Accessibility is becoming ever more important to organizations seeking to make all learning accessible and those who want to manage risk through compliance and even where 508 compliance isn't required, through best practices in instructional and training videos.   Click below to download this excellent resources, attend the webinar and watch for the companion piece in your InBox soon, "Beginner's Guide to Captions for Training Videos"

Learner motivation is a critical success factor in designing e-learning that makes a difference. In an individualized learning setting, like asynchronous web-based training programs, active learner engagement is necessary for learning to occur. So while it is important for the instructional designer to get the content "right," it is even more vital (and usually more challenging) to design interactivity to draw in the learner to commit to the authentic behavior needed for learning to occur.  This e-book presents some straightforward and effective design strategies to create learner motivation in e-learning.

Learning content has never been easier to create. It is true that creating learning content comes with its own sets of challenges, but the plethora of tools available today have made authoring somewhat easier. What is not getting easier, however, is information overload for the learner. Organizations with the ability to easily create content on the fly means that new content is often created for every situation. Now, learners have to sift through mountains of content to get the information they need. A recent report showed that 24 percent of learning leaders said "content overload" was a huge problem in their organizations, and 38 percent more said that knowledge transfer and retention of content are their biggest challenges.

The Great Resignation - or employees leaving their current roles for better opportunities in a post-COVID world - is well underway and shows no signs of slowing down. To survive and thrive, organizations must adapt to this changing economy and learn how to retain the best talent. Our infographic explains six strategies that can help your company attract and retain employees.

In high-consequence industries, accidents can lead to loss of life, general disruptions, or risks to safety. Imagine the business impact if your organization were suddenly unable to meet compliance, service, or production commitments. That’s not a position you want to be in. Keep these six things in mind as you make your contingency plans

Executing talent management activities before they’re needed is an earmark of a successful business. With aging workforces and a shortage of critical talent being among the biggest challenges facing today’s businesses, strategic workforce planning - the discipline of forecasting future gaps between demand and supply of critical talent, to ensure that you have the appropriate workforce mix three, five or ten years from now - has become one of HR’s most important responsibilities.

Are you considering working with a custom content development shop to help frame your learning strategy, create a curriculum, convert existing training, or simply give you a hand?  Working with the right vendor can deliver extraordinary results—ones that engage learners, drive behavior change and foster a culture of learning in your organization—IF you choose the right partner. Download this free eBook and learn 7 best practices that will help you build a successful partnership and deliver better learning experiences. 

There is a large contingent of instructional designers out there who are forced by their organizations’ lines of business to take orders and "design" eLearning courses. Stakeholders ask these well-intentioned instructional designers to become order-takers and apply learning objectives, knowledge checks and assessments to their PowerPoints and import them into a Storyline or Captivate published SCORM file. Once it is loaded into the organization’s LMS it resides there in a deep blue abyss forever. Did I mention that these projects have a completion deadline of 2-3 weeks? Does this sound like you? It’s not your fault. Let me say it again, it’s not your fault! After all, you have a backlog of projects and only so many hours in a day to argue the merits of learner-centric and performance-focused eLearning They were frustrated with bad eLearning that fails to live up to its promise of improving performance and creating measurable results. So they decided to come up with a set of 22 principles that reflect effective performance-focused eLearning that instructional designers should know and use. I’m a signatory and agree with every principle in the manifesto. However, it falls short of being a useful tool that instructional designers can use to evaluate their design throughout the project life cycle and make changes for the better. There are other tools out there that evaluate the quality of instructional design based on performance-focused and learner-centric standards. Take the Quality Matters Rubric for instance. This tool is very advanced, has quality assurance standards, certification for designers, and even membership opportunities. However, it focuses primarily on academia not industry, it is very rigorous, and it can take almost as much time to evaluate your course than building the actual course. Therefore, I decided to come up with an evaluation tool for my team and I would like to share it with you. The evaluation tool is called the 7 Better Learning Principles Assessment (of course if someone comes up with a better name, I’m all ears).

CSO Insights’ 2017 Sales Manager Enablement Report compared the win rates on forecasted sales opportunities between companies with a formalized approach to coaching—meaning there is a standard approach used by all sales managers—to those companies where coaching strategies were entirely left up to the manager or done informally. Their findings provide proof as to why a sales coaching initiative at your company is so important: companies who had adopted a formal approach to sales coaching achieved a win-rate on forecasted deals that was 19% higher. In short, developing a strong sales coaching culture offers a great ROI. And great leverage: Each sales manager trained is then empowered to improve the win rates of every sales rep on their team. Here are seven keys that will move you in that direction.

How do you know if your learning management system is effective in developing your employees? As talent leaders, you need to upskill, reskill, and continually expand your employees' capabilities. The urgency of developing your workplace has never been greater. Here's why: 34% employees have already left a job because they lacked career development opportunities. Effective 2020, approximately 35% of the skills needed for jobs across industries will change. According to research by SHRM, over 50% of HR professionals believe the skills shortage has gotten worse instead of better. Many use an LMS to help solve for these challenges, but most learning platforms aren't equipped with effective tools to tie learnings to long terms skills and career development. That's where this guide comes in. Get the 7 questions you should be asking now to see if your platform can solve these challenges.

No matter how fun your game-based solution is supposed to be, you will still need a plan for launching it, promoting it, and measuring it. How will you communicate about the game? Will you require players to play? How will you incentivize play... or do you need to incentivize?

