ensure that microlearning is addressing skills gaps in your organization, and driving your development and performance goals.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: How to Use Coaching to Make Training Stick (Free for ATD members)

The unfortunate truth is that many training and development programs don’t “stick.” Even if the classroom instruction is outstanding, what’s taught often doesn’t translate to improved performance on the job. For people to turn what they’ve learned into positive work habits, the brain has to “rewire” itself for the new skill. That means applying it repeatedly on the job. And because of the pace and stress of a typical workplace, it’s hard to get this kind of reinforcement without support. Along the way they need tips, reminders, encouragement, feedback, and accountability—in other words, coaching to stay on track. But there’s a problem: it’s not economically feasible for organizations to hire a coach for every person who participates in a learning program.

In this webcast, you’ll learn about a cost-effective solution to this conundrum: helping people who care about the learner’s success find out how to serve as “support coaches.” By offering encouragement, feedback, and accountability, these individuals can play a critical role to help participants stay on track and apply what they learn. You will get complimentary access to nine videos and an e-book on “Support Coaching” that they can share with others in their organization.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: What's Your Story? How to Lead With a Good Story

It is widely understood that stories are a great vehicle to communicate essential lessons and enhance learning—especially when used to influence, motivate, and lead others. For most people, however, the understanding stops there and key questions remain unanswered. What stories are most important? How do you stand out in a sea of sameness? How do you write, tell, and publish a good story?

In this practical, hands-on webinar, Dave Carroll, master storyteller, musician, and celebrated creator of United Breaks Guitars will:

  • Discuss his real-life experience with United Breaks Guitars and the impact this customer-experience story, viewed by some 15 million people, had on an entire airline.

  • Share the five stories every leader needs to know.

  • Provide an in-depth insight into one key story that can benefit every organization looking to increase personal meaning and engagement in the workplace.

Thursday, October 30, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Three Mysterious Keys to Interactive Learning: Game-Thinking, Game-Elements & Gamification (Free for CSTD members)

The terms game-thinking, game-elements, and gamification have all entered into the vocabulary of trainers, eLearning developers, and instructional designers in the past few years. But what do these terms really mean and how can you apply them to create interactive learning events that change behaviour and improve performance? How can you make your instruction more game-like without the cost and effort of creating a large-scale game?

Based on the bestselling book The Gamification of Learning and Instruction, this interactive session includes many examples of using game-elements, game-thinking, and gamification to promote learning for performance improvement, and highlights how organizations have added game-thinking to their toolkit. And, yes, you will play a polling game in this session. Discover how research-based practices and game-thinking fit in with today's fast-paced need for quick, effective instruction.

  • Apply three principles of game-thinking to the creation of a curriculum.

  • Explore how gamification has helped companies reduce training times and improve performance.

  • Use game-elements to create an accelerated learning curve.

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Thursday, October 30, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Don't Let Compliance Audits Take You by Surprise

According to Brandon Hall Group’s 2014 Compliance Survey, 90 percent of companies say it is important they are able to demonstrate learning compliance to an external agency, and about half of those say it is critical to their business. The ever-changing labyrinth of regulations facing organizations around the world presents unique challenges to the learning function. How are companies meeting these challenges, especially those in regulation-heavy industries, as well as ensuring readiness for compliance training audits at any time?

In this webinar, join David Wentworth, Senior Learning Analyst with Brandon Hall Group and Steve Young, General Manager of NetDimensions Asia Pacific, as they walk through some of the results of Brandon Hall Group’s 2014 Compliance Survey, identifying global trends, challenges and strategies.

Discussion topics include:

  • Audit cycles and readiness.

  • Different drivers for compliance by industry.

  • Differences in compliance strategies by industry.

  • Different methods for assessing compliance.

  • Accountability, budgets, development, and delivery.

  • Compliance training content development.

Thursday, October 30, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Use LOLAs to Increase Interactivity in Your Virtual Classroom (free for ATD members)

In this walk-the-talk webcast, Sivasailam "Thiagi" Thiagarajan will help you explore six different LOLAs to keep your participants engaged in your webinar and help them apply what they have learned. At the end of the session, you will be able to use Thiagi’s templates to rapidly design your own webcasts that immerse and impress your participants in interactive learning.

Free Webinars for September 2014

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It seems like summer goes by faster every year. As the days grow shorter and the beach becomes less tempting, indoor activities start to beckon. Why not get cozy with one of the free webinars being offered this month? We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014, 6AM – 7AM PST: BEST Webcast Series: Tech Mahindra—Aligning Learning to an Organization's Vision & Mission to Drive Business (Free for ATD members)

In this webcast, Tech Mahindra, an ATD BEST Award winner, will discuss how learning can become a strategic differentiator for organizational growth.

During this webcast, you will learn to:

  • Align learning goals to the organization's mission.

  • Draw business outcomes through learning initiatives.

  • Create a self-sustained learning model.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Learning From Diversity and Inclusion Leaders: Prudential Financial and Pepsico (Free for ATD members)

Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) is recognized as being a necessity to compete and thrive in today’s global, changing workplace and marketplace. Many organizations have discovered that putting the aspiration to create an inclusive environment into action is quite challenging. Join us for this interactive webinar, where we will explore two in-depth case examples: Prudential Financial, ranked number eight in the DiversityInc. Top 50, and PepsiCo, which has established innovative ways to reward and recognize individuals and teams who exemplify D&I. As a result of this webcast, participants will:

  • Learn how Prudential and PepsiCo establish priorities for D&I investments and obtain senior-level sponsorship.

  • Discover how Prudential and PepsiCo engage employees at different levels in their respective organizations to get involved.

  • Learn examples of “big wins” at Prudential in the workplace and marketplace.

  • Learn how PepsiCo creates rewards and recognition programs to promote diversity best practices globally.

  • Explore where PepsiCo and Prudential see D&I headed in the future

Wednesday, September 3, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: A Leader's Guide to Getting Things Done (Free for ATD members)

Getting things done in complex organizations doesn’t get any easier. Developing leadership gets squeezed out by the challenges and pressures of organizational life. Influential leadership is a new framework for making things happen, and for navigating between the short-term pressures and the long-term purpose of developing leaders.

Short, sharp, and practical, this webcast will share simple ideas that leaders can apply immediately to begin influencing more effectively, making faster progress, and freeing up time to allow their leadership to flourish.

Thursday, September 4, 2014, 5:30AM – 6:30AM PST: BEST Webcast Series: ICICI Lombard – Learning is Protein for the Organization's Muscle (Free for ATD members)

Hear how learning is the protein in the corporate diet at ICICI Lombard, a nine-time BEST Award winner. Learning is the perpetual fuel that satiates each employee’s personal desire to constantly stretch and grow. It adds variety and substance to every job and develops the muscle needed to drive a career. It enhances the flexibility and endurance that helps rise to new challenges. Most importantly, learning is the building block that helps the entire company to continuously grow, strengthen, and be more resilient. In this webcast, you will learn how to design remedial actions to optimize performance levels and build the knowledge and capability base across the organization.

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Thursday, September 4, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Finding Balance in Blended Learning: Making the Move to Interactive Online Training

In-person training is reliable, personal, and interactive. Online training is scalable, cost-effective, and empowers people to learn at their own pace, on their own time. With today's agile workforce, blended learning offers the best of both worlds. 

Yet online learning is too often limited to videos and slide decks, meaning learners may spend more time checking Facebook than learning the material. So how can organizations successfully make the move to online training while creating the same kind of captivating and engaging experiences found in person? 

In this lively webinar, you will...

  • Learn how to create interactive online learning experiences that your audience will love.

  • Explore ways to migrate lecture-style materials and exercises into online courses.

  • Receive actionable tips on how to convey concepts interactively and keep your learners engaged.

Immediately following the webinar, participants are invited to remain for a semi-private demonstration of the new Versal for Organizations platform.

Thursday, September 4, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Moving Beyond Compliance: Integrating Your LMS and CRM(Free for ATD members)

Most learning management systems (LMS) are put into place to implement and track compliance training. To ensure 100 percent employee compliance, it is essential to integrate the LMS with the organization’s CRM system. Your sales force most likely uses the CRM system every day—they probably don’t use the LMS every day. In many organizations, the LMS and CRM can leverage each other to achieve better product training and education. Better-trained partners can lead to improved customer satisfaction and reduced support costs.

Attend this webinar and learn how to:

  • Identify business cases for LMS/CRM integration.

  • List the benefits your organization could achieve with an LMS/CRM integration.

  • Diagram the system work flow for a typical LMS/CRM integration

Friday, September 5, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Marketing Strategies for a Targeted Job Search: Tips for Attracting the Attention of Employers (Free for ATD members)

Are you prepared to market yourself? Ask yourself these questions to find out:

  • When was the last time you revised your résumé?

  • Do you know what T&D competencies or expertise you want to showcase in a marketing campaign?

  • Can you describe the professional image or brand you would like to project?

  • Is your professional story up-to-date so that it represents the present into the future and not the past?

This session provides practical and useful tips for:

  • Developing a marketing action plan.

  • Identifying your market.

  • Viewing résumés as a basic marketing document.

  • Preparing for interviews.

  • Creating a positive and confident mindset.

Essential to a successful marketing campaign is knowing how to tell a story and what story to tell to whom. This session teaches those skills and more. Learn what it takes to get the recruiter to listen to you and place your name on the follow-up list. This discussion also will include some of the differences between  phone or face-to-face interviews and those held at job fairs and employment programs.

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Monday, September 8, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Workforce Management Study: Findings Preview

Powering meaningful analytics, workforce planning, and managing a dispersed and diverse workforce: These are some of the most critical workforce management challenges revealed in Brandon Hall Group’s latest research. We invite you to join Mollie Lombardi, principal analyst and study lead, as she shares a sneak peek at some of the initial findings from this breakthrough study, including how organizations are rising to meet these challenges. She will cover:

  • An overview of key concerns, drivers, and trends in workforce management.

  • Study demographics.

  • Insights into how organizations are using technologies like automated time and attendance, scheduling, absence management, and payroll solutions to drive business value.

  • How top-performing organizations are integrating workforce management with key talent and business processes.

  • The planned output from the study, including a timeline for publications on key topics.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: 2014 Excellence Awards Winners Revealed Sept. 9th

And so the countdown begins! Winners of the prestigious 20th annual Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards in Learning and Development, Talent Management, and Human Resources & Sales and Marketing will be announced in a live web event. Register for this much-anticipated live announcement and see which organizations will be dubbed as this year’s prestigious Gold, Silver, and Bronze awards winners in more than 50 categories.

Your hosts, Brandon Hall Group CEO Mike Cooke, COO Rachel Cooke, and VP/Corporate and Product Development Claude Werder, will take you through the winners of each category and highlight their achievements. As part of the program’s 20th anniversary, all winners will be honored at Brandon Hall Group’s HCM Excellence Conference 2015 to be held January 28–30 at the Hyatt Regency Pier Sixty-Six in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Conference presenters include select Excellence Award-winning organizations, who will take you through their journey of developing and deploying programs, strategies, modalities, processes, systems, and tools that have achieved measurable results.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Building Coachable and Approachable Employees for Training Success

The world of training is changing. The days of all-day workshops and seminars are behind us. Employees need to be developed, but there is little time allowed for the old traditional ways. This is where the world is changing, and NOW has never been a better time for trainers to build their value!

Employees and managers must share the responsibility for performance development. This webinar is dedicated to teaching the foundational principles that learners need to become high performers, and how trainers and managers can train and coach them.

  • What the foundational principles are.

  • Why foundational principles are required to develop targeted skills.

  • Why development of the foundational principles will drive coaching and training success.

  • How to create coachable and approachable employees.

  • How to assess employees’ learning capacity.

  • How managers can coach non-coachable and approachable employees into high performers.

  • Why coaching is Training’s # 1 Supporter.

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Wednesday, September 10, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Beyond the LMS: Building a Virtual Training Strategy

Join Training Magazine for a live webinar where you will learn how to create virtual learning environments that deliver an interactive learning experience. This webinar will also discuss how a virtual learning environment can complement your existing learning management system—increasing learner engagement, improving knowledge retention, and reaching learners at their point of need.

This interactive webinar will feature guidance on how to:

  • Increase the reach and effectiveness of your training programs.

  • Use a virtual learning environment to provide an outstanding learning experience.

  • Enhance and extend your existing learning management system.

  • Extend the life of training sessions and content.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: SharePoint for Training and Compliance (Free for ATD members)

Training and compliance are now more than ever a necessity in the corporate world. Adhering to applicable laws and regulations concerning your business is vital, and failure to do so can lead to severe penalties. Leveraging an option like SharePoint for training and compliance can effectively reduce security risks and challenges associated with compliance. In this session, we’ll discuss some examples of using SharePoint to support training and compliance in organizations. Topics include:

  • Managing training curriculum.

  • Employee onboarding/orientation.

  • Workflows and version control.

  • Project management.

  • Using SharePoint as LMS.

Join guest speakers Dr. Shawn Andrews and Matthew Smith as they walk you through some practical examples based on business problems, solutions, results, limitations, workarounds, and lessons learned.

