Get the most out of training by recognizing employees before, during, and after a learning event. The principle of recognition that "You get what you reward" is a universal yet often underused principle in day-to-day management—and the training and development function is no exception. There are many ways that recognition can be used to make the training function more efficient, learning more effective, and the training staff more appreciated. By doing so, you can get the most out of the training investment that’s made in your organization. Click below to download this article.  

Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to redefine the boundaries of various sectors, and the realm of eLearning is no exception. Given its potential to facilitate personalized and immersive learning experiences, AI integration in eLearning will soon be transforming the industry at an unprecedented pace. Let’s take a look at the real-world applications of AI, focusing on enhancing self-paced eLearning. To set the stage, consider a typical self-paced learning module. These modules allow learners to proceed through content at their own speed, promoting flexibility and catering to the individual learning preferences to some extent. However, the traditional approach can sometimes lack dynamic interaction, real-time feedback, and personalization. While good instructional design can alleviate a lot of these issues, some of these, such as real-time feedback, are technical limitations of the modality. This is where AI, particularly generative AI like ChatGPT, can make a huge difference.

Carbon Black is a leading security company that detects malicious behavior and helps organizations defend against them. In this case study learn how Carbon Black uses Moodle by eThink to improve efficiencies in onboarding and professional development. With Moodle by eThink, Carbon Black has created a role-based onboarding process, utilizes analytics and reporting for measurable learning, and has a centralized location to organize and easily share market knowledge.

Leaders read the headlines. They know about the survey data. The linkages between career development and productivity gains, expense reduction, quality improvements, innovation, and bottom-line results are obvious. And yet most organizations are still poor at growing talent. It's time to elevate the career conversation to its rightful ranks - give it the respect and title it deserves. Talking with people about their careers is a competency - perhaps the most powerful and under-utilized one at the leader's disposal.

Prove the value of change with effective tools and measurement to track progress, calibrate, and improve organizational change readiness. Change management is the currency of successful organizations, yet it often fails. The ability to adapt and flourish requires understanding what promotes success and what factors doom change initiatives to fail. Measuring and proving the value of change promotes the future capacity to adapt, transform, and be agile. Why change often doesn't succeed. There are a multitude of pitfalls and dangers inherent in change initiatives. Let's look at some of these further and how to address them.

For years, trainers have watched as interest declined in traditional approaches to technology training. Confronted with a changing job market, many still struggle to find their way on a new path. Key skills are required for trainers to increase their value, deliver programs with more impact and engage the modern learner. Click below to download this article.

Discover how a Whole Brain® approach can transform the ideation process. Explore some of the specific Whole Brain® ideation, experimentation and problem-solving processes the team used. Learn how this global liquor giant was able to come up with and successfully implement a number of groundbreaking new marketing ideas by injecting Whole Brain® Thinking into their innovation process. Find Out how the "killer" marketing ideas that resulted from the Whole Brain® approach directly led to increased merchandising sales that outperformed the competition, as well as double-digit brand growth.

Leadership Development in the Age of the Great Resignation A roadmap to help organizations achieve a greater return on their leadership development investments by cultivating leaders who make employees want to stay. Fueled in part by the COVID-19 pandemic, droves of employees continue to voluntarily leave their jobs. Deemed the "Great Resignation," this exodus will continue for the foreseeable future, workplace experts believe. In a recent survey by Ecsell Institute, 25 percent of employees carry a moderate to high risk of leaving their jobs in the next year. Leadership often is a critical factor in employee turnover. We’ve all heard the adage: "People don’t leave jobs; they leave managers." While many leaders struggle to retain or replace employees, this is not true of all leaders. In fact, high-performing managers are four times more likely to retain employees than low-performing managers. The key is to discover what organizations can do to create high-performing leaders. In this year’s Annual Leadership Development Survey Report for Training magazine, we uncover the leadership development best practices that differentiate high-performing organizations from other organizations and highlight the specific steps organizations can take to create high-performing leaders. The results provide organizations with a clear roadmap to achieve a greater return on their leadership development investments.

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Business Situation:   In 2014, CA Technologies wanted to enhance its Leadership Development program to focus on three critical areas:    increase the business and finance acumen of participants help them articulate the corporate strategy of CA Technologies and how their role supports that strategy and explain how their role can have a positive impact on CA’s financials.    A business simulation was incorporated to bring together all of the content and experience gained throughout the program via experiences that mirror real-world business and provide participants with learning opportunities to make sound decisions regarding strategy, key performance indicators, and company growth. It would also provide the environment where participants could practice leadership skills in the areas of decision-making, collaboration and risk-taking.   Download this paper for the complete case study, including deep insights into the scenario and results.

How people truly learn in the flow of work.

Global virtual teams are becoming the "new normal" as businesses expand across borders and as skill shortages force companies to tap into broader talent pools. Made possible by technology advances, the global virtual team offers many advantages, including:   obtaining an international perspective on business challenges and solutions achieving economies of scale leveraging complementary work cycles that allow 24/7 productivity harnessing best talent, wherever it is located accelerating innovation and product launches enhancing local knowledge and presence Companies increasingly rely on global virtual teams to foster growth and innovation, yet too often these teams are assembled without a clear process to ensure success. Global virtual teams represent a high stakes commitment, so it is imperative that these teams have a proven framework to promote optimal functioning.

