Work looks completely different in 2017 than it did just a generation ago. Where we work looks different, how we work has changed, and the skills any given employee needs are evolving faster than we can keep up. The pace of change has created a gap between the skills employees have right now and the skills they need to be successful. Deloitte researchers have highlighted this issue, pointing out the "declining half-life of skills critical to the 21st-century organization." Click below to learn more about these trends.

Performance Management Needs a Better ROI The verdict is in. Traditional performance management isn’t producing the results needed. "Despite years of research and practice, dissatisfaction with performance management is at an all-time high." "PUTTING PERFORMANCE BACK IN PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT", SHRM-SIOP WHITEPAPER Then there’s the employee perspective. Research by Tiny Pulse found that 64% of employees surveyed wanted a supervisor check-in at least every two weeks, with 42% of millennials wanting feedback every week. It’s time to move beyond traditional performance management. Leading HR experts recommend getting started on a fresh look at performance management, emphasizing real-time, agile and a focus on results.

Organizations that leverage learning beyond traditional on-boarding and mandated compliance training reap the rewards of a more engaged, more skilled and more productive workforce. But getting today’s distracted, impatient and busy learners to participate in training and development activities isn’t easy. Dealing with the realities of low adoption rates are a reoccurring nightmare for learning and development (L&D) teams. THE COLD, HARD FACTS ABOUT THE DISTRACTED WORKFORCE It’s no secret that you’re competing for your learner’s attention, but here are a few facts that might startle you: • 67% of organizations struggle with low learning management system (LMS) adoption rates1; • 88% of employees don’t have time, or make the time, to engage with L&D oerings, • 64% of managers don’t encourage, enable or follow up with L&D, and • 64% of people are not aware of what is available in their LMS2. The concept of "if you build it, they will come" doesn’t hold true for learning organizations. If you build it, they will not come. Not unless you come up with a solid marketing, content, delivery and engagement strategy to get them there. THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF AN ENGAGING TRAINING PROGRAM The nuts and bolts of an engaging training program really come down to a well thought out strategy focused on the learner’s experience. Many learners forget - or were never really made aware of - the benefits of learning and development. They don’t realize the resources available at their disposal that are designed to polish their skills and advance their careers. It’s your job to make them aware.

Download this interview with memory expert Ida Shessel to gain a deeper understand of how our memories work and how your can help yourself and others use your memory more effectively to improve how well you learn.

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.

There are dozens of studies and surveys each year reporting on the "state of the training industry." With some modest differences, these reports are consistently reporting very similar data. Among the data points routinely reported are the following: annual per employee spending on training, how many hours of training are available to employees, what training areas organizations are emphasizing, the ratio of training budget to overall expenses or payroll, etc. In other words, you can find a myriad of fascinating metrics all telling about the training industry from the organization’s perspective. What about the employees’ perspective? Aren’t we all supposed to be training employees?

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?

Goal management is among the most powerful methods companies have to execute business strategies. Thousands of studies have examined the impact of goal management on workforce productivity.  The common finding from this research is: Effective use of goals often increases employee productivity levels by 25% or more.  The financial value of goal management is staggering given the relatively low cost associated with implementing goal management methods. Because the value of goals is tied to fundamental psychological principles of employee behavior, the benefits of goal management do not depend on being in a certain industry or market.  If a company employees people then it will benefit from better goal management.

NeuroTracker evolved out of a pure science approach through years of research at Prof. Faubert’s Visual Psychophysics & Perception Laboratory. Designed to uniquely measure and enhance high-level cognitive function, it has become established as a valuable research tool for understanding human performance. The not-for-profit CogniSens Applied Research Center (ARC) supports an increasing number of NeuroTracker research projects across a variety of science disciplines. To date, published studies discovered important neuroscience findings in the following areas. Measurement NeuroTracker provides objective cognitive metrics on brain functions fundamental to human performance, and also relevant in cognitive conditions. High-level mental processing is required to perform NeuroTracker at increasing speed threshold, as such, measures have been found to differentiate elite performers from amateur, reveal characteristic of brain development with age, identify impairment with healthy aging or learning related disorders, and possibly to help to detect function-related brain damage, such as with concussions, and reveal non-contact sports injury risk.  

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.