Thursday, September 11, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: How to Add Adventure, Challenge and Discovery in Learning Lessons

Learners often feel that training and eLearning are the least interesting and engaging activities. They have no time. They are busy. So, we need to push hard or force them to complete courses.

What if your courses provide the learners a sense of adventure, challenge and discovery? What if the courses become so inviting that learners are glued to the screen and refuse to end the course? What if they rave about the course and attribute high praises? What if your course is virally promoted to other learners as a “must experience” learning event?

In this webinar, you will learn:

  • How to avoid using word learning games, but still add adventure and excitement in your courses.

  • How to use heroes (super bosses, employees, customers, etc.) or villains (really obnoxious bosses, employees, customers, etc.) to represent learning challenges.

  • How to add provocative exercises and interactivities that enthrall learners into action and learning.

  • How to set up an adventure-based exercise by following a step-by-step process.

  • How to make sure learners not only get excited but also use the knowledge.;

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Thursday, September 11, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: New Technologies for Virtual Coaching (Free for ATD members)

The latest innovation in achieving performance improvement has arrived, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Many of us are experiencing the pressure of  decreased budgets, remote teams, and an increased need for performance coaching.

In this webcast, we will share the key reasons why talent development suffers, and how to overcome those pitfalls and unleash performance. We will also share the latest in a leading, web-based technology platform that helps accelerate talent development.

Friday, September 12, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: The Executive Speaking Presence(Free for ATD members)

What makes us gravitate toward some speakers over others? What is it that makes some people easy to listen to, while others put us to sleep? What can we do to be a great speaker?

This session takes an in-depth look at what it takes to be a successful speaker today, and how to maximize your executive presence in front of any group. We’ll examine 12 key aspects of verbal communication that will help you succeed in presenting, leading meetings, training, and engaging others in successful conversation.

In this webcast, you will learn to:

  • Maximize your personal appeal by expressing a fine balance between strength and warmth

  • Enhance your content by creating clear, compelling messages and delivering them powerfully.

  • Boost your impact by turning presentations into interactive and appealing conversations.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014, 10AM – 10:30AM PST: Brandon Hall Group Membership: Dynamic Tools for Business Improvement

Whether you work within a Talent Management, Talent Acquisition, Learning and Development, or HR/Workforce Management function, a Brandon Hall Group Membership unlocks answers to questions that every organization needs in order to excel in today's fast-changing business environment.

If you are looking to enhance your human capital management processes, develop a better strategy, plan a major technology purpose, or initiate an organizational transformation, Brandon Hall Group can help with its vast array of online resources and advisory and training services. Our members receive unlimited access to research, and generous collaboration time with our team of expert analysts.

Learn more about how BHG can be part of your team. We will provide you with:

  • A short update on the latest research

  • A tour of our Research OnDemand member centre, DataNow (benchmarking database) and KnowledgeBases (database of technology solution provider profiles, and comparison tools).

  • Overview of strategic consulting services.

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Tuesday, September 16, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: When Remembering Really Matters: The Power of Serious Games for Learning

Remembering is hard. Forgetting is easy. Employees have to complete a lot of training during the year—so much so that it is simply impossible for them to remember everything that is asked of them. “Processes, policies, terms, Oh My!” While business-critical for organizations, so much detail can be overwhelming to learners.

This session shares research on remembering—and forgetting—and identifies techniques that foster long-term retention. It then connects these techniques to games and explains how games can help form long-term memories ... and business results. We'll share recent research on games and case studies that demonstrate how games can be used for learning.

Attendees will be entered to win a free "starter" package for use in your organization and—after the webinar—are invited to remain for a focused exploration of the game-creation platform, Knowledge Guru.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014, 10AM – 10:30AM PST: Working with Brandon Hall Group: Many Options, High Value

All solution providers need tools to connect with clients, and Brandon Hall Group  provides you with a wide variety. Our newest and best include:

  • BusinessBuilders: A research-based tool that helps organizations make a business case for new technology purchases. Available for licensing.

  • DataNow: Our new online platform that puts customizable research results in your hands as soon as our analysts close a survey. You can instantly filter data by company size, revenue, and region; reports on major verticals are also available. DataNow comes with all Ultimate memberships.

  • KnowledgeBlasts: Short research reports—on topics like technology selection and implementation—that deliver compelling data as well as tips on how to succeed. Available for licensing or as part of our Premier or Ultimate membership packages.

  • KnowledgeGraphics: Research data for your clients or prospects to put to immediate use. One-page, colourful graphics available for licensing or as part of Premier or Ultimate membership.

Learn more about these tools—and other services Brandon Hall Group offers to solution providers—at this insightful webinar.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Subject Matter Expert + Tablet = Faster, Cheaper, Better Video Learning Content

In this session, we'll discuss a whole new way to gather video learning materials from your subject matter experts. Rather than dragging them to a recording studio, why not put the studio in their hands?

We'll introduce you to a new class of tablet-based video production tools that makes it easy and even fun for SMEs to share their knowledge with the organization and its customers. You'll walk away with a couple of great new free tools and a lot of insight into how to fit these tools into a learning program.

We'll cover:

  • New, easy-to-use tools that will let your SMEs create content right from their tablet.

  • Best practices for using these tools effectively.

  • How to make this content even more effective with easy post-production tools.

  • How to coach your SMEs to get the best possible on-camera performance.

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Thursday, September 18, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: Cracking the Hidden Job Market (Free for ATD members)

In this fast-paced, 60-minute session, national job search expert Laura M. Labovich will share with you:

  • Why the "reactive" job search approach is a time-drainer and waste of time.

  • The importance of being proactive in your job search campaign, and why it's too late to land the job once the job is posted.

  • How a job target can enable you to help your network to help you better.

  • Why a company list is like a GPS for your job search.

  • How to become an insider—because insiders get hired!

Friday, September 19, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: Six Keys to Career Resilience(Free for ATD members)

It is commonly believed that “training is always the first to go” when organizations need to cut the budget, leaving many corporate training professionals looking for work. You often hear “let the problems roll off you like water off a duck's back,” but do you know that ducks aren't always waterproof? It takes a certain process for a duck to stay afloat, as well as for us to keep our career afloat. Building career resilience is crucial to your success. Using the metaphor of a duck’s waterproofing and relevant real-life case scenarios, we will explore the six steps to help you build your career resilience.

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Tuesday, September 23, 10AM – 11AM PST: Creativity Matters: Why Creativity Is Crucial and How to Develop Creative Employees (Free for ATD members)

Global business trends underscore the important role of creativity and creative problem solving in the new millennium. Indeed, many reports published in the last several years highlight creative thinking, innovation, and creative problem solving as essential 21st-century skills for both individuals and organizations. Unfortunately, most schools and organizations are not effective in developing these crucial skills. A recent Conference Board report on job readiness skills listed creativity as one of the 14 applied skills most desired about new hires, yet creativity was also the number one skill organizations felt least prepared to develop among employees.

The purpose of this session is to highlight how these trends support the need for more concerted and systematic efforts in promoting creative thinking in individuals and organizations. Some of the topics to be explored and experienced include:

  • What is creativity?

  • How can I become a more effective creative thinker?

  • How does creative thinking relate to leadership effectiveness?

  • How to develop the creative talents of employees.

Tuesday, September 23, 10AM – 11AM PST: DataNow: Easy-to-Customize Research for HCM Practitioners

Brandon Hall Group for more than two decades has produced great research on Human Capital Management. But providing research that is quickly accessible and customized to each client’s needs has been challenging. Until now. This webinar introduces new research that is instantly accessible and customizable for your needs through Brandon Hall Group’s new DataNow platform. In this webinar, Brandon Hall Group analysts will show highlights of recent learning, talent acquisition, and workforce management research that can you can see in various formats, filtered by company size, revenue, and more.

In this webinar you will:

  • See highlights of just-released research on Workforce Management, Social Talent Acquisition, Compliance Training, and Social Learning.

  • See how you can quickly filter data by company size, revenue, and much more!

  • See how data can be quickly exported to share with your team.

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Wednesday, September 24, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Agile Organization: Improving Time to Decision through Collaboration

Modern organizations are driven by their ability to react, change, and make decisions quickly. But attaining that agility can be difficult as organizations continue to become more diverse and dispersed. It takes more than just collaboration tools. It takes an organizational commitment to a collaborative culture, supported by the right tools and technology, to let organizations move faster, perform better, and win more often.

Join Mollie Lombardi, VP and principal analyst, workforce management, of the Brandon Hall Group and Shelley Schmoker, VP Marketing at Bloomfire, as they look at the links between agility and collaboration. The webinar will discuss:

  • How your organization can harness collaboration to improve decision making.

  • The key strategies to building and reinforcing a collaborative culture.

  • How collaboration not only supports internal processes like learning and performance, but how it impacts sales and customer service

Wednesday, September 24, 10AM – 11AM PST: Best of DevLearn: Streamlining Your eLearning Production Process for Efficiency

Clients want high-quality courses quickly and inexpensively, but there are many parts to creating eLearning courses, so you need an effective and efficient production process. A training, tracking, and performance monitoring system will let you increase your quality and decrease your production time and costs.

Session participants will learn best practices for documenting procedures, establishing clear roles, and creating tools, job aids, and checklists. You’ll get access to many of the tools and checklists. In this session, you will learn:

  • The data types to capture and analyze about your current production process.

  • How to map out your production process at both a macro and micro level.

  • How to create a knowledge base to help train team members and reduce effort.

  • How to create systems for effectively managing production.

Thursday, September 25, 10AM – 11AM PST:Strategies for Training Groups with Mixed Reading and Communication Skill Levels – Part 1 (Free for CSTD members)

Are you frustrated by mismatches between the materials you have to deliver, and the literacy, communication, and other foundation skills of the people who show up?

What can you do to increase your success in supporting learning with mixed level groups? Building support for literacy and foundation skills into your instructional and assessment strategies can enhance learning outcomes and support employees in developing their skills. Best of all, strategies for supporting literacy and foundational skills are often more engaging, memorable, and fun for everyone.

This is the first of a two-part webinar series offered by the Advancing Workplace Learning project in partnership with CSTD. To learn more, please visit the website. www.advancingworkplacelearning.ca.

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Friday, September 26, 8:30AM – 9:30AM PST: Creating Engaged Employees (Free for ATD members)

The word "engagement" evokes different impressions from different people. What does the word mean? Why should anyone care about engagement? How can an organization create and sustain a culture of engagement? This presentation will answer these simple, yet profound questions. Upon attending this webcast, participants will be able to:

  • Define the word “engagement.”

  • Explain how to make the case for engagement with leaders and key decision makers.

  • Build an organizational culture of engagement and sustain it.

Participants also will receive an instrument to compare their organizations' engagement culture to best practices.

Monday, September 29, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Employee Brain Performance: Leveraging Neuroscience to Improve Critical Thinking (ATD subscriber content)

Science offers surprising information about what really engages employees and makes a difference in optimizing their performance.

Claire Herring is the head of product at Blue Ocean Brain. Claire is a human capital performance improvement expert. Her work has been featured on the Hallmark Channel, in Real Simple magazine, Fitness Magazine, and Women’s Health. She combines her experience as a Big Four executive with advanced degrees in cognitive science to help organizations optimize employee performance and elevate critical thinking. As head of product for Blue Ocean Brain, Claire helps organizations promote cognitive skill improvement through intellectual challenges and fun experiences that are brand new 365 days a year.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: 3 Keys to Getting Employee Engagement Right

It's estimated that unengaged workers cost the US $350 billion/year and that US businesses lose $11 billion annually as a result of employee turnover. Clearly engagement is a key priority for all organizations—so why is it so low? And more importantly, what can be done—quickly—to get it right?

Join us as Mahan Tavakoli, Regional Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer for Dale Carnegie, shares best practices and action steps you can take immediately to start improving employee engagement.

Takeaways include:

  • Why organizations have largely failed to turn engagement around despite all the buzz.

  • Latest research into the drivers of employee engagement.

  • Actions individuals can take—immediately—to start boosting employee morale.

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Tuesday, September 30, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: From Searching to Shopping: Leveraging E-Commerce within Your LMS (Free for ATD members)

An extensive catalogue of training content provides tremendous value to an organization and its learners, but ensuring that learners can easily find and access the courses and resources they’re looking for is crucial. Luckily, there are many creative ideas that we can borrow from online retail to help learners find what they’re looking for and even discover content they didn’t know they needed. Finding ways to increase user adoption ensures your learning resources are used and valued!

In this session we will explore ways to leverage e-commerce capabilities to enhance the traditional training and development searching experience. You will learn how to:

  • Replace the standard enrolment processes with an intuitive shopping experience.

  • Expand the reach of your content through targeted promotions.

  • Leverage cross-sell offerings.

  • Monetize content to external users’ bases.

Free T&D Webinars for August 2014

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Lazy summer days? Not likely in today’s high-performing organizations! The great thing is that by tapping into the right mentorship, and by working smart, we can hit our performance targets—and enjoy a few beach days too. Why not get some new ideas from one of the free webinars being offered this August? We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Wednesday, July 30, August 13, and August 27, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Summer School for the Virtual Trainer

Register for this three-part webinar series with Jennifer Hofmann, president of InSync Training, to discover how to design and deliver an effective training program that will help you finish the year strong.