"Work" and "fun" have historically been considered polar opposites. It was thought that you can work or you can have fun, but you can't do both at the same time--or in the same place. Work is what you do for your paycheck and fun is what you do on the weekend. Most of us must work to earn money to live, and sometimes enjoying the work we do seems like a luxury we can't afford. Or can we? Download this article from some recommendations.

Motivation is the energy that accelerates behavior. Often trainers and instructional designers devote a lot of effort in designing reward strategies, convinced that finding the right reward for the right participant will endow the participant with the motivation to learn. Many of us think of motivation as a "carrot and stick" kind of enterprise, with the mechanism influencing motivation located externally. This chapter will help trainers to choose whether to use reward strategies, and if so, how to use them wisely, with a greater understanding of the consequences of their choices.

How can companies expand when voluntary turnover is high and building employee engagement is tougher than ever? In a recent webinar, "Creating an Organization Built to Last - Based on the Bestseller ‘The Alliance," celebrated author and high tech startup advisor, investor, and industry influencer Chris Yeh discussed how The Alliance Framework can transform the way employees and managers view their relationship.. The Alliance Framework is a management strategy born out of Silicon Valley’s unparalleled success in attracting, retaining, and engaging employees. This new approach to recruiting and talent management challenges companies to think of their employees not as hired guns, but rather as partners within the organization. The partnership is built around common goals and the framework suggests that each can still thrive, even when individual goals differ.

As we enter the post-pandemic era, most of us will find the workplace has changed. Remote work, which had been a dream for many workers, became a reality over the past year, as at least 42 percent of the U.S. workforce shifted to working virtually full-time from home. Now that the pandemic is subsiding, the Conference Board reports that 40 percent of employers are planning to have workers return to the office, but 61 percent of white-collar employees say they would like their company to let them continue to work remotely indefinitely, and of that number, almost 30 percent of working professionals indicate they will quit if they are told to return to the office. Download this artcile for some best practices recommended by Dr. Bob Nelson.

As companies continue to grapple with the best way forward in navigating a Hybrid Workforce, one of the beliefs driving many companies to require that all employees return to the office is "company culture," that is the shared beliefs, values, norms and practices that uniquely distinguish one company from another. It's assumed by many executives that an organization's culture can only be learned over time by a culmination of in-person interactions conducted exclusively onsite in central office locations. For example, Goldman Sachs CEO, David Solomon, who has called remote work an "aberration" and not conducive to productivity, sent employees an email which in part stated: "We know from experience that our culture of collaboration, innovation and apprenticeship thrives when our people come together, and we look forward to having more of our colleagues back in the office so that they can experience that once again on a regular basis." Download below to learn more.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ), popularized by best-selling author Daniel Goleman has been validated with multiple research studies to be a key differentiator in work performance. Emotions, which make us human, propel us to require interpersonal connections. Beginning at infancy, our very survival depends upon others, as dramatized in the "Still Face" experiment. In these Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) times, EQ is arguably more important than ever, as emotions are on high alert when experiencing change and stress. Massive changes are occurring both in the workplace and in global macroeconomic trends, as discussed in Forbes and The Conference Board. Such changes trigger strong emotions, which may promote tunnel vision, narrowing our productive choices.

It’s probably occurred to you that the comedian’s art and the trainer’s art have a lot in common. Over the years, I’ve worked with Disney Institute and Disney University and their trainers a number of times. And on these trips, I take advantage of the opportunity to learn from them, as well.

Ixia was in a period of rapid growth through acquisitions. A deeply technical company, it needed to cultivate a stronger leadership bench from cross-functional roles. Chris Williams, senior vice president, human resources, spearheaded the creation of Ixia’s Next Generation Leadership program (NGL) to help future leaders develop business acumen and other skills that complemented their technical expertise. The NGL program would be conducted in three modules over the course of a year. Williams sought a leader in the experiential learning field to provide a business simulation that would form one of the program’s cornerstone modules. 

Experiential Learning 101: Challenge By Choice Trainers, facilitators and program leaders have a tough challenge: what's the best way to engage learners today? Experiential learning presents a highly unique growth opportunity for participants, as well as a tool that program leaders can put to work for them to achieve a specific outcome. See how one type of program -- Challenge By Choice -- combines the best methods of experiential learning and enables people of all capabilities to actively participate. 

I’ve come to realize over the years that some of life’s best lessons are learned in some rather strange locations. One of the oddest places at which I’ve "gone to school" has to be the ice show at Busch Gardens in Tampa, FL. The teacher was a performer named Albert Lucas.

The Strategic Insurance Agency Association is a national alliance of independent insurance agencies dedicated to the creation, retention, growth, and continued success of the independent insurance agency distribution system. Through Moodle by eThink, SIAA was able to create a thriving online university to connect members with shared knowledge and resources.

This article provides a practical guide for Learning and Development professionals on how to discuss integrating AI in eLearning with their leadership. The key focus is on addressing the concerns of leadership and demonstrating the benefits of AI through pilot programs.