Spring has sprung, and crocuses and daffodils are brightening the scene. Infuse your April with some springtime energy by signing up for one of the free webinars being offered this month. We hope they will inspire and motivate you.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 9AM – 10AM PST: Good Company: Business Success in the Worthiness Era

Good companies—those that are good to their employees, their customers, their communities, and the environment—make more money than their less worthy competitors. Yep—it’s true. Come hear economist Dr. Laurie Bassi share the hard-nosed evidence, describe the convergence of forces behind these findings, and discuss what this means for HR and learning professionals. You’ll leave armed with powerful new evidence and a fresh perspective you can use to get the resources you need to help your organization be “good company.”

Thursday, April 11, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: State of Sales Training, 2012

This webinar is based on the ASTD/Blackboard research report, State of Sales Training 2012. Presented by Lee Perlis, senior marketing manager for Blackboard ProEd, and Paul Terry, general manager for Blackboard ProEd, the report provides insight into sales training efforts within various organizations so that members of the sales training community can tailor their programs to help each sales team member reach his or her full potential. Nearly all the respondents (94 percent) reported that sales training helps them do their jobs better.

Monday, April 15, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: How to Make Yourself Indispensable with Strengths-Based Career Choices

Learn the secret to becoming indispensable by shaping your career around your natural strengths. Hear from HarperCollins author Ingrid Stabb on using the Enneagram StrengthsFactors model, how to communicate your type advantage in the workplace, and how to use your strengths to give yourself an edge.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013, 5AM – 6AM PST: Mission Critical: Managing Compliance Training in Europe

Almost every organization has to deliver some sort of compliance training. In some companies, it may be as simple as communicating the internal rules. In others, it can be a matter of life or death. Companies in Europe and around the world face constantly changing regulations from a myriad of external bodies and agencies—with different drivers, strategies, and assessment methods. Join David Wentworth and Ray Ruff as they walk through some of the results of Brandon Hall Group’s 2012 Compliance Survey, identifying global trends and looking at some of the challenges facing companies in Europe and beyond, as well as best practices across various industries.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013, 10:30AM – 11:30AM PST: Net Smart: How to Thrive Online

How can we use digital media to help ourselves and our learners become empowered participants rather than passive consumers? In his latest book, Net Smart: How to Thrive Online, Howard Rheingold shows how to use social media intelligently, humanely, and—above all—mindfully. Howard’s book outlines five fundamental digital literacies: online skills that help with attention, participation, collaboration, critical consumption of information and network smarts. In this session, Howard will talk about how attention works and how we can use our attention to focus ourselves and our learners on the tiny relevant portion of the incoming tsunami of information; the quality of participation that empowers the best of bloggers, netizens, tweeters, and other online-community participants; and how successful online collaborative enterprises contribute new knowledge to the world in new ways.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Transitioning a Federal Agency Business Unit to Telework

Many people in the federal government and beyond have heard about the USPTO's wildly successful telework transition program. Danette Campbell, Senior Telework Advisor for USPTO, and her team will present best practices for transitioning a business unit to a telework environment. They will walk you through the challenges and successes of implementing a telework program, using the USPTO as a case study. This session will provide you with useful ideas for managing such transitions in your own organizations.

Thursday, April 18, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Executive Onboarding: Manage through the Stages of Onboarding, from before the First Contact Well Past the First 100 Days (Free for ASTD members)

Leadership transitions are some of the toughest challenges people face—professionally and personally. Nearly half of new leaders fail in their first 18 months. Often, those failures are the result of crucial, devastating mistakes made in the very beginning. The business world is changing rapidly; we’re all new leaders all the time, and we must treat the next 100 days as the first 100 days of the rest of our careers.

Learn how you can take charge, build or rebuild your team, and deliver better results faster than anyone thought possible—and how you can coach others to do the same.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Leveraging the Best in Culturally Diverse Professionals (Free for ASTD members)

Your workforce is becoming more diverse, whether your company is nationally or globally focused. As your professionals expand in culture, race, ethnicity, or gender, it’s critically important to know how their motivations, communications, and needs are different. You can no longer use one “playbook” to effectively manage this changing workforce. This webcast will address some critical factors for success in motivating and managing the 21st-century workforce. 

Wednesday, April 24, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Solving the 5 Biggest Challenges of Coaching and Developing Leaders (Free for ASTD members)

When you think about coaching developing leaders, do these questions swirl through your mind?

• What is the best way to get leaders to trust me?
• How do I get them to share what's really going on?
• How do I get inside their heads?
• How do I help them get results with speed and impact?
• How do I prove to them that I can help them?

This webcast will address each of these challenges. You will also learn how to establish a deep level of rapport with leaders and establish their trust, access their personal and unscripted thoughts, help leaders get results quickly, capture their undivided attention in a convenient and practical way, and demonstrate proof of your effectiveness and their results.

Thursday, April 25, 2013, 10AM – 11AM PST: Thinking of Replacing Your LMS?

Your business needs are changing fast, and so are the demands placed on your current learning technology. Learning leaders must stay a step ahead of their business, but that can be difficult when dealing with antiquated technology and limited delivery options. Do you have that nagging awareness that it’s time to switch your learning technology, but haven't wanted to face the reality of doing so? This webinar can help reduce your fear of change and increase your odds of success. Join us to discuss best practices from hundreds of successful transitions, including:

• Insights on business strategies for change
• Selecting solutions for the future, not just today
• A technology migration framework, highlighting both the risks and the rewards of migration
• Tips for preparing your organization and data for a straightforward change
• Insights into managing expectations and change-management goals
• Award-winning case studies and practical steps to help you make a successful transitio

Thursday, April 25, 2013, 11AM – 12PM PST: Needs Assessment for Organizational Success

Needs assessment gurus Roger Kaufman and Ingrid Guerra-López present the four tiers of needs assessment, as detailed in their latest book Needs Assessment for Organizational Success (ASTD Press, 2013). As the authors state, "Analysis is important and useful only if you have evidence that what you are dealing with is the actual problem. Otherwise, you might think you are dealing with the actual problem, when in fact you are merely dealing with a symptom. The consequence is moving ahead, only to find that you implemented useless and expensive cures." Learn what is meant by Mega, Macro, and Micro needs assessments, and discover how to put an ounce of good assessment to work for your organization.