Ready or not, it’s time to adapt your training program for the digital world. In order to be set up for success, you need a long-term eLearning strategy or you risk being left behind. But with over 800 learning technology options to choose from, how do you know which option is best for both your business and your learners? How can you be sure you are choosing an option that will scale with your business and provide you the data you need to make smart (and quick!) business decisions? In this free infographic, you'll get a 7-step guide to help guide your learning platform buying decision.

The world expects more than compliance. Through a partnership with research and analyst firm, Brandon Hall Group, OpenSesame has distilled the latest in DEI benchmarking and progress research; and created a seven-part white paper series that reveals seven strategies that transform your DEI initiatives. Discover factors that connect within a DEI framework, methods for program longevity and employee action, and ways that leadership within your industry creates lasting and meaningful change. Learn about: Developing a holistic DEI approach that builds a culture to transform company connections Establishing strong DEI values across your organization to maintain engagement Assessing your industry’s needs and how to prioritize DEI efforts for robust and lasting outcomes Ways to integrate DEI programs into your current and ongoing learning curriculum

No "learning culture" is born overnight. For a learning culture to become part of your brand, you must involve both the leaders and the employees every step of the way. The process is demanding but leads to a tremendous pay-off through higher employee retention, higher quality performance from your employees, and an increase in revenue.   This eBook discusses key elements of building a culture of learning, including: How to design training for measurable ROI Best practices in training design strategy Tips for custom eLearning development The role of analysis and performance consultants How to utilize managers and mentors

Looking to implement microlearning but not sure where to start? Or do you need some help identifying a microlearning use case that will enhance your existing training programs? Either way, we have great news: when it comes to microlearning, the possibilities are nearly endless. This guide shares nine of the top ways organizations are leveraging this science-backed practice to train and develop high-performing employees. From the primary use cases of knowledge reinforcement and assessments to boosting employee engagement and tracking performance, you’ll learn practical strategies you can implement right away to improve training effectiveness!

For training content to be effective and engaging, it needs to be continuously adaptive to your company's and your employees' changing needs. Download this infographic, and learn the questions to ask content providers to ensure they are the right fit. Click below to download.

With the world of work rapidly shifting to a skills-focused lens, you need to evolve your approach to developing workforce capabilities before necessity does it for you. Transforming into a skills-based organization (SBO) is a complicated, emerging process, but with the right tools and strategies, a little guidance, and a future-focused mindset, your business will reap the benefits.   In this 15-minute introduction, you’ll get prepped for the SBO journey with answers to your initial burning questions, including:  What are the benefits of an SBO?  How do you become one?  What can you do today to start your transformation?

WHAT IS A COACHING CULTURE? Culture shapes behaviors inside the organization and a coaching culture is one deliberately focused on growing and nurturing talent in order to deliver key results, strengthen leadership capacities, increase retention and deepen engagement. A culture that has cultivated a coaching approach to development often demonstrates some of the following characteristics: • Giving and receiving feedback in the service of being at one’s best • Focusing on opportunities to help members of one’s team grow • Operating in teams with clear goals and roles • Developing others when it matters most • Asking and empowering more than telling and fixing When coaching is embedded through all levels of an organization it becomes the predominant approach to working and leading together with a goal of building a best-in-class organization by building great leaders. Click below to download this White Paper.

Many organizations struggle with the decision on which training format is best for their developers. And many teams focus on testing out a self-paced training solution. Is it the best method? Can it help retain their teams? We sat down with the industry’s biggest leaders and asked for their honest feedback. In this white paper, you will learn: The outlook for self-paced training in 2020. The cost considerations for various training formats. If self-paced training can be the end all solution. Training tips from some of the country’s biggest companies.

Our goal is to provide training that is engaging and effective. As more training moves online, it is important to ensure that it offers a natural, enjoyable learning and training experience. This eBook includes: Trends EdTech Tips & Tricks

When creating a learning strategy, it can be difficult to see the whole picture. Individual components like onboarding efforts, compliance training, leadership development, and skills development programs can be complex ordeals, each requiring varying levels of thought. However, simply examining these programs individually can be a costly mistake. Without considering how they belong to the overall learning and development efforts, the strategy can fall apart. Taking a holistic approach might be necessary to protect from some of the inherent risks of training expenditures. As part of best practices, any learning objective should align with the broader business goals. But, beyond that, any training activities should include a clearly defined message of the "what’s in it for me" or WIIFM to the learner. Asking them to commit to the process means knowing what they stand to gain for their efforts. The holistic approach to explaining the WIIFM should include not only the learner, but their team, department, and organization, in general. In this eBook, we focus on how organizations can take a holistic approach to creating upskilling strategies for their learners. Topics include: Why the business climate is right for upskilling initiatives Using learning tech to help the organization adapt and thrive Ongoing challenges learning leaders face with upskilling programs Strategy suggestions to avoid common mistakes How certain industries can win with upskilling programs

The pervasive amount of harassment in the news today points toward the harsh truth that the common approach to compliance training has failed many victims. Effective compliance training depends on several factors — starting with workplace culture. This eBook is designed to address your concerns about compliance training and will show you what to focus on. Discover where your focus should be when developing corporate compliance training. Within this eBook, you’ll learn to: Evaluate your company culture to create an effective training strategy Utilize tools and strategies to change attitudes and behavior Learn when and how best to collaborate with an outside vendor for compliance training

Talent strategies to prepare your organization for the future of work. Today’s economic environment is volatile. HR professionals face challenges on multiple fronts, including the disruption of the global labor market. But the future of work is still hopeful. There are ways you can not only survive the current crises but thrive. For insight, read our article about how organizations like yours can use talent strategies to move beyond core operations in order to better support and empower employees and stay relevant in the changing labor market.

A Perspective on Competencies by Hale Associates.