Join us for this series to learn:

  • A blend of delivery methods designed to maximize learning.

  • What training content is best delivered in a live, virtual format.

  • How to overcome common hurdles on the road to blended learning.

  • Key strategies for performing and facilitating online training.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: e-Learning:  Are You Serious?

If implemented correctly, e-Learning can positively impact any organization. But so much of the e-Learning created and invested in today relies on technology, and focuses on content instead of the learner and improving performance. The result: boring e-Learning and wasted budgets! 

Join Dr. Michael Allen as he explains how the 22 principles of the Serious e-Learning Manifesto can help combat today’s e-Learning failures by creating learning solutions that generate business impact. In this webinar, attendees will:

  • Gain valuable knowledge of the e-Learning Manifesto Principles.

  • See examples of e-Learning created with the Principles of the Manifesto in mind.

  • Understand the ROI of using the Principles of the Manifesto to create your e-Learning.

  • Understand the performance impact of using e-Learning that takes into consideration the Principles of the Manifesto.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Thinking of Replacing Your LMS

This session will help you reduce your fear and create a strategy for success during the process! Your business needs are changing fast, and so are the demands placed on your current learning technology. Learning leaders must stay a step ahead of their business, but that can be difficult when dealing with antiquated technology and limited delivery options. Do you have that nagging awareness that it is time to switch your learning technology, but haven't wanted to face the reality of doing so? Over 30 percent of organizations in a recent Brandon Hall survey had plans to replace their existing LMS solution. Most of them look forward to the transition with dread and concern. Can they make a solid business case for the change? Will the transition impact business processes or mission-critical learning needs?

Wednesday, August 6, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Death By Mismanagement: The Devastating Impact of Micromanagement (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

Employees today are often promoted through the ranks without always receiving the necessary training on how to be a rock-star manager. Through their ineffective behaviour, their teams’ production levels begin a steady downward cycle, ultimately ending in terminations, resignations, or demotions. Many productive employees leave an organization because of something their supervisor is doing—or not doing. Whether leaders find themselves too overwhelmed with responsibilities to take an active interest in employee development, or haven't received the proper leadership training to inspire creativity, take risks, and cultivate project ownership, the results are the same.

One of the biggest trouble spots arises in finding the balance between micromanaging and delegating. New, overzealous managers feel they need to know everything at all times. From their employees’ perspectives, this may be interpreted as a lack of trust and autonomy.

Help your supervisors learn how to walk the fine line between micromanaging and delegating, and enable them to motivate, lead, and inspire in even the most challenging times.

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Wednesday, August 6, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: HCM Technology Trends and Excellence Awards

Are you a solution provider that offers phenomenal, innovative technologies to Learning and Development, Talent Management, Human Resources, Talent Acquisition, and Sales Enablement functions?

Or are you an organization that has created or implemented technologies to help streamline, save costs, and improve productivity within your organization?

Then we want to hear from you and invite you to apply for Excellence in Technology Awards Program.  The program offers you an opportunity to showcase your products, which will be reviewed by Brandon Hall Group’s elite analyst team and industry experts.

Now entering its 20th year, the Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards Program is the most prestigious awards program in the industry. Often times called the “Academy Awards” by Learning, Talent and Business Executives, the program was one of the first of its kind in the learning industry, which was pioneered in 1994.

Thursday, August 7, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Breaking Training Development Project Rules

In 1969, the Project Management Institute (PMI) was founded. Project Management specialists were  building roads, buildings, the new “computers,” and lunar modules. The AT&T telephone operators still plugged wires into boards to transfer calls! Paper memos slowly communicated work to be done. Multi-tasking was unheard of. The PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) established a standardized and control-focused approach to doing projects, much like ADDIE brought to the new field of training.  

Now, 45 years later, our work looks more like a flashmob: interruptions, unending work, dysfunctional multi-tasking, and highly matrixed organizations. Everyone needs everyone to do their pile of projects. We have to embrace the structure of the PMBOK while looking at our project artifacts and tools in a new way. Join Lou Russell to learn about shortcuts that help “accidental” project managers organize and adapt to chaos.

Thursday, August 7, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Moving from the Classroom to VILT with No Drama (ASTD/ATD subscriber content)

Virtual Instructor Led Training (VILT) is now a fact of life for most organizations. Yet a lot of training professionals still struggle to make the move from the classroom to the virtual environment.

This webinar is hosted by Wayne Turmel, writer, speaker, and president of GreatWebMeetings.com, which teaches companies and their people to sell, present, train and lead people using online and virtual presentation and meeting tools.

Thursday, August 7, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: Thursday, August 7, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Best Practices to Ensure Maximum ROI on Learning and Development

Employee development these days is a big deal and it is at the top of CEO priority lists. Billions of dollars are being spent on development, and this number is ever increasing. Research studies show that companies that develop their employees - and do it well - reap big rewards in terms of product innovation, market share, and greater efficiency.

This webinar will be an informative and engaging one hour session that will conclude with five best practices that need to be considered to ensure maximum ROI investment for all L&D activities. This webcast will be of particular interest to: Instructional Designers, Trainers, ELearning Trainers, LMS administrators, Employee and Management Development, and Organizational Development – and has been pre-approved for one hour of continuing education (HRCI) credits!

You will learn:

  • The difference between training and development and how the difference effects your development communication plan

  • The definition of “scrap learning”

  • How people best develop new skills or capabilities

  • What learners are expecting in their development programs

  • How to ensure that development will lead to organization success

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Monday, August 11, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Global Best Practices in Building Service Cultures (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

Organizations with a powerful service reputation and a superior service culture attract and retain the best talent, achieve market leadership, and enjoy sustainable success. Ron Kaufman will show you why some organizations succeed beautifully, while others fail miserably. Find out what works, what doesn’t, what your organization should do, and what you must avoid.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Mixing It Up and Flipping the Classroom

Organizations have adopted the virtual classroom as a way to maximize training opportunities while minimizing costs. After a decade of ineffective sessions, training organizations are looking for instructional design techniques that will create virtual programs that will meet, or even exceed, the results achieved in more traditional settings.

Trending in the virtual classroom design space are two concepts: how to “flip the classroom” to maximize valuable collaboration time, and how to apply the latest thinking with regards to Bloom's Taxonomy to determine how best to deliver content in this new environment. Another key consideration concerns how blended learning fits into the equation. Do we need to both FLIP and BLEND?

In this session, techniques will be shared that will help you to:

  • Determine what content is best delivered in a live, virtual format.

  • Map learning objectives to the appropriate virtual classroom tools using a modern application of Bloom'sTaxonomy of Learning.

  • "Flip the classroom" to maximize the collaborative impact of "together time."

Tuesday, August 12, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Maximizing the Effectiveness of of Sales Training (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

Companies spend about $20 billion a year on various forms of sales training. Still, many sales leaders report low ROIs from their sales training initiatives. Join ATD for this webcast and learn how to maximize the effectiveness of your sales training initiative. Norman Behar and David Jacoby discuss five essential factors that can help you achieve sustainable success from your investment in sales training programs. Learning takeaways for attendees:

  • Motivate your team for training success.

  • Leverage the benefits of virtual sales training.

  • Reinforce training to make new skills lasting habits.

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Wednesday, August 13, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Building Trust and Transparency in Your Organization (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

We have a faltering economy and most organizations need top performance from their workforce to survive. Yet some of the actions needed for a company to remain viable come at the cost of losing the hard-earned trust of their employees, which greatly reduces productivity. If this is a familiar scenario for you and your organization, you will profoundly benefit from this webinar.

Join Bob Whipple for an enlightening program that shows a clear pathway for enhancing trust and transparency in organizations. This session is interactive and will reveal some wonderful opportunities for turning a corner on the malaise of the economy and the resulting disconnect in communication between companies and their employees.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014, 10 AM – 11AM PST: Big Data: What It is and What It Means for You (Free for CSTD members)

The era of Big Data - the creation of massive amounts of data often too large to handle - is here and you are one of the sources. You shop, text, Like, tweet, check-in, watch movies on Netflix and Google everything. And just maybe, your smartphone or tablet has become an extension of your body that you can't sleep without. Big Data is the present and future, and it is affecting you whether you like it or not, and whether you are aware of it or not. But what does that mean? How do we bring this new reality down to our day-to-day lives and careers?

Join Jamie Good, Social Media Specialist at Global Knowledge Canada, as he explores with you the implications and effects of Big Data on your present and future. Learn how being a part of our data-driven society impacts so many facets of your daily life and how Big Data will change the face of Learning and Development forever.

Thursday, August 14, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Next-Generation Learning Strategies for a Next-Generation World

What are your employees learning today? Or maybe a better question might be: are your employees learning today? If you aren't certain of the answer to either question, or the answer to either question is negative, you might have a problem. And the problem might not be your employees, either.

In March, we talked about a next generation of learning content strategies. Now we'll go deeper into that concept of a next generation of learning by exploring a new look at the very foundation of learning strategies more broadly. In this webinar, we'll explore what a next generation of learning strategies might include, how to develop such a strategy for your organization, and how you can begin taking action right away to build an effective employee learning program that will prepare employees to acquire the learning skills needed to learn how to perform effectively in jobs that might not exist today.

Thursday, August 14, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: On the Right Track: Designing Programs That Last (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

Using a one-size-fits-all approach when training can frustrate advanced learners and leave others behind. Training tracks address the spectrum of competency levels possessed by employees, and are more successful when teaching complex skill sets. In this 60-minute webinar, OpenSesame's Marketing Manager Katie Hurst will show you how to use backwards planning to build a series of lessons, ensuring your employees retain knowledge and more effectively apply skills in the workplace. You will learn to:

  • Differentiate between the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.

  • Learn the value of varied practice and lesson spacing.

  • Practice the Backwards Design process.

Participants will also receive a free copy of the accompanying e-book, which includes worksheets for use in designing your own training tracks.

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Tuesday, August 19, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: How Change Gets Stuck (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

The path to implementing change in an organization isn’t always smooth. On the way, you run into frequent speed bumps, wrong-way signs, and even concrete barriers. These road hazards on the way to change are obstacles that prevent you from moving forward. Despite your best intentions, you and your change initiative can get stuck.

In this webcast, you will learn the warning signs that your change initiative is stalled, and identify some of the root causes that may be preventing the organization from making progress. We will also discuss what you can do to get unstuck, and how to avoid getting stuck in the first place. Bring your challenges and your experience to this interactive session where we’ll uncover the common obstacles to organizational change.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: How the Digital Skills Gap Is Killing Your Team’s Productivity—and What You Can Do About It

A recent study by Deloitte found that the rapid pace of technological change in the workplace is leading to a skills half-life of just 2.5 years. Even the most adept employee can quickly fall behind—and workers, businesses, and the entire economy are paying the price. Every year, the digital skills gap drives a loss of nearly $1 trillion for the US economy. For a firm with 1,000 employees, this translates to a $10 million loss each year on a compensation basis alone.

But we need not stand idly by as our organizations bleed productivity. By laying out the eight core competencies of digital skills, this webinar provides an action plan for addressing the digital skills gap in your team.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Best of DevLearn: Design Models and Patterns for Creating Better e-Learning

More people within organizations find themselves in the role of e-Learning designer without having the experience needed to solve particular design problems. Participants will learn a core set of learning-design models or patterns that even inexperienced practitioners can quickly understand. These models combine some of the best principles and leading practices gained from years of research and experience, and are easily applicable to the vast majority of learning requirements that come your way.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Business Side of a Successful Performance Consulting Practice

This session is about the folklore and implications of different legal structures, including partnerships, sub S corporations, sole proprietorships, and non-profits as they apply to operating a successful consulting practice. You will understand the importance of asking the right questions when working with your lawyer, banker, and accountant. 

This series is for you if you are new to consulting or are thinking about starting your own consulting practice in the areas of training, e-Learning, process improvement, or performance improvement.

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Wednesday, August 20, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Four Roles and Secret Skills of Followership

According to research in The Harvard Business Review and from Lloyd’s of London, the ability to grow effective leaders is an international crisis for organizations: poor leaders are hurting the results of most companies around the globe.

Twenty years of leading in the military, academia, business, and politics has taught Cory Bouck that the best leaders act, paradoxically, as both a leader and a follower at the same time throughout their career. Everybody has a boss, and both of you can enhance your reputation for strong leadership through your "followership.”

During this interactive webinar, you will be introduced to four key roles and learn how to demonstrate the secret skills of followership. Followership is the first—and most career-enhancing—form of leadership.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Four Leadership Behaviours That Build or Destroy Trust (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

Trust continues to be identified as a missing ingredient in today's workplace. As surveys show, only a small percentage of today's workers strongly agree that they trust their leaders. To ensure high levels of organizational performance, leaders need to tackle trust head-on. The key is to demonstrate the behaviours people most associate with trust.

In this webinar, participants will learn how to:

  • Recognize the warning signs that people lack trust in you and your leadership.

