Ready to launch into the future? 2018 is standing by, with a full payload of resources to help you tackle a multiplicity of resolutions. Better corporate culture? There’s a webinar for that. More effective communication? You’re definitely covered. Higher general productivity? You bet there’s a webinar for that.

Just check out this list of January offerings and get your 2018 off to a roaring start. We hope they will inspire and motivate you to lift your L&D career to new heights.

Monday, January 8, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: 4 Keys to Enhancing Your Healthcare Culture (Free for ATD members)

A healthcare company’s culture has a tremendous effect on the patient experience, and ultimately your survey scores. What is a company’s culture? And once you’ve defined it, how do you cultivate a strong, positive culture? In this webcast, you’ll explore those questions, and uncover ideas you can use to enhance your culture and, ultimately, the patient experience.

This webcast will provide the following takeaways:

• Define company culture.

• Discover the roots of a strong culture.

• Uncover ideas for enhancing culture and the patient experience.

Tuesday, January 9, 2018, 11AM – 12PM PT: Connecting Compliance to Business Strategy (Free for ATD members)

Are your compliance training programs strategic and aligned to business, or simply an obligatory duty with a check-the-box mentality? When compliance is not integrated into your business system and culture, the outcomes are clear. Consequences include risk of legal action, significant costs in penalties, damage to brand reputation, and more. However, companies where compliance is a key component of their culture and that have fully integrated compliance management into their business systems not only perform better, but easily attract and retain talent. Achieving this integration can present a challenge—what is the best process to ensure compliance represents a strategic value to your organization? To support you on this journey, Skillsoft has developed a road map, The Skillsoft Compliance Maturity Model, to make sure the route to your destination is clearly defined. This webcast will demonstrate this framework and provide you with the information needed to establish your own integration. You will learn:

• The risks presented by compliance programs based on a checkbox mentality.

• The merits of integrating compliance with business systems and culture.

• The steps to take to begin and maintain your compliance journey.

Wednesday, January 10, 2018, 9AM – 10AM PT: 21st Century Training Tools: Making Training Stick Beyond the Classroom

Smarter, wiser, more informed. No, that's not describing a new generation of consumer but describing a new generation of learners. Today's participants know their time is valuable and resources are plenty. How do we manage this new set of expectations? No longer is it enough to have the teacher/student dynamic during instructional events.

All L&D practitioners have been in the situation of trying to make “training stick.” One reason lies in the hands of missing learning connectivity before, during and after programs. Augmenting single-event courses and classrooms by creating links that help to scaffold learning will ultimately create stronger learning connections.

The big question is—how do learning practitioners connect learning to the people? In this modern era of learning, new techniques are required in the areas of connection and collaboration. Therefore, the need to update the learning toolbox goes beyond optional to an essential skill.

This webinar will provide participants with:

• The ability to compare and contrast the variety of Internet collaborative, relationship-building, and knowledge-sharing tools out in the world today.

• Fresh, applicable ideas on how to better connect learning to the people within their organizations.

• Key collaboration and connection tools, displaying real-life application examples.

Thursday, January 11, 2018, 7:30AM – 8:30AM PT: Tackling the Omni-Channel Training Approach at One of the World’s Largest Supermarkets, Carrefour

With the digital explosion, it's getting more difficult to catch employees’ attention. Classroom-based training and digital learning activities tend to be perceived as non-relevant and sometimes even as a waste of time. In this context, a true omni-channel approach with a highly personalized learning experience based on deep data analysis can play a key role in making learning more attractive.

Furthermore, the learning experience should be seamless and available everywhere, while taking into account who the learners are, what they may be interested in, and what they would need in their daily job.

At France-based retailer Carrefour, all employees have access to a highly personalized, and full omni-channel training strategy. Join David Wentworth, Principal Learning Analyst at Brandon Hall Group, and Adilson Borges, Chief Learning Officer at Carrefour, as they discuss why an omni-channel approach is so important to meet very specific needs and promote content tailored to each individual situation.

Discussion topics will include:

• Omni-channel

• Mass personalization

• Learner data

• Content curation

Who should attend: Chief Learning Officers (CLOs), VPs of Training, Training Directors and Managers, Human Resources VPs and Directors, CEOs, and COOs.

Thursday, January 11, 2018, 9AM – 10AM PT: Kirkpatrick Training Evaluation Doesn't Have to Be As Formal As You Think

Is training evaluation a topic that strikes fear in your heart? Does it create anxiety because you feel uncertain about what to do, or if what you are doing is correct? It does not need to be that stressful.

In this webinar, the Kirkpatricks will present easy things that any training professional can do to gather training evaluation data. They will share specific tactics to use before, during and after training to ensure that participants grasp the content, apply it in their work, and see the desired outcomes.

Join this new, interactive program to gain a fresh, modern perspective on how to incorporate training evaluation into your most important initiatives and bring them to maximum success. If you are new to training, you will gain tactical ideas to get started. If you are an experienced learning and performance professional, you can assess whