Just as B2B sales strategies must adapt to increasingly savvy buyers, sales training must change too. This brief discusses how newer training content and methods can result in a better, smarter sales force.

Attention spans are dropping at the same time technology is advancing, leading to a digital skills gap costing the U.S. economy 1.3 trillion dollars in lost productivity. Therefore there’s an ever-growing need for new and better ways to teach, learn and train the 21st century workforce -- and Microlearning is the solution. This white paper is designed to educate L&D professionals on the advantages microlearning can offer their organizations and a brief introduction on how to create it. In this white paper you’ll learn: Why microlearning is better for learners Why microlearning is better for trainers and creators The principles of effective microlearning and how to create it for your own organization  

Despite billions spent on leadership development, the investment doesn’t seem to be having the impact one would expect. This may be due to the lack of traction these programs typically have when it comes to lasting behavior change. This white paper provides 22 lessons that will help increase the likelihood that the skills learned in a leadership development program will "stick" and be used on the job.

2013 Integrated Talent Management Survey Results   Two different divisions trip over each other, recruiting the same candidate. A consulting firm is unable to meet staffing needs for a new, tightly scheduled project. An organization doesn’t have a clear picture of up-and-coming leadership for succession planning. A business merging with another company can’t easily identify overlap of staff skills. Sound familiar? All of these scenarios point to poor integration of HR solutions. At SilkRoad, we feel this topic is so important that we surveyed 380 HR professionals on their integrated talent management systems and processes. We've compiled those results into a comprehensive (and complimentary!) report. This report highlights the survey results and explores the most pressing questions confronting talent management professionals, including: How truly integrated are talent management functions in organizations? What are the most common talent management functions that companies integrate? What are the biggest pain points organizations experience due to lack of integration? What kind of data do professionals want, but can’t access? Big Data: What is it and are talent management professionals planning to use it? How important is "social" talent management to professionals, and what do they see as its greatest application? Are companies enabling mobile access to their HR data?

It is hard to fault the idea that appraisal reveals an employee’s abilities and a development plan should follow naturally from that. The smooth link looks good on paper. The reality is a good deal messier. It is not that HR is doing something wrong, just that the process is harder than it looks. Understanding why it is hard will lead to better results. Download this complimentary ebook and gain a full understanding of the link between appraisal and development, and what you can do to smooth this tricky process.

The reality of business today means that organizations will have to grow the talent they need when they can’t find it. Developing talent internally over the long term will be most of the solution. You’ll want some recommendations in your back pocket when your CEO turns to you for answers. Learning managers will be seen as the go-to resources when it comes to compensating for major skill gaps in talent. By socializing learning, mobilizing the technology, creating strategic stretch assignments, partnering with institutions, and speaking to the bottom line, HR can make learning an integral solution to filling skill gaps in the organization.

Social business tools are not entirely new. Enterprises have been using virtual tools such as chat and message board tools for years. Yet today, Gartner predicts that by 2016 half of all large organizations will have internal Facebook-like social networks, and that 30% of those will be considered as essential as email and phone.   Why are we seeing such a rapidly accelerating interest and business investment in social business implementations, especially as Gartner notes in Enterprise Social Networks (ESN)? How do you understand how ESNs can help you and how do you get started? Don't get overwhelmed. Download this free eBook from Bloomfire to learn how.

I spent this summer writing the second edition of my book Web-Based Training. One of the topics that required updating was blended learning. In the four years since the book was published, the term has taken on several new means. In my research I found the term blended learning referred to four different concepts.

As instructional designers we are constantly being bombarded with new technologies and new trends. It’s difficult to distinguish which are fads, and which are worthy of our investments of time and resources. The safest, and often most expedient course of action is to continue to focus on the delivery technology we know is NOT a fad, the traditional classroom. After all we’ve been using the traditional classroom forever, how can we possibly go wrong teaching in a classroom in front of an audience? As new technologies, like the virtual classroom, eLearning, and social media, are introduced, we continue to play it safe by trying to make these technology experiences replicate the classroom.

Microlearning is a new kind of training for the digital age. This playbook offers strategies for applying this methodology to your own curriculum - a positive step in gaining back lost productivity and finding affordable, effective training for a more digitally capable workforce.

Bringing a new product to market? One of the hidden success factors of a product launch is your sales force, and by extension your customers. Do they have the right skills and knowledge to make your launch successful? This white paper will show you how a curriculum of learning solutions can be used as part of a product launch to solve common business problems.

To make technical and compliance elearning engaging, it needs to focus on the learners’ point of view. Thus, it must be short, immediately useful and employ episodic events and stories to help learners absorb and recall knowledge quickly.

Although variations of the flipped ideology have been around for years, Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams are considered pioneers of the movement since their adoption of the flipped classroom in 2007.       The idea of the flipped classroom is simple: take what's typically done in the classroom (lecture, direct instruction) and provide that for students to view at home, or outside of class, in the form of a video.  

It is not uncommon for learners' jobs to depend on their ability to master the critical information delivered to them via training. Imagine you must design and deliver a learning solution that addresses a critical business need. What would your approach be? Every day, stakeholders and designers make choices that sabotage corporate learning efforts... and result in wasted dollars that produce no result. If learners take a course, will they remember what they learned? In this white paper, you will discover four learning strategies that maximize long-term retention. Then, you'll learn about four additional strategies that maximize the learning from a single training event.