  • Purposefully engage in the four trust-building behaviours.

  • Create strong, long-lasting, trust-based relationships.

Don't miss this opportunity to learn how to raise the level of trust in your organization by increasing the “trust-ability” of your leaders.

Monday, August 25, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Aha Moments in Talent Management (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

This webcast addresses the biggest issues in talent management. We will discuss some best practices to emulate and some worst practices to avoid. Anyone who manages people is a talent manager, so what are the essentials that everyone should know? By attending this presentation, you will learn answers to the following:

  • What is talent management?

  • What are the functions of talent management?

  • What do we mean by the word “talent?" (Spoiler alert: The word is not synonymous with “people.”)

  • What is the true nature of the job of anyone who manages people?

  • How do you create accountabilities for talent management?

  • How can you avoid the single biggest mistake in talent management—one that most organizations are guilty of committing regularly?

Tuesday, August 26, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Variables: 10 Things Every Storyline Developer Wants to Know

As e-Learning developers we often get caught up in designing only what we know from experience. The same holds true with e-Learning developers using Articulate Storyline. The more you know, the more options and ideas become evident to solving instructional design challenges. The more you know about variable programming in Storyline, the more the world opens up to unlimited design possibilities.  

Those who attend will learn... 

  • Variable types and their differences.

  • The various uses of variable types.

  • The best time to use a variable.

  • Tips for how to best manage multiple variables.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Thinking Beyond ROI: A New Way of Looking at Learning Metrics (Free for ASTD/ATD members)

Learning professionals often mistake learning metrics for business metrics. Attendance rates and ROI are great indicators of a training program’s internal impacts, but often are irrelevant to an organization’s competitive goals. Koreen Pagano, director of enterprise product management at lynda.com, explains how to compile and share metrics that expose greater value. After this session, you will be able to:

  • Think beyond ROI.

  • Translate training benefits into the language of business.

  • Frame learning as a competitive advantage.

Thursday, August 28, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Closing Skill Gaps at Caterpillar Starts with Content Strategy

High Impact Learning Organizations (HILO) facilitate continuous learning. One where the development of new and increased skills ensure their employees can adapt quickly to a changing environment and help the business compete effectively. HILOs like Caterpillar strive to build long-term organizational capability through personalized learning paths and development plans. 

According to Bersin by Deloitte, one of the top three factors separating HILOs from the others is Content Capability. Join David Mallon, Head of Research at Bersin by Deloitte, as he interviews Michael Miller, Process and Standards Supervisor at Caterpillar, Inc.  to learn how Content Strategy is driving Caterpillar’s drive to personalized learning and transforming how their dealer technicians will learn and demonstrate competency and skills in the future.

In this session you will learn:

  • Caterpiller's approach to creating bite-sized learning that can be tailored to individua learning needs.

  • Unique methods for delivering learning content at the right time in the right place.

  • Measuring results at the content, personal and organizational level.

  • Personalized learning as the most effective approach to closing organizational skill gaps.

Free T&D webinars for July 2014

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Happy summer! July is just around the corner, and so is that baking summer heat we look forward to every year. It’s fun to bask in the sun, but when you’re ready for some shade, why not check out a free webinar or two? July is full of good ideas—we hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Designing eLearning for Maximum Motivation

When asked to identify the weakness in most eLearning, designers and students alike often note the failure to engage the learner’s attention as a chief problem. The problem is, “How do you motivate the learner while still doing the serious work of instruction?”

In this webinar, Ethan Edwards will explore the importance of motivation in the design framework for eLearning and present rules for creating maximally motivating eLearning, which will be illustrated through several successful corporate eLearning courses. In this webinar, learn to:

  • Analyze the importance of motivation in an eLearning design framework

  • Apply six rules for creating maximally motivating eLearning solutions

  • Examine design considerations for content, scope, difficulty, judgment, levelling, content placement, and user control

Tuesday, July 1, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Absolutely, Positively Achieve Level 4 Outcomes (Free for ATD members)

In this webinar, James Pepitone will brief you on what experienced work design consultants know about how to increase business results that are specifically dependent on people. James will help you see and understand the broader system of challenges involved. He also will share numerous stories from his work partnering with his clients’ training and development functions to create Level 4 business results. Participants will learn:

  • Why most training programs do not achieve Level 4 outcomes

  • The primary factors determining business results dependent on people

  • How to respond more effectively to the expectations of managers

  • How to absolutely, positively achieve Level 4 outcomes

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Wednesday, July 9, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: How to Create a Learning Measurement Strategy

In this session, you'll learn the essential steps needed to build a learning measurement strategy to sustain a practical and scalable measurement process. The session will also explore the key elements to build the measurement culture, including leadership, skills, tools, and technology. Real-world examples of measurement strategy in practice will be provided. This webinar will:

  • Provide an overview of learning measurement strategy

  • Discuss the criteria to create a strategy that sustains a measurement process

  • Listen to real-world examples of how learning measurement strategy is successful

Wednesday, July 9, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Research Spotlight: Workforce Management Trends

Workforce management is often the misunderstood stepsister of the Human Capital world. Images of timecards and payroll reconciliations can be shudder-inducing. But today's modern workforce management is all about how organizations can use technology to optimize processes and help improve efficiency, effectiveness, and employee engagement.

Join Mollie Lombardi, Brandon Hall’s new Principal Analyst covering Workforce Management, as she discusses:

  • What workforce management means to today's organizations

  • How technology can drive transparency, integration, and analytics to drive business results

  • Where workforce and talent management intersect, and how to manage the integration points

  • The role of mobile tools and modern business intelligence in optimizing the workforce

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Wednesday, July 9, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Talent Development Reporting Principles (TDRp): Standards for the Reporting and Management of Human Capital (Free for ATD members)

Talent Development Reporting Principles (TDRp) is an industry-led initiative to develop and implement internal reporting and management standards for all key human capital processes, such as L&D, leadership development, and talent acquisition. TDRp employs common industry measures to create three standard statements and three standard management reports to enable practitioners to run talent like a business, ensuring that planned, measurable outcomes are delivered effectively and efficiently. In this webinar, Dave Vance will discuss what types of measures should be reported. He also will explain how to:

  • Organize measures into three standard TDRp statements

  • Create three management reports from the key measures in the three statements

  • Show alignment and expected impact of talent initiatives

  • Use the reports to execute with discipline

Thursday, July 10, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Connecting Learning to the Bottom Line and Showing Impact(Free for ATD members)

In this webinar, Martha Soehren, the chief talent development officer at Comcast, will present a compelling case for using a governance structure to help drive the learning agenda and learning strategy with a keen focus on aligning learning outcomes to business metrics. The Comcast team of 500 L&D professionals uses a standard training measurement strategy that leverages Kirkpatrick’s model and connects the dots from analysis to evaluation. Martha will share a couple of business impact stories and some of the lessons learned from their work. This work is important to Comcast as the largest mass media and communications company in the world by revenue. It is also the largest cable company and home Internet service provider in the United States, and the nation's third largest home telephone service provider.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: How and When to Allow Learners to Cheat in Compliance Courses

Experience shows us that learners try to circumvent or trick the learning process or "cheat" the eLearning compliance course. This behaviour often happens when the requirements of the compliance course are impossible to meet or are completely unreasonable. In the process, the learners find a workaround that designers, developers, and trainers condone. How do we address the dilemma about rigid, inflexible, tracking-only types of eLearning? How do we make a difference in spite of our limited capacities and roles? In the webinar, you will learn:

  • What can be done to reduce the pain of boredom and poor learning in compliance courses?

  • How do you engage learners during the certification course, even with rigid tracking requirements?

  • How do you differentiate between the typical compliance course and story-based compliance course learning environments?

  • How can you help learners obtain a few main ideas, yet still comply with the tracking requirements?

  • How do you find opportunities to identify must-learn content and apply the “embedding technique” in stories used in your course?

  • How do you avoid confusing the administrative control function with the learning function of compliance courses?

Tuesday, July 15, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Manage More Effectively with Emotional Intelligence (Free for ATD members)

It is said that emotional intelligence (EQ) is the key indicator of our success in business, relationships, leadership, and even in our personal happiness. But what makes EQ so important?

This webcast will help you understand how better relationships produce better results. When leaders have EQ skills, team members are motivated to work better and more quickly. They also have more respect for those in leadership, and tend to have a greater sense of pride in their work and in their company.

To ensure that we're leading effectively, we should all have our emotional intelligence skills assessed, and decide if we should work to improve our EQ. This work will pay off, as our emotional intelligence enables us to establish relationships founded on trust, confidence, and respect—qualities of great importance to us as managers.

Thursday, July 17, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Accidental Instructional Designer

Chances are, you didn’t dream of becoming a designer of eLearning when you grew up, did you? Most of the working instructional designers in the eLearning business got here by accident. So now that you’re here and doing this work, how can you become a more intentional practitioner? We’ll take a look at four key areas to focus on in order to become a well-rounded eLearning designer, talk about ways that you can take your practice to the next level, and share some quick tips for better eLearning design. In this session you will:

  • Explore the four slices of the “eLearning pie” so you have an understanding of the big picture that is our industry

  • Identify your own sweet spot as an instructional designer and identify areas where you could dig deeper in order to advance your practice

  • Apply simple strategies to your current projects for better eLearning outcomes and more engaging designs

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Thursday, July 17, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Putting Our Brains Back in the Office (Free for ATD members)

What is a "brain-friendly workplace," and how might you play a role in developing brain-friendliness in your organization? Applying recent neuroscience research to management practices, process and system design, and organizational culture, Dr. Erika Garms will introduce the concept of brain-friendliness, compare it to other organizational improvement methods, and offer recommendations for both evaluating the current degree of brain-friendliness in a work group or organization and embarking on an effort to leverage pertinent neuroscience to improve your workplace. Join us for an eye-opening (and mind-opening) session during which you will learn:

  • What a brain-friendly workplace is

  • Why learning and development professionals are uniquely positioned to drive and support brain-friendliness at work

  • How brain-friendliness compares to high-engagement or productivity cultures

  • Ways to implement small changes quickly for the beginning of a culture shift

  • How to apply principles of brain science to your work

Tuesday, July 22, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Engaging Learners through Game-Thinking

Gamification should be thought of as a design sensibility and not merely a digital tool. It is a thought process and a methodology to think about engaging and motivating learners. While the result of gamification is often fun, the ultimate outcome behind developing a gamified approach is increased engagement and motivation.  In this webinar, explore several methods for applying game-thinking to your own online and classroom learning designs.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: 10 Ways to Ruin Your E-Learning: A How-To Guide in Reverse(Free for ATD members)

In many professional areas, it is usually a good strategy to look to common practices in the field as a guide—maybe not for the most cutting-edge ideas, but at least for reliable models to follow. Unfortunately, in eLearning this can often be a recipe for disaster. Join Ethan Edwards, chief instructional strategist with Allen Interactions, on a journey uncovering the 10 most common design practices that are sure to ruin your eLearning.

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Wednesday, July 23, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Best of mLearning DemoFest 2014: Award-Winning mLearning in Action

This year at mLearnCon, dozens of conference participants will show off their latest mobile learning projects at mLearning DemoFest. Presenters will offer fellow attendees the opportunity to see cutting-edge mobile learning and performance support solutions in action, and share information about the tools, technologies and processes used to build them. Meet some of the winners from this year’s mLearning DemoFest in this free webinar, and see their award-winning solutions.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Top 125 Think Tank: Benchmarking Your Learning Strategy against the Best-of-the-Best

Is your learning strategy firing on all cylinders? We're currently in the process of benchmarking learning techniques and technologies used across multiple Training Magazine's Top 125 winners. During this one-of-a-kind webinar event, we'll share some discoveries from preliminary data on innovative best practices in such areas as proactively establishing an informal learning strategy, using mobile at the right time and for the right reasons, engaging participants in social learning communities,  extending learning to partners and customers, creating macro-level blends; and much more.

In this webinar, you will learn about successful strategies used for:.

  • Just-in-time, informal learning

  • Mobile learning (using mobile for the right purposes)

  • Engaging learners in social learning communities

  • Training partners and customers

  • Blending techniques and technologies for maximum utility

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Wednesday, July 23, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: PM Blasphemy: When Not to Do PM the Official Way (Free for ATD members)

In 1969, the Project Management Institute (PMI) was founded. Project Management specialists were building large buildings, roads, bridges, some of the first computers, and lunar modules. AT&T telephone operators still plugged wires into boards to transfer calls. Paper memos slowly communicated work to be done. Multi-tasking was unheard of! The PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) established a standardized and control-focused approach to completing projects, in the same way ADDIE standardized the new field of training.

Flash forward to 2014: Our work is filled with interruptions, unending work, dysfunctional multi-tasking, and highly-matrixed organizations. To be successful, we have to look at our project artifacts and tools in a new way. Join Lou Russell to learn about shortcuts that help “accidental” project managers organize and adapt to chaos.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: ROI of Public Speaking (Free for ATD members)

This event will teach the public speaker how to show their clients the benefits of hiring them for a public speaking event using tried-and-tested methods of ROI. Participants will be able to answer one or all of these questions:Will this make me money? Will this save me money? Will this solve a problem?

