Our favorite T&D/HR best practice and industry research sites

Companies are looking more closely at the bottom line than they ever did in the past.  In today’s economy, it’s vital that a company proactively looks at ways to continually improve their business. In a 2010 Bersin & Associates High-Impact Learning Culture report, findings show that “…there is a direct positive correlation between a strong culture of learning and business performance improvement; cultivating a strong value of learning is essential to business success. HR and L&D need to win over leadership and management, because it is these groups that will affect the most change. They can train, facilitate and encourage leadership and management, but cannot fully own the quality of an organization’s learning culture”. Best practice companies recognize the importance of continuously developing and training their employees to acquire the key competencies needed to be competitive and flexible in business.

So how does your learning organization measure up to best practice organizations?  Not sure?  We get a lot of requests from clients and colleagues about where to find best practice and industry research reports and I’d like to share our favourite sites with you.  Be aware that while some articles are free for the taking, other articles have fees attached. But with some diligent research and patience, you should find plenty of information to get you started.

Our favourite sites for best practice research:

• ww.brandon-hall.com(Brandon Hall Group)        
• www.astd.org (American Society for Training and Development        
• www.aberdeen.com (Aberdeen Group)        
• www.bersin.com (Bersin & Associates)        
• www.conferenceboard.ca (Conference Board of Canada)        
• www.trainingmag.com (Training Magazine Online)        
• hbr.org (Harvard Business Review)       
• www.i4cp.com (Institute for Corporate Productivity)   

If you have favourite sites for best practice and industry research that I haven’t listed here, please pass them along.  

Could the latest tablet from Apple be the ultimate mobile learning device?

It was hard to miss that Apple’s iPad 2 was released internationally last Friday. If you braved the lines and the cold, you might have been lucky enough to snag one for yourself. Not me yet, but it’s definitely on my wish list.

I wasn’t so sure about a tablet device until we got our 1^st gen iPad, but now I’m sold on how comfortable it makes ‘couch computing’. It’s an easy way to check email, access the Internet and watch videos, whether I’m working in comfort outside of normal office hours or using it for fun. And let’s not forget the apps—hundreds of thousands of software applications that can do everything from balance your bank account to manage your to-do list to playing some Angry Birds or Plants vs. Zombies (I admit it, I’m guilty).

With its even thinner profile and 10 hour battery life, plus the added front and back facing video cameras, I’m wondering if the iPad 2 can finally be a perfect platform for mobile learning. There are already rumours about Apple releasing an LMS for the iPad 2, which would take advantage of the unit’s fast processor, speech-to-text integration and video conferencing.

Think about the possibilities here: having your remote workers take a tracked mobile learning module, then getting on a video call with a supervisor to demonstrate their learning in their workplace. Later, they check into a module wiki to see how others have put their learning into action, or even see or record videos to facilitate knowledge sharing. All from the same device. Pretty cool stuff.

Even without a supported LMS from Apple, educators can take advantage of existing apps to communicate directly with students, post messages and discussions on virtual whiteboards, and conduct “virtual workshops”. As a learning support tool, the iPad is ideal.

I think the main barrier to implementation would be price, as the low-end iPad 2 version costs a steep $519 (16GB of storage and Wi-Fi only). But when you think of the savings of no longer needing to gather the workforce in to a central location and backfill during training sessions, it starts to become a more practical option for the long term. And given we still have a perfectly functioning 1^st gen iPad in our house, I think there are good prospects for a long life from any product from Apple. It’ll be interesting to see what the future holds…

Check out these free T&D webinars

Training Magazine’s online website has a number of free webinars coming soon:

Tuesday, March 22, 2011: Creating High-Impact, Ah-Ha! Learning Moments with Videos, Slides, Webinars and Games. Join Ray Jimenez to learn proven techniques that can be used in preparing and organizing videos, slides, webinars and games to immediately create long-lasting learning experiences and Ah-Ha! moments.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011: The New Science of Leadership Advantage.  Join Judith Blair and Nancy Maresh to learn how leaders expecting more from their workforce need to know what works and what doesn't for creating motivation and replenishing energy. Keys for program design include brain-based skills for overcoming resistance, sparking fresh thinking and resilience and helping to ensure peak performance results.

Wednesday, March 30, 201: Apples & Oranges: Employee Skills Assessment Driving Business Performance. Join Ajay Pangarkar as he explain how within organizations there is an expectation for learning professionals to connect their training efforts (Kirkpatrick Level 2) to business objectives (Kirkpatrick Level 3 and 4).  This session directly addresses the need to develop and implement real-time employee training assessment strategies specifically designed to meet targeted business objectives.

Tuesday, April 4, 2011: Change Happens - Be Ready for It! Change Management for Learning Professionals. Join Lance Dublin to learn or review the basic principles and techniques of change management and communication as they apply to the learning environment. You will take away a working knowledge of the proven I-3 Change Implementation model that draws upon concepts and proven practices from change management, communications and consumer marketing.

If you’re not already a member, all you need to do is sign up at http://www.trainingmagnetwork.com.  Once you're signed in, click on the Home page to view the list of free webinars.  The site also includes links to archived webinars if you've missed past sessions.