More than 200M adults in the US are part of the digital workforce, yet only 1-in-10 rate themselves as very proficient with the digital tools they use every day at work.  Training has not kept pace with technology, and workers, businesses and the entire economy are paying the price. Digital products and topics are rapidly proliferating and evolving, and yet there is virtually no professional development focused on these 21st century skills. For instance, organizations are using Dropbox and Box for file storage and sharing, Twitter and Facebook to connect with customers, and Google Docs and Analytics to run their businesses. These tools serve essential functions but they can only improve productivity with the right training. This paper will help you develop an action plan to assess and remedy the digital skills gaps in your business.  

"If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think." David Ogilvy David Ogilvy, the famous marketing and sales executive, said it this way, "If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think." Nelson Mandela said it like this: "If you talk to [people] in a language [they] understand, that goes to [their] heads. If you talk to [them] in [their] language, that goes to [their] heart." The ability to communicate—whether to persuade or just to understand—goes beyond using words well; it requires the ability to use words in a way that has meaning for those with whom you are speaking. The ability to talk with someone in his or her native language isn’t just about them understanding you; it’s about you understanding them—their experiences, their thinking, their beliefs, and their values. While definitions lie in words, meaning lies in the people who use them.

Looking ahead in 2014 and beyond, constant change will be the new normal for talent management professionals. Market forces and other external trends continue to reverberate in the industry, among them:   A rapidly evolving, complex regulatory environment Economic turbulence, uncertain growth, and financial markets that behave unpredictably, with implications for budgeting and talent acquisition Disruptive technologies applied to HR, such as predictive analytics and social technology, combined with techniques for ensuring the privacy and security of employee data A diverse workforce, which occasionally includes three or even four generations in the same workplace, as some Baby Boomers delay or work into retirement. At the same time, the temporary workforce swells—up to 2.7 million in 2013, more than three-quarters of a million higher since 2009 Geographically distributed workforces and "road warriors" make it difficult to administer policies, processes and procedures Problems attracting skilled workers, particularly in professional services, technology, engineering, medicine, and other specialized industries A talent management software market that has consolidated, giving professionals a more integrated set of solutions to choose from

What do we mean by agility? It’s how powerfully your organization can react to changes in the marketplace, recognize and close employee skill gaps, and align the right people in the right places to handle any pivots in business strategy. How can you make your organization more agile? There are several critical things you must do.  

There’s no question, big data is a hot topic, to stay competitive in today’s market, organizations have to leverage Big Data.  Harvard Business Review dedicated an entire issue (October 2012) to the topic. A new book, Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think (Mayer-Schonberger & Cukier, 2013), explains the issue in detail. This whitepaper illustrates how Metrics that Matter® (MTM) is a Big Data solution and how MTM aligns to these industry standards and widely accepted Big Data definitions.  

New technology promises to take e-Learning out of the traditional, classroom-based paradigm and into a true "digital native" context. These new e-Learning tools will allow employees to engage in more active and realistic training activities, and they will incorporate emerging social learning and informal learning methods. Download this white paper to discover the implications of these next-generation e-Learning trends and answer these Three Fundamental questions: What unique traits set today's cutting-edge e-Learning tools apart from their predecessors? What are some specific examples of next-generation e-Learning tools? How can these tools increase e-Learning ROI and enterprise productivity?  

Research shows that mobile learning results in better retention than other training models. Discover why training organizations use mobile devices to embrace online learning content. Among the many benefits, mobile devices enable learning from anywhere a user can connect to the Internet—in turn, allowing a more flexible training schedule.  

Will your employees flourish in 2014? If you have a big budget there’s no problem launching a host of great HR programs. If not, here are some simple things you can do for employees in the coming year. Pick the ones that best suit your organization.

It’s a debate that’s raging throughout the digital content world, from content marketers to eLearning professionals: "What is the ideal online medium for conveying my message?" The contenders? A flurry of tactics, ranging from ebooks to white papers to webinars to blogs to infographics to social media. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Each has gained favor in segments of the marketing and eLearning worlds. Conscious of the weaknesses of these alternatives, content creators continue to seek new and more effective media for their messages. Ask them to describe an ideal medium, and you’ll hear something like this: It would be up-to-date, like a live webinar It would be multisensory, like a video It would be navigable, like a white paper or e-book It would be actionable and trackable, like a landing page It would be interactive, like a website It would be sharable, like a social update It would be deeply engaging, like a video game It would be searchable and discoverable, like a blog It would be simple to follow, like a slideshow

Engagement, the employee’s commitment to their organization and their willingness to perform beyond expectations, has become a focus area for management. Engagement is more than mere job satisfaction; fully engaged employees are motivated and dedicated to making the organization a success. At the most simplistic level engaged employees lead to happy, loyal customers and repeat business. Importantly engagement also leads to improvement in retention levels. In short, it impacts the bottom line. Dale Carnegie Training asked MSW Research to undertake a benchmark nationwide, cross industry study of 1500 employees to explore engagement in the workplace. The study discovered that although there are multiple factors affecting engagement, the personal relationships between a manager and his or her direct reports is the most influential.