Attendees will then be able to report on these results, showing their clients the ROI of their speaking engagements. Reporting on the ROI level of evaluation is a powerful tool for the public speaker to sell their services and improve their clients’ business. By the end of this webcast, attendees will learn how to:

  • Define the ROI process for public speaking opportunities

  • Determine if ROI is right for their service

  • Map the ROI to a client’s requirements from a public speaking engagement

  • Communicate on industry- and client-specific results of public speaking opportunities and training

  • Put the puzzle together: evaluation process of public speaking engagements

  • Overcome the barriers of ROI

  • Report data so that they are perceived as usable and relevant to the target audience

Wednesday, July 30, 10AM – 11AM PST: Employee Engagement for Dummies

You’ve heard of employee engagement, but how do you take it from an idea to an actionable plan? SilkRoad is pleased to partner with Bob Kelleher for the virtual book launch of his latest work, Employee Engagement for Dummies! From the author of Louder Than Words and Creativeship comes this all-inclusive, step-by-step guide to all things employee engagement. Join us as Bob takes attendees on a journey through his brand-new book. He’ll explain concepts that will help you foster employee engagement, a concept that furthers an organization's interests through ensuring that employees remain involved in, committed to, and fulfilled by their work. Learn about:

  • Creating a new-hire onboarding checklist

  • Implementing a new-hire employee orientation process

  • Learn how to improve employee engagement

Thursday, July 31, 10AM – 11AM PST: Show Your Work: L&D's New Frontier

The complaints are familiar: Traditional means of managing organizational knowledge—in reports, status meetings, and standard operating procedures—just don’t work very well. We amass piles of documentation yet can’t find what we need when we need it; we find out too late that a task was already accomplished, better, by someone in another organizational silo; we spend hours never finding the information we’re looking for. 

"Working out loud" (also known as "narrating work" or "showing work") is an increasingly easy way of overcoming a lot of these problems. L&D is uniquely positioned to help in the effort, supporting workers with new tools and techniques for sharing tacit knowledge, building bridges between talent pools, sharpening communication, and helping organizations build better maps of work and activities.  This session explores some approaches to showing work—and how L&D can help.

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Thursday, July 31, 10AM – 11AM PST: Using Social Collaboration to Accelerate Traditional Learning

According to Brandon Hall Group’s Business Focus 2014 survey, more than 50 percent of organizations say social media will be of great interest to them over the next 12 months, more so than a shortage of talent, Big Data, or global expansion. Companies are recognizing the power of social and collaborative tools for learning, yet most struggle with exactly how to leverage them.

Join David Wentworth, Senior Learning Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Shelley Schmoker,  VP of Marketing for Bloomfire, as they examine how social media can enhance and accelerate your organization’s traditional learning models. Discussion topics:

  • The rise of social learning technologies

  • How does social fit?

  • Bridging internal and external social media

  • Examples of companies leveraging social/collaborative learning

Thursday, July 31, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: What's New in Training Effectiveness? (Free for ATD members)

In this fast-paced and interactive webinar, 6Ds® Company CEO Andy Jefferson and CLO Dr. Roy Pollock will introduce fresh insights into what makes training truly effective. You will come away with practical ideas you can implement immediately to boost training transfer, reduce learning scrap, and move from order-taker to strategic business partner. Andy and Roy will introduce key concepts from the 6Ds® and ATD’s Learning Transfer Certificate Program, including:

  • The only two questions that matter when it comes to training transfer

  • The six disciplines practiced by the most effective training organizations

  • The weakest link in corporate training programs and how to mend it

  • The implications of neuroscience for training design and delivery

  • Why performance support must be built from the beginning

  • Guiding principles for practical and effective program evaluation

Free T&D Webinars for June 2014

It's hard to believe we were wearing mittens just a couple of months ago! Spring is well into its stride, and everywhere you look, things are blooming. This is a great time of year to shake off any remaining cold-weather cobwebs and make an action plan. Why not check out a free webinar or two and get some fresh ideas? We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Creating Highly Effective Virtual Teams – A Case Study

Can a virtual team be as effective as a co-located team? This is a question that organizations are debating, and the arguments on both sides are very compelling. 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 they have the right tools, and leading the team successfully. After discussing the arguments for and against establishing a virtual team, this workshop will use real-life examples to address six key enablers for success:

  • How to form the virtual team

  • How to enable the virtual team

  • How to maintain the virtual team

  • How to protect the virtual team

  • How to lead the virtual team

  • How to reward the virtual team

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Tuesday, June 3, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Leading Collaborative Virtual Teams

As advancing technology and globalization continue to impact many organizations, it's clear that virtual teams require consistent attention, direction, and recognition from managers. Strong work relationships remain critical to drive productivity and support innovation, trust, and nimble teamwork. But building and maintaining strong relationships becomes challenging as teams become more dispersed. What must a leader do in the virtual workplace to effectively manage distributed team members? After attending this one-hour webinar, you'll be able to:

  • Design your "game plan" around eight practices used by the best virtual team managers

  • Bring attention, direction, and recognition to your virtual team

  • Build accountability even when you can't sit down next to your colleagues

Tuesday, June 3, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Trends in the Corporate Training Market: MOOCs and Online Development Programs

In today’s online environment, the ability to learn any subject is merely a click away. People can use the Internet to learn how to play guitar, bake a cake, or repair a dishwasher. Open online courses allow learners to easily drop into learning environments that meet their specific needs. Why shouldn’t they be able to learn business skills and concepts that will help develop their skills and grow their careers in the same way? With the growing skills gap, it is more important than ever to invest in continuous learning within the workplace. Join Senior Analyst David Wentworth of Brandon Hall Group as he explores the power of incorporating an online learning platform to attract top candidates, train new employees, and develop the skillset of their workforce. Key takeaways include:

  • A look at how individuals learn best today and what that means for the future of corporate learning

  • The role that MOOCs play in the corporate training environment

  • How organizations can adapt their learning and development programs to keep their employees’ skills up to date

  • Real-world examples of companies successfully embracing online learning platforms

Wednesday, June 4, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Three Top Tips for Applying to Brandon Hall Group’s Excellence in Technology Awards Program

Are you a solution provider that offers phenomenal, innovative technologies to learning, talent management, HR, or sales and marketing organizations? Or are you an organization that has created or implemented technologies to help streamline, save costs, and improve productivity within your organization? Then we want to hear from you, and invite you to apply for the Excellence in Technology Awards Program in mid-June. The program offers you an opportunity to showcase your products, which will be reviewed by Brandon Hall Group’s elite analyst team and industry experts. Now entering its 20th year, the Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards Program is the most prestigious awards program in the industry. Often times called the “Academy Awards” by Learning, Talent, and Business Executives, the program was one of the first of its kind in the learning industry, which was pioneered in 1994.

This 15-minute webinar will offer you step-by-step instructions, including:

  • Overview of a simple process for applying

  • nside tips on what the judges look for in the applications

  • What not to do

Thursday, June 5, 2014, 7AM – 8AM PST: Coaching with a Global Mindset (Free for ASTD members)

This webinar will develop a foundation for understanding what coaching is and how culture influences the coaching process. Participants will harvest the creative potential generated when people who think and act differently come together. In today’s interconnected and interdependent global workplace, it is vital to shift paradigms from cross-cultural to intercultural to inclusiveness. By doing so, we build bridges across the cultural, linguistic, generational, and gender divides found when working across national boundaries, organizational boundaries, and the boundaries created by different disciplines and educational backgrounds.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Key Practices for Developing a Game-Changing Candidate Engagement Strategy

The name of the game in recruiting has changed in recent years. With competition for talent at an all-time high, sourcing has become a long-term strategy. As if talent acquisition teams didn’t have enough on their plates with finding qualified candidates and getting them in the door, they’re now expected to attract and engage talent on an ongoing basis. To accomplish this task while keeping up with their day-to-day responsibilities, some have drawn inspiration from customer relationship management techniques used by marketers and salespeople to keep leads warm and foster repeat business. The result is rapidly evolving into a standard component of effective talent acquisition best known as candidate relationship management (CRM). Join Brandon Hall Group Talent Acquisition Analyst Kyle Lagunas as he discusses key practices in CRM, including:

  • Establishing a working definition and value-add of candidate relationship management

  • Identifying effective CRM techniques in use by today’s most successful hiring organizations

  • Highlighting tools and technologies available to support CRM as part of a long-term talent acquisition strategy

Tuesday, June 10, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: Leaders as Teachers: Improve Organization Foresight and Fast Sight(Free for ASTD members)

Foresight means seeing what’s ahead. Fast sight means responding to change faster than competitors. Learn how a leaders-as-teachers (LAT) approach improves these two essential characteristics of sustainable success. A formal LAT program develops leadership capacity to analyze and learn from failure; encourage discussion, debate, and experimentation; distribute wisdom deeper into the organization to strengthen alignment and execution; and create a culture that is open to learning. When leaders teach, they create environments to help teams discover, adapt, and respond effectively to changing business conditions. This session will teach participants:

  • Evidence to build a business case for a LAT approach

  • Ideas to shape the size and scope of an approach that will succeed and survive long term

  • Considerations for expanding the role of leader-teachers far beyond the boundaries of the traditional classroom

Tuesday, June 10, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Zeroing In: How to Meet Your Leadership Development Challenges

As many industries recover from a withering worldwide recession, organizations are focusing on new ways to expand the strategic contributions of their leaders. AchieveGlobal conducted research with 50 major companies to get a clear picture of what leadership development looks like—the challenges, goals, approaches and outcomes—and to share insights you can apply in your organization. Join us to zero in on new findings on critical ways to develop your leaders, including:

  • Challenges – Surprisingly, rather than grappling with external business conditions (the economy, technology, etc.), organizations are more stressed about solving eight functional leadership development challenges.

  • Goals – Regardless of the challenges they face, most organizations want their leaders to be able to improve day-to-day results in nine behavioral areas.

  • Approaches – To reach their goals, organizations need to decide how much they’ll commit to learning initiatives. Consider four ways to define your learning initiatives and key questions to help you decide which approach to take.

  • Outcomes – The webinar will conclude with details on how four top organizations in different industries successfully met their most pressing leadership development challenges.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Bridging the Gender Gap – A New Approach to Shattering the Glass Ceiling

Despite strong efforts in many organizations, women continue to be poorly represented in top leadership roles worldwide. This means many businesses are failing to reap the well-documented "gender dividend." So what are all these well-meaning companies doing wrong?

Chances are, they are looking at “advancing women leaders” as a development issue, or perhaps as a hiring-and-promoting challenge—when, in fact, it’s a culture change issue. Advancing women into leadership roles successfully requires bringing together all stakeholders (and both genders) in a concerted change effort, with support and energy from top leadership. The organization must change, to bridge the gender gap and make the very best use of all its talent, thereby gaining a competitive advantage. In this webinar, you will learn:

  • The gender dividend: the business advantage of developing women leaders in the organization

  • Why addressing this challenge as a change effort that brings many stakeholders together is essential to success

  • How your change management initiative can succeed in bridging the gender gap to include everyone

  • How to use your talent management strategy as a key lever

  • Some specific skills women leaders need to be effective in positions of power

Thursday, June 12, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: A Framework for Mobile Learning

Mobile learning may still be in its infancy, but according to a new Brandon Hall Group survey, it is proving to be effective, and high-performing companies are leading the way. The challenge is where to begin. Organizations are struggling to understand whether mobile learning is important to them, and if so, how it fits into their learning landscape. In fact, according to Brandon Hall Group’s 2013 Mobile Learning Survey, only 21 percent of companies worldwide have a formal mobile learning strategy.

Join Senior Analyst David Wentworth of Brandon Hall Group and Pete Barrett, NetDimensions’ President (Americas) and General Manager of NetDimensions Interactive, as they examine what a fully mature mobile learning framework looks like and offer ways for organizations to either get started or move ahead.

Key takeaways include:

  • A view of the current mobile learning landscape

  • Mobile learning strategies of high performing organizations

  • Real-world examples of mobile learning and performance support in action.

Thursday, June 12, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Let Go and Replace Very Old LMSs that Do Not Support New Learners and Business Needs

Studies have shown that companies are systematically changing LMSs into newer and better-suited learning systems to support newer learner needs and business demands. But how do you assess whether it’s time to make the change? In this webinar you will learn:

  • What are the common moans and complaints based on studies about LMSs, their cousins LCMSs, Knowledge Management and Performance Support systems?

  • Where are the fracture points between learner and business needs, and the capabilities and strategies of LMSs, etc.?

  • How do you conduct, collect, and present data to determine whether it’s time to let go or replace your LMSs?

  • What important strategies must you plan and prepare to implement the change?

  • How do you ensure that the new solutions will meet new learner and business needs?

  • What are models and examples of learning systems that are highly flexible, affordable, and creative, and that allow learners to go through discovery, play, and structured learning?