Attend a Free Virtual Talent Leadership Forum

I’m on the mailing list for the Aberdeen Group (www.aberdeen.com), one of the leading providers of fact-based research and best practice industry reports.   They are advertising a free virtual Talent Leadership forum on December 9th from 10am - 5pm EST. This forum will bring together the top leaders in human capital management with Aberdeen's research offering insights into Best-in-Class talent and workforce management practice.

This virtual forum offers the opportunity to not only hear world class speakers focusing on the challenges HR and Talent management executives face every day, but will have the opportunity to interact with them.  The forum will be a series of presentations exploring the following topics:

• The Talent Acquisition Lifecycle: From Sourcing to Onboarding
• The Engagement/Performance Equation
• Integrating HR and Talent Management: Data, Systems and Processes
• A look Ahead: The 2011 HR Executive’s Agenda

Check out the registration link for more information. http://summits.aberdeen.com/index.php/virtual-forum.html



Free summertime webinars

Summertime is here and there are lots of opportunities to learn new ideas and catch up on some of the latest trends in learning and development.

Training Magazine's online website has a number of free webinars including:

Tuesday, July 13, 2010: Project Team Triage. Join Lou Russell to learn about ways to facilitate project team discussions quickly and effectively, and improve your project throughout before it’s too late.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010: Creating a High-Performing Workplace with Games, Social Media, and Virtual Worlds. Join Anders Gronstedt to learn how the future of learning is about online conversations and communities, podcasting on the go, and shared immersive-3D virtual-worlds experiences.

Thursday, July 15, 2010: Active Contributors in Social Learning: Helping Learners Acquire Motivation and Skills. Join Dr. Ray Jimenez to learn how the growth and success of social learning and mobile learning are accompanied by a new type of learner - the Contributor and how theyrequire a new set of skills and motivation to become active contributors.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010: Faster, Cheaper, Better: Really Rapid Instructional Design. Join Sivasailam Thiagarajan “Thiagi” and Tracy Tagliati as they show you how you can replace the traditional systematic instructional design model with a continuous, concurrent, creative, co-design approach to designing corporate training materials faster and cheaper to produce more effective transfer to the workplace.

Thursday, August 12, 2010: Emerging Challenges in Learning: Proving the Business Value. Join Jeffrey Berk to learn about the major challenges leading organizations face in measuring the value of learning and development. 

If you’re not already a member, all you need to do is sign up at http://www.trainingmagnetwork.com.  Once you're signed in, click on the Home page to view the list of free webinars.  The site also includes links to archived webinars if you've missed past sessions.

ASTD is also sponsoring a free webinar that is facilitated by NetSpeed Learning Solutions:

Tuesday, July 20th 10am PST: From Blah to Aha! Ten Best Practices for the Virtual Classroom. Learn about ten best practices to help you move from Blah (boring, talking head presentations) to Aha (engaging, interactive classroom facilitation).

Space is limited so if you're interested, register at http://www.netspeedlearning.com/webinar/bestpractices/

New learning management article available

We've recently posted an article called 'Inside Learning Management' to the documents area of the site. We've found over the years that it can be pretty confusing when you're first considering getting into e-learning and learning management, so we put together this article to try to demystify some of the product types and tools out there. We've included an outline of the planning process for installing a learning management system. Check out the article and see if it can be of help to you.

We've also created a worksheet to help you figure out what you need from your new tool - if you'd like a copy of it, drop us a line and we'll send it on over.

Do you know what the top eLearning sites are?

I was catching up on my subscription blog reading today and came across an interesting blog post on one of my favorite learning blogs, the eLearning Technology blog by Tony Karrer .  He wrote a recent article that answered a question he had been asked..."What were the biggest traffic sites in eLearning that were not vendor specific".  After some research he came up with what he believes are the top five sites.   Check out his blog article on Thursday, May 20, 2010 called Top eLearning Sites?: eLearning Technology. You might be surprised at the results.

New Case Study: Software company’s management turnover reduced with new manager orientation program and assessment

New employee orientation programs are an essential part of any hiring process. A well planned and effectively administered new employee orientation program results in lower employee turnover, increased productivity and improved work quality. This translates into happier employees and a healthier bottom line.

We've just added a case study to our site that describes how a North American social networking software company adopted a new manager orientation program that improved employee morale and reduced their management turnover rate and associated costs. The orientation program and assessment tools we created for the client provided a solid foundation for employee success and improved the company’s bottom line. Read all about it here.

Organizations of all sizes can benefit from a new-employee orientation program - contact us to learn more.

New mobile library launched!

We've excited to announce that we've just launched a series of mobile content modules. It's called the "Instant Sales Skills Mobile Library", and it was developed to help busy on-the-go sales people expand their skills or refresh their knowledge on key topics wherever they are and whenever they want. We think this is the type of content that's ideal for distribution using smartphones - bite-sized chunks that are easily absorbed and turn a few minutes of down time into productive time. The library is currently designed to run on BlackBerry devices using the Chalk Pushcast Software platform, and we hope to launch it soon for other devices and platforms. Check the topics out and see what you think!