Monday, June 16, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Mediocrity or Greatness: Transformational Leadership in an Incremental World(Free for ASTD members)

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The world is changing so quickly that just being competent or improving incrementally isn’t sufficient for sustained success. Yet most organizations are satisfied with only getting a little better, consistently resisting more transformational initiatives. This webinar presents a proven, low-risk methodology for developing transformational leadership throughout an organization. Based on the recently published book The Star Factor (written by the presenters), the webinar shows people how to discover the “wisdom” that makes star performers exceptional. This webinar will teach you to use the latest in the neuroscience of learning to develop others in your organization to think and act like the stars and transformational leaders.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Big Data(Free for ASTD members)

This webcast is based on the recently released report from ASTD and the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) titled, Big Data, Better Learning? How Big Data Is Affecting Organizational Learning. The report dives into the trending field of big data and examines how organizational learning is gathering and leveraging big data for training and development.

Join Carol Morrison, senior research analyst at i4cp, and Jenny Dearborn, senior vice president and chief learning officer at SAP, as they explore the findings of the report and how organizations are using big data.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Best of Performance Support Symposium: Extending the Learning Blend with Performance Support

Organizations today face an urgent need to continuously support learning and performance on the job. The scope of the learning environment extends beyond classroom and online blends to include learning and performance-support opportunities at the point of work. Considering workforce mobility alone forces a reassessment of how we design, develop, and deliver solutions at the point of work. While we excel at linear learning methods in formal training, the work context requires a more diverse mix of smaller, task-level, role-specific learning and performance-support assets.

Participants in this session will learn how to create seamless, edge-to-edge solutions that extend a blend of the right learning and performance-support assets to the right learners and performers—at their moment(s) of need, in the right amount, in the right format, and to and from the right devices. You’ll learn why expanded discovery at the point of work reshapes and drives agile, iterative design and development methods that extend into the post-training point of work.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Business Side of a Successful Performance Consulting Practice – Session 2: Finding Your Niche

This series is for you if you are new to consulting or are thinking about starting your own consulting practice in the areas of training, e-learning, process improvement, or performance improvement. The series will explore issues like:

  • If I’m good at what I do, why do I need to worry about the business side of my business?

  • Why should I find a niche? I like doing a lot of stuff and I’m more interesting getting paid.

  • Why should I worry about legal structure stuff? I hire people for this.

  • What will insurance do for me? What’s the difference anyway?

  • Contract! I didn’t sign up to be a lawyer.

  • I already have a network. Why worry about marketing channels?

This session is about finding your market niche so you stand out in the noise of established players, wannabes, and has-beens. You will understand the importance of branding yourself in ways that distinguish you in the marketplace.

Thursday, June 19, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Using Kirkpatrick® to Move Beyond Training Order-Taking

Do you feel like the order-taker in the training drive-thru lane? Then you won’t want to miss this new webinar. During this session, you will discover tactics to create more meaningful communication with training requesters so that you can better understand the performance and results that the training is intended to support. You will learn the critical questions to ask that will allow you to move beyond the training talk and into conversation about organizational needs. You will witness role plays demonstrating how key conversations could occur, with a focus on where the conversation went well and where it veered off track to assist you in managing your own conversations successfully.

Whether you lead a training department or are an instructional designer hoping to get better direction and feedback, this session will assist you in creating and delivering training that impacts performance and key organizational results.

Tuesday, June 24, 10AM – 11AM PST: Why Sales Training Doesn’t Work and What to Do About It

Improving performance of the sales team is likely the most difficult task any Sales manager or trainer faces. The pace at which we work and the amount of information needed on the job is overwhelming. Traditional methods of training just don’t work. Join experts from Sales and Marketing Management (SMM) magazine and Brainshark to learn how to turn training from a one-time event into a continuous journey that leads to increased sales. On this webinar with SMM and Brainshark you’ll learn:

  • Strategies to take training to the next level with continuous sales performance support

  • Techniques for creating a sales training process and tips on how to implement it

  • How to measure and understand what works

Wednesday, June 25, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Is the Loss of Institutional Knowledge Hurting Your Company?

Over the next decade, organizations will experience the largest wave of retirements in history. To further impact turnover rates, Gen X and Gen Y workers on the average are leaving after only five and two years of service respectively. Without a solid and ongoing information succession plan to capture, transform, align, and track your employees’ tacit knowledge, your company’s ability to maintain and/or increase its performance will be affected. Register below to hear more about this challenge and to learn about strategies you can implement at your company to protect your institutional knowledge.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Positive Workplace: Bridging the Gap Between Science and Exceptional Performance(Free for ASTD members)

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Everyone is talking about the positive workplace! From The Journal of Positive Psychology to Harvard Business Review and The Wall Street Journal, improving productivity through workplace well-being is the hottest topic around. Join industry-leading experts Kim Rowe and Patrick Howell for this dynamic, application-focused webinar, and learn to transform your workplace into a positive one. Find answers to some important questions:

  • Why do some organizations change, grow, and perform better than others?

  • Why do certain employees remain engaged, stay focused, and exude optimism, while others are easily distracted and disengaged?

  • What makes some organizations great places to work, fostering lasting friendships and professional relationships?

Thursday, June 26, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Culture Factor (Free for ASTD members)

Lewis Thomas once wrote: “If the air is right, the science will come.” The “air” in organizations has to be right for everything else to come, from gaining a marketplace advantage to attracting top talent, engaging employees, and developing new ideas to sustained profitability. Effective leaders are great at creating cultures that supply that air because they know that until they get culture right, nothing else will work well, at least not for any length of time. In this webcast, we will discuss why culture is such a game changer, strategies to create a culture that produces business results, and some immediate steps you can take today to up the air quality in your organization.

Free T&D Webinars in May 2014

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Traditionally May signifies new growth and development—it’s a time for sowing seeds and seeing what sprouts. The very best gardens grow when we strategize and plant carefully. Just as our flower beds need water and sunshine, our minds love new ideas, and this month there are tons of interesting webinars to help your professional life flourish. Check out one of the free sessions this month—we hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Creating an Engaging, Empowering and Electrifying Learning Culture That Drives Results

Successful organizations understand that people are their most important assets. When high-performance businesses understand employees’ core skills and development needs, they’re more likely to achieve superior results. But building out a dynamic learning culture that really understands your employee needs is not a simple task. Join this session for a lively discussion on how to build out a learning culture that will generate superior business results for your organization. Learn:

  • Why it’s important to engage leaders across your organization when building a learning culture—and how to approach them.

  • Top things to consider for delivering impactful training and development programs to your organization.

  • How to tie your learning culture and programs back to business results.

Thursday, May 8, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Captivate Your Virtual Classroom

Captivate your virtual classroom with these ready-made activities for online training. Attend this interactive webinar to learn how to:

  • Immediately engage your virtual classes.

  • Teach technical topics using creative techniques.

  • Instantly apply activities for interaction.

  • Increase participant interaction with GoToTraining.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Grow Your Emotional Muscle

Join us for a Power Hour and build a personal strategy for growing your own emotional awareness and regulation:

  • Learn how to notice and change the thought processes that trigger debilitating emotions.

  • Identify the triggers that take you off your game.

  • Set a goal to reduce the stress that keeps you from the success you are capable of.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Thinking of Replacing Your LMS

This session will help you reduce your fear and create a strategy for success during the process! Your business needs are changing fast, and so are the demands placed on your current learning technology. Learning leaders must stay a step ahead of their business, but that can be difficult when dealing with antiquated technology and limited delivery options. Do you have that nagging awareness that it is time to switch your learning technology, but haven't wanted to face the reality of doing so? Join David Wentworth, Senior Learning Analyst for Brandon Hall Group, and Saba's Charles DeNault, Senior Director, Product Marketing, as they share insights that can help reduce your fear of change and increase your odds of success. They'll discuss best practices from hundreds of successful transitions for creating a strategy for the upgrade, as well as tools and tricks for preparing your organization for a limited-impact change.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Learn to Get Your Expertise Utilized – Peter Block’s Flawless Consulting Skills: An Introduction

Bill Brewer will introduce participants to the basic concepts underlying Peter Block’s highly successful Flawless Consulting workshops. The principles are simple and practical.

These workshops, continually updated and enhanced by Peter Block, and the basis for his best-selling book Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used, teach staff professionals the competencies to successfully navigate the consulting relationship in situations where they have influence but no direct control. In the last 25 years over 1,000,000 people in hundreds of companies worldwide have been trained using Peter Block’s Flawless Consulting workshops.

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Wednesday, May 14, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Creating More Effective Online Training Through Interactivity – No Coding Required (Free for ASTD members)

Slide decks and videos are wonderful training tools, but have you ever wondered if there is a better way to engage learners? Are you leveraging the power of computers and the Internet to bring training to life? Join Christopher Poseley, vice-president of business development at Versal, to explore the value of active learning, and detail how to create interactive online courses that rival classroom-style exercises. Learn methods to improve retention and make training more effective. View case studies from companies at the forefront of online training. Takeaways:

  • Interactivity and engagement is key to establishing long-term training retention.

  • Consistent assessment throughout an educational experience is necessary to track learner progress and ensure quality training (and ROI).

  • Discover a new, interactive training platform through Versal.com.

Friday, May 16, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Organizational Conflict: Get Used to It and Use It (Free for ASTD members)

Organizational conflict can be debilitating to a manager and negatively harm organizational productivity and employee engagement. Organizational conflict does not have to be dysfunctional—you can leverage it positively with the right strategies. So how do you remake this dreaded workplace activity into something positive? This webinar will better equip you to:

  • Accept the dual nature of conflict—its disadvantages and its benefits.

  • Assess the potential benefits you can achieve by handling your workplace conflicts more strategically.

  • Avoid harming your organizational standing by becoming unbalanced in your conflict resolution approach (too nice, too aggressive, or too collaborative).

  • Improve your working relationships and organizational standing by using appropriate conflict-resolution strategies.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Putting HR in the Driver's Seat of Collaborative Talent Management – 4 Talent-Centric Technologies to Tune Up Your Talent Strategy

Social media, collaborative learning, the pervasive power of video, and shifting workforce demographics are changing how we recruit talent. They also impact how work gets done, by whom, how knowledge is shared, and how we continuously learn and develop. As social tools climb the maturity curve, HR must lead in making organizations more talent-centric and ensuring they strengthen internal connections and promote the company culture—from recruitment  to onboarding, to developing and retaining talent.

Join Laci Loew, Vice President Talent Management and Principal Analyst at Brandon Hall Group, and Kevin Grossman, Director of Product and Content Marketing at Peoplefluent, to learn how analytics can help forecast critical talent needs throughout the employee lifecycle. It’s time to tune up your talent strategy and put you in the driver’s seat! Join us!

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Wednesday, May 21, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Best of mLearnCon: Tools and Techniques for Creating Mobile Learning

This webinar showcases one of the best-rated, most popular sessions, speakers, or topics from mLearnCon 2013 Conference & Expo, now available to all through this special online presentation. Join Qualcomm senior director of mobile learning Geoff Stead as he shares some of the mobile strategies, tools, and technologies that help Qualcomm reach all 28,000 staff. Geoff will demonstrate Qualcomm’s latest in-house mobile-learning apps and discuss their mLearning development tools and approaches. Participants in this session will experience the mobile learning available to Qualcomm staff; be able to ask Geoff specific questions; and learn tips, tricks, and best practices for your mLearning projects.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Mentoring Partnerships: An Intergenerational Strategy (Free for ASTD members)

Do you agree that the differences among the four to five generations in the workplace are affecting productivity, retention, engagement, staff development, and succession planning? Do you realize that different mentoring approaches have similar goals? This session introduces a unique contemporary mentoring strategy that provides a two-way, mutually beneficial learning experience addressing these intergenerational challenges. The resulting outcomes are to retain and expand working relationships among the generations for reinforcing talent engagement and productivity and identifying future leaders.

Thursday, May 22, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Pinterest for Learning (Free for ASTD members)

One of the unique products to emerge in an increasingly crowded field of social tools is Pinterest—a fun combination of social bookmarking, images, commenting, and public sharing. It’s a great place for connecting with and sharing resources for your own professional development. So, you might be wondering how Pinterest can be used for learning and development.

Join Jane Bozarth for a quick example-filled tour of using Pinterest to support your practice and your professional growth.

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Thursday, May 22, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Google Analytics Approach to Measuring Learning: Allowing You to Move at the Speed of Business

Learning is the engine that drives performance, so why is it that we can’t link the training we provide to performance? Today, we create learning using any number of rapid authoring tools, and then attempt to measure the effectiveness of that learning through metrics such as time-in-training, completion rates, and test scores. Unfortunately, these don’t tell you if the training you are providing is actually working. The business wants more. They want low-level, actionable metrics that speak their language. This can only be accomplished when we take a “Google Analytics” approach to measuring learning.

Join us for this webinar with Michael Rochelle, Chief Strategy Officer at the Brandon Hall Group, as he shows you how to apply the same “Google” content metrics the rest of the business uses to your own training content.

Thursday, May 29, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Employees Want

Despite economic conditions, unemployment levels, or any other business factor imaginable, your best employees—the ones you need most—want one thing from you, plain and simple: to support their growth and development.  Study after study confirms that development is the single most powerful tool managers have for driving engagement, retention, productivity, and results. Yet HR leaders know that career development is frequently the thing that gets sidelined unless or until the organization demands that some form be submitted during regular review cycles.

This session sheds a much-needed light on specifically what managers can do—within the time-starved, priority-rich, pressure-cooker environment in which they operate—to support employees’ careers. And it comes down to this: engage in short, ongoing conversations with employees about their career options, needs, and passions. It’s really that simple... and that complex.

Free T&D Webinars for April 2014

For many people this time of year represents a frenzy of activity. With fiscal-year time crunches and tax preparation, not to mention new business, it’s all we can do to keep up! But it always pays to make time for learning, and this month there’s a fantastic selection of free webinars to support you in your quest for excellence. We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Business Side of a Successful Performance Consulting Practice

This series is for you if you are new to consulting or are thinking about starting your own consulting practice in the areas of training, e-learning, process improvement, or performance improvement. The series will explore issues such as business practices, niches, legalities and insurance, and networking. Session 1, Starting Your Own Practice, is about the three sides of a successful consulting practice and the often undervalued role the business side plays in being profitable and sustainable. You will learn the importance of using business acumen to support your practice expertise.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: First-Time Leaders: Leverage Leadership Insights to Accelerate Success(Free for ASTD members)

“If only I had known then what I know now about leadership.” Most people become good leaders only after stumbling through new situations, making mistakes, and learning from them. If you attend this webcast you will benefit from several lifetimes of leadership insights, learning from others' mistakes and positive experiences to cut out a lot of stumbling and pain and accelerate your success as first-time leaders.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Pushing and Pulling: Winning the Learning Tug-of-War

In order to work together so everyone in a business community is well informed, sometimes we need to push information out and sometimes we need to pull it in. Social networking and learning typically involve sharing vital information and hoping our colleagues pull. Wouldn’t it be great if we could push and also validate that the pull occurred? Let’s talk about how to play this game of informational tug-of-war and ensure everyone’s a winner.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: CLOs and Training Leaders: When Design Really Matters, Picking Our Battles

If you’re a CLO or training leader, you realize there are times when your clients are just checking-the-box, and a death by PowerPoint is what they want. Part of being a leader is having a track record for results—and knowing which battles to pick. This means you can identify projects, initiatives, and curricula that really must deliver results. And you can develop sponsors who value the investment and are open to collaborating on a genuine training solution. This session looks at strategies and tactics for driving retention, reinforcement, and transfer of learning. At the macro level the session addresses the organization and the change-management tasks that must be tackled. Using a different lens we will look at the micro level and explore tactical and tools such as e-learning, social media, and m-learning that can help drive retention and transfer of learning.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: The Benefits of Virtual Onboarding (Free for ASTD members)

Effective onboarding is critical to ensuring that new hires are quickly acclimated to your company culture, trained, and ready for success. Today’s onboarding programs, however, face new and difficult challenges posed by a geographically dispersed, multigenerational workforce. In this webcast, Tom Masotto, vice president of product management at ON24, will discuss how virtual onboarding environments can be used to:

  • Train your global new hires at a significantly lower cost.

  • More effectively assimilate new employees into your culture.

  • Provide ongoing training, networking, coaching, and mentorship.

  • Tailor your communication to multigenerational differences.

Thursday, April 10, 2014, 6AM – 7AM PST: BEST Webcast Series: Enabling Next Gen Learning Systems and Practices at Tata Consultancy Services (Free for ASTD members)

India's largest information technology services company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), is growing at a rapid pace, and its learning and development team is ready to take on the challenge. Hear how TCS structured real-life situations to re-imagine the four streams of the learning ecosystem. You will also learn how TCS institutionalized virtual learning to provide a personalized learning experience through Next Gen learning practices.

Thursday, April 10, 2014, 12PM – 1PM PST: Nurturing Emerging Talent

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

Tuesday, April 15, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: How Change Gets Stuck (Free for ASTD members)

The path to implementing change in an organization isn’t always smooth. On the way, you run into frequent speed bumps, wrong way signs, and even concrete barriers. These road hazards on the way to change are obstacles that prevent you from moving forward. Despite your best intentions, you and your change initiative can get stuck. In this webcast, you will learn the warning signs that your change initiative is stalled, and identify some of the root causes that may be preventing the organization from making progress. We will also discuss what you can do to get unstuck, and how to avoid getting stuck in the first place. Bring your challenges and your experience to this interactive session where we’ll uncover the common obstacles to organizational change.

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Wednesday, April 16, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Research Spotlight: Highlights and Trends for Human Resources Systems

Trish McFarlane, Brandon Hall Group's Vice President Human Resources Practice and Principal Analyst, will present statistics on what drives HR system decisions, mobile solutions in the HR systems, key findings on why organizations change HR systems, and key practices in implementation. In addition, Brandon Hall Group Chief Operating Officer Rachel Cooke will present additional trends and highlight exclusive resources available to members of Brandon Hall Group through its Member Center. This webinar will include:

  • Statistics on the importance of specific features that drive HR system decisions.

  • Statistics around the impact of mobile solutions in HR systems.

  • Key findings on why organizations change HR systems.

  • Key practices in implementation.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Busting Myths, Facing Facts about HTML5 (Free for ASTD members)

HTML5? You’ve heard of it. It’s the most widely accepted standard for delivering high-quality, media-rich content on multiple devices. And yet there are ambiguities and misconceptions about what HTML5 can really do for your bottom line. Dig a little deeper and you hit issues concerning cost and complexity. What are the answers? In this webcast you will learn:

  • What HTML5 is and its importance to content portability.

  • The key benefits of having learning content in the HTML5 format.

  • The process of developing and converting content.

  • The metrics and standards to determine efforts for conversion and development.

  • The common pitfalls to watch for during the development /conversion process.

Thursday, April 17, 2014, 10AM  – 11AM PST Creating Interactive Videos from Really Boring Talking Heads, Lectures, and Demo Videos

Most videos in training and elearning are talking heads, lecture-type presentations, or demonstrations of a product or process. Case in point: your training director suddenly decides that it is good for the CEO to present an idea. Or your company has a library of videos that can be repurposed for training. They are costly and took a long time to produce, hence the need to be “put to good use.” In this webinar, Ray Jimenez will discuss these topics:

  • What do you do with really boring lecture and demo type videos? How do you make them engaging?

  • What do you look for in a video, and how do you find opportunities to add interactions?

  • What are the steps to augment your videos with interactions like discovery exercises, games, test exercises, and activities to improve retention and recall?

  • If you are to start from scratch, how do you plan to create a new video and make sure they are provided interactive components?

  • How do you cut costs, increase the speed, and increase the quality of your videos?

Thursday, April 17, 2014, 11AM  – 12PM PST: More Than Just "Click Next": Creating Innovative and Interactive E-Learning (Free for ASTD members)

Years ago, e-learning development was a complicated process requiring a full team of professionals. Rapid e-learning development tools changed all this. Now a single instructional designer can take on a project from start to finish. While these tools reduce costs and trim timelines, this sometimes comes at a cost to the final product. When the tools aren’t pushed beyond the basics of what they can do, we often end up with the dull “Click Next” e-learning that people dread taking. This means we need to use these tools differently for them to be effective. Attend this live, interactive webinar to:

  • Learn what makes an e-learning experience engaging and interactive in the first place.

  • Discover new ways to design innovative learning experiences with e-learning tools.

  • Determine which e-learning features you should (and shouldn’t) use to increase interactivity.

  • Know when e-learning isn’t the right tool for the job.

Friday, April 18, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: Frontline Leadership (Free for ASTD members)

This webcast is based on the ASTD research report: Frontline Leadership: Developing Tomorrow's Executives. The purpose of this report is to gain insight on training and development practices that are aimed at frontline leaders so that professionals can change and improve their processes in assisting frontline leaders to be successful. This study, produced in collaboration with the ASTD Forum, is based on the analysis of 513 learning professionals from various sectors and organizational cultures. Presented by Sarah Matney, senior curriculum designer and consultant at Ingersoll Rand University, this webcast will discuss Ingersoll Rand's journey in creating their frontline leadership development program, which has trained over 1,850 leaders across the globe and in a myriad of industries.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014, 10AM  – 11AM PST Innovative Intelligence: The Art and Practice of Leading Sustainable Innovation in Your Organization

A decade’s worth of executive surveys on innovation highlight a significant gap between what leaders say they want and what their organizations deliver. Over 80 percent of leaders surveyed believe innovation is important for their future success, but fewer than 30 percent are satisfied with their current level of innovation. So why, despite all the talking, have leaders not given innovation the attention it requires? This presentation explores the following questions:

  • What is the innovation gap and its root causes?

  • What are the three core principles for sustainable innovation?

  • What is the systematic approach to innovative thinking that leaders utilize to gain insight and discover innovative solutions to complex issues?

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Tuesday, April 22, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: The Business Leader's Bottom Line: Aligning Learning With Organizational Needs (Free for ASTD members)

Business leaders are under tremendous pressure to account for the performance of their division. “Supporting” business functions like workplace learning, however, are not held to the same scrutiny as operational business functions. Leaders typically view supporting functions as budgetary “black holes,” unable to prove direct contributions to business results. This is no longer the case. Leaders expect supporting functions to contribute to organizational objectives. This webinar identifies how to get your leaders to value workplace learning and how to make it a valued business partner. You will learn how to:

  • Address the secrets business leaders believe about learning investments.

  • Answer your leader’s questions that validate “learning” effectiveness.

  • Discover how business leaders actually position learning in the workplace.

  • Learn what leaders mean when they say, "return on learning investment.” (It’s not what you think.)

Wednesday, April 23, 2014, 10AM  – 11AM PST: 10 Big Data Insights for HR & Training

Big data is not just for the IT department.  What are some of the insights we can gather from big data that will affect how you plan your HR and Learning Strategy?  How do you set up your learning initiatives to contribute to additional insights on performance in your organization?  Join a conversation with award-winning authors and learning thought leaders Karie Willyerd and Heather Maitre as they explore specific ideas on how to use big data today. 

Wednesday, April 23, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Grateful Leadership: Using the Power of Acknowledgment to Engage All Your People and Achieve Superior Results (Free for ASTD members)

Effective leaders must find ways to enhance people’s level of engagement, commitment, and support, especially in the difficult periods all organizations experience at one time or another. Engaged employees work with passion and feel connected and loyal to their organization. This yields higher productivity, sales, and results. This can be accomplished through the practice of Grateful LeadershipTM. Learning takeaways for attendees:

  • Understand the need for Grateful Leadership to create a culture of appreciation in the workplace and overcome the barriers to using acknowledgment.

  • Demonstrate the language and subtleties of authentic and heartfelt acknowledgement behaviour so that people can and will practice and use them immediately following the webinar.

  • Describe how to coach teams, managers, and other corporate stakeholders in how to use Grateful Leadership to produce breakthrough results.

Thursday, April 24, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Actions Louder than Words: 6 Steps to Improved eLearning Activities

There’s much frustration with the limited range of interactivity found in eLearning programs. Arbitrary multiple-choice and true-and-false questions, even when masquerading under flashy game-like interfaces, fail to engage learners’ attention. Worse yet, they usually fail to teach. Too often designers feel bound by the limits of actions available to the learner—senseless button clicking, random dragging, confusing entries. But, even working within the constraints of low-level authoring tools, it is possible to design eLearning activities that will engage, motivate, and captivate the learner’s imagination and enhance post-training performance. In this session, Ethan Edwards will present six simple and easily achievable transformations to make your eLearning interactions more impactful.

Monday, April 28, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Leading Change Courageously (ASTD Subscriber Content)

This webcast uses data from interviews with 60 executives in 14 Fortune Global organizations to highlight eight actions that matter in leading successful organizational change. The presentation suggests that a key leadership action involves integrating learning into change—courageously.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: A Street-Level Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience

Since the early days of “creativity training” and “problem solving,” brain research has vastly enriched our understanding of human mental process. New research findings with very practical, down-to-earth applications may well revolutionize our  understanding of the ways people think, learn, and perform. Functions like social intelligence, emotional intelligence, practical intelligence, cognitive preference, neuro-leadership, design psychology, and subliminal impacts of colour, language, and narrative are opening up new ways to approach teaching, learning, and development. According to Karl Albrecht, training is actually “applied cognitive neuroscience, and all learning professionals are aspiring neuroscientists." Albrecht will discuss the components of applied cognitive neuroscience; their implications for human development; and how to apply them in your work, career, and personal life.

Free T&D webinars for March 2014

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Crocuses are popping up, and the sun is putting in a longer work day lately—could spring be approaching? Clear out the winter cobwebs and jumpstart your spring with some new business ideas for March; there are plenty of free webinars to choose from. We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Diversity and Inclusion: Inspiring Learning for a Changing World (Free for ASTD members)

With globalization and shifting demographics, understanding diversity and inclusion (D&I) is a requirement for every training professional to ensure that learning is relevant in a changing world. In this one-hour interactive webinar, you will learn how key trends are transforming the workplace, workforce, and marketplace, and what the implications are from a training perspective. The presenters will provide practical tools that you can adapt in your training initiatives going forward to address this business imperative.

  • Learn what D&I is and why it matters to you

  • Discover D&I best practices for greater effectiveness

  • Enhance your professional skills to address changing requirements for success

Thursday, March 6, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Agile Project Management for Learning Projects – LLAMA!

Either by design or by default, your team’s environment and work practices are reflected in the level of service you deliver to clients and customers. New technologies, rising expectations, and shrinking budgets challenge us all to new levels. How do you keep your project from falling short in delivering on time and on budget when things are constantly changing?

Agile project management is a hands-on practical approach created by the software development industry to keeping up with the ever-increasing speed of change. In this session, we’ll explore how TorranceLearning’s approach to Agile project management (LLAMA: Lot Like Agile Methods Approach) creates the team ecosystem and project management methods that set the stage for delivering amazing results for your clients (internal or external) and for your team. 

Thursday, March 6, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Emotional Intelligence for Effective Leadership (Free for ASTD members)

Today’s fast-paced and complex business environment requires leaders who can cope more easily in stressful situations, exude confidence, and be flexible and optimistic. This webcast will explore the exciting topic of emotional intelligence (EI) and how it provides the foundation for the qualities and characteristics of an effective leader. Participants will look at the world’s first scientifically validated model of EI, the EQ-i 2.0, and understand how leadership connects to specific EI skills. The webcast also will present a plan to cultivate EI and empower one's ability to create greater leadership effectiveness.

Monday, March 10, 2014, 9:30AM – 10:30AM PST: Disengaged to Engaged Employees – The Impact on Your Culture (Free for ASTD members)

When you look around your work environment, do you as a leader/manager recognize the signs of a disengaged employee? Do you understand the impact that this can have on your organization as a whole? Constant negativity at the water cooler may be slowly poisoning your work environment. Good employees say very clearly that if a negative culture does not change, they will seek a position elsewhere. Remember that it is always the good employees who leave—because they can!

Join Doug Lawrence as he explores the signs of disengaged and engaged employees, and how both types can impact a mentoring culture. Doug will leverage past learning experiences to help you create an organization that has an engaged, empowered, and accountable workforce—enabled through a mentoring culture. This presentation will benefit leaders and managers in any organization, and HR practitioners who are struggling with a culture that is driven by negativity and disengaged workers. If you suspect this is you, then consider joining us for this presentation.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: Are You Training Sales Managers for the Right Skills? (Free for ASTD members)

Sales managers have always worn too many hats, and that level of responsibility is only increasing. Still the question remains—is their development keeping up? To keep up, many sales organizations are turning to surveys to capture important sales manager performance data. Unfortunately, survey design is not something sales professionals know much about. The result is that many sales surveys produce faulty data that lead to bad decisions. In this highly interactive session, you will:

  • Examine how the role of sales manager has changed

  • Learn why assessments are an effective method for developing sales manager performance

  • Analyze the common mistakes made when creating sales manager assessments

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Tuesday, March 11, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Magnetic Culture – Tools to Retain Your Top Talent

Highly successful organizations know that the key to their success is keeping their employees fully connected throughout the entire employee life cycle. Connection begins as your top talent is on-boarded and continues as they learn, collaborate, innovate, socialize, and share. How do you improve the employee processes so that those employees not only feel connected but also share this feeling with others, creating a magnetic culture? How do you enhance your culture and make it one that employees do not want to leave?

Tuesday, March 11, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: The Next Generation of Learning Content Strategies – Learning Content in the Age of YouTube and Facebook

Every organization that delivers employee training and development programs must deliver learning content. The challenge in today’s world is that traditional approaches to content might no longer help organizations find, develop, and deliver the right content to the right employee at the right time. In this webinar we will explore the critical elements of the next generation of learning content strategies:

  • Curating – organizing content to provide context and access

  • Defining content – in today’s world, content is anything employees can use to improve job performance

  • Delivery – using next-generation strategies to merge delivery tools with content for the greatest impact

Tuesday, March 11, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: How to Transform Your Training Content into an Engaging Story

As learning and development professionals, we know that we’re wired for stories. The problem is, we’ve got to teach facts and figures and processes and tools—which can get pretty boring. Here’s the good news. Even this content can come to life and be “stickier” through the power of storytelling. Anyone can learn to construct and deliver stories that spark interest and improve results. Join Roger Courville and get ready to take notes as he reveals how the world’s oldest pastime can rock the modern virtual classroom.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014, 12PM – 1PM PST: Survey Basics(Free for ASTD members)

Back by popular demand! Patti Philips will walk you through the fundamentals of creating and using surveys and questionnaires. Surveys and questionnaires are common instruments used to collect data of all types. Whether evaluating a training program or assessing an organizational climate, self-administered surveys are a tool with which we must contend. This webcast presents the four basic but critical challenges that can make or break a successful survey project. Upon completion of this session, you will be able to:

  • Recognize the four challenges in survey design

  • Calculate the sample size given the size of the population, when sampling is appropriate

  • Calculate the appropriate number of responses required, given the size of your target group

  • Improve the accuracy of responses by following the tips provided for asking the right questions the right way

  • Consider key issues in developing survey questions

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Wednesday, March 12, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: eLearning Salary & Compensation 2014

What do eLearning professionals earn these days? Are salaries in your country and worldwide rising, falling, or flat? How do your organization size, industry, years of experience, and other factors influence your salary and compensation?

Join 2014 Global eLearning Salary & Compensation Report author Patti Shank as she leads a panel of eLearning professionals to compare key report takeaways. The panel will address what the almost 6,000 survey respondents said in late 2013 about their salaries and compensation, review salary and compensation trends, and discuss the trends they expect to see moving forward. Whether you have read this report or not, attend this webinar to learn more about global eLearning salary and compensation.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Personalize the Learning Experience by Leveraging CRM and LMS (Free for ASTD members)

In today’s self-paced world of online learning, students are empowered to learn on their own terms. While this flexibility may be a significant advantage to the learner, it can be a challenge to provide learners with the support they need to be successful. In this session, we will look at innovative ways that CRM and LMS systems can be integrated to provide support teams with real-time access to learners’ status and information. By more closely linking these systems, potential up-sell or cross-sell opportunities can be identified more easily, and case-management solutions can be used to address learner questions and feedback. Leveraging both CRM and LMS systems provides an opportunity to make the learning experience more personal and bring back the human element with personalized interaction.

Friday, March 14, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Our Profession: Where We've Been; Where We're Going (Exclusive Webcast for ASTD's Professional Plus Members)

Join legend Elaine Biech as she reviews the history of the T&D profession and makes a case for why you should care, what’s important, and what’s not.

Monday, March 17, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: Career Development for Millennials (Free for ASTD members)

Hired the best early-stage talent? Are they staying with you as long as you had planned? Join  Dr. B. Lynn Ware to hear how your company can design its career development offerings so that they will appeal to this generation of talent and extend the employee lifecycle.

Ware will report the results of a recently completed, groundbreaking study about how Gen Y workers make decisions to change jobs. The reasons are different than you think. The results cry out for a change in company talent management practices to emphasize early career support and development, even during the on-boarding phase.

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Tuesday, March 18, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Demystifying Mobile Learning

A lot has been said about mobile learning and how it is taking enterprise training by storm. However, it has become quite challenging to separate the noise from facts. In this webinar, we will address:

  • The state of mobile learning and key drivers behind mobile learning for enterprises

  • Different types of mobile learning formats and use cases

  • Low-cost approaches to jump-starting your mobile learning initiatives

  • Pros and cons of various mobile learning models

  • Recognizing potential minefields and best practices when it comes to building, deploying, and measuring learning impact

Tuesday, March 18, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Planning Lives and Building Engagement (Free for ASTD members)

Industry icon Marshall Goldsmith helps attendees to:

  • Review why it is so difficult to achieve even simple change—and the classic delusions that keep us from changing

  • Understand the classic debate between determinism and choice and see how most engagement work is deterministic

  • Learn a new model for planning the future

  • Understand why active questions can help people become more engaged

  • Participate in the "active question" research study (optional)

Wednesday, March 19, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Best Practices for Virtual Leadership Development

The challenge of leadership in global organizations and the deficit of emerging leaders are two of the many factors leading businesses to explore alternative approaches to leadership development.  New technologies have opened to door to creative, cost-effective, and engaging ways to train your future leaders, regardless of their location.

Today’s virtual programs are a far cry from the online programs of just a few years ago. In this Training Magazine webcast, Tom Masotto—Vice President of Product Management at ON24—will discuss best practices for using virtual environments to:

  • Reach global leaders faster and more cost-effectively

  • Provide busy leaders with more flexibility

  • More tightly integrate learning with daily work

Wednesday, March 19, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Research Spotlight: Recent Research Highlights from Brandon Hall Group's Talent Management Practice

This session of the Brandon Hall Group Monthly Research Spotlight Series highlights actionable talent management data. You will learn:

  • Insightful analytics-based facts about leadership development drivers and talent management risks

  • Talent management trends to plan for

  • Talent management priorities on which to focus your attention for better business impact

  • A framework for designing talent management excellence

  • A model for diagnosing your current level of talent management maturity

  • About upcoming talent management research

  • Exclusive research resources available through our Brandon Hall Group membership

Wednesday, March 19, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Creating a Modern Mentoring Culture (Free for ASTD members)

Mentoring has proven again and again to be a powerful and effective workforce development tool, and the need for mentoring, knowledge sharing, and skill building continues to grow. However, traditional mentoring, where an older mentor meets with a younger mentee in person to help facilitate development and groom them for career progression, is no longer adequate in today's hyper-connected and fast-paced world.

Based on the September 2013 Infoline, "Creating a Modern Mentoring Culture," this webcast will describe how organizations today must embrace a new form of mentoring and knowledge sharing that allows workers to find and connect with their colleagues so they can learn while on the job, share best practices throughout all areas of the business, and collaborate with people no matter where they may be located.

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Thursday, March 20, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Leadership Development – Strategy in Action

According to Brandon Hall Group’s recent Leadership Development benchmarking research, more than 300 survey respondents told us that leadership development was their top priority for accelerating business performance, yet only 25.3 percent of respondents rated their leadership development programs as extremely or very effective. How do we improve leader development, increase leader excellence, and in the process achieve higher and sustained levels of business performance?

Session topics include:

  • Strategy: Understanding the what and why of leadership strategy to identify leader development priorities

  • Culture: Shaping organizational culture to enable experience-driven development

  • Action: Identifying key moments to spark change and being a passionate and courageous agent of change

  • Sustain: Creating an enduring learning organization and building an internal coaching culture to sustain it

Friday, March 21, 2014, 9AM – 10AM PST: Gaining Credibility: Leading Executive Conversations to Improve Your Results (Free for ASTD members)

Are you a manager, director, or vice president (or aspiring one) who has found that conversations with C-level executives can be challenging? Do you want to improve your results? Executive coach Sally Williamson will share insights into what top execs value, and give you strategies to gain the credibility and influence you need to get buy-in for your recommendations and improve your results. You’ll learn:

  • What top executives value and how they think

  • The three core concepts that leaders listen for, and ways to deliver on them consistently

  • How to define and create a compelling message

  • Tips for developing a high-level conversation framework to capture executive interest and support for your projects and recommendations

Tuesday, March 25, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: Engaging & Retaining Employees That Keep Your Customers Happy

Great performance is achieved through successful employees. Successful employees are highly engaged. Highly engaged employees receive feedback and recognition. Over 75 percent of organizations believe employees receive most of their feedback in the performance management process; less than half feel that feedback is highly effective. How do you improve the employee feedback and recognition process, increase employee engagement, and in the process achieve higher levels of performance? How do you help your employees become successful?

Join the discussion with Trish McFarlane, VP of Research from Brandon Hall Group, as she shares recent research and key practices on creating a positive talent management environment that focuses on increasing employee success, and in the process increasing performance outcomes.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014, 10AM – 11AM PST: L&D Emerging Measurement Practices: From Executive Reporting to "Instant Insights"

This presentation will share the latest topics on the minds of L&D practitioners as they relate to emerging measurement practices, including executive reporting, big data, social learning, scrap learning, strategic program measurement, prescriptive “Instant Insights,” and building a business case for analytics. Glimpse into the latest trends and challenges on the minds of thought leaders and practitioners, and glean creative insights to augment your learning analytics strategies, now and beyond.

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Tuesday, March 25, 2014, 11AM – 12PM PST: Learning and the Innovating Organization (Free for ASTD members)

In the fall of 2013, ASTD and Claude Legrand, managing partner of Ideaction, Inc., conducted an extensive survey on how the Learning and Development (L&D) community sees its role in the creation of innovative organizations. L&D has a critical role to play, because innovating organizations do not have more effective processes or more creative individuals. Instead, they have leaders, managers, and individual contributors who are trained to innovate systematically.

This webcast will discuss the results of the survey and what organizations need to do to become more innovative. Legrand, an expert in innovation for more than 25 years, will present a primer on how to create successful innovation programs, and will suggest options you can consider to help your organization become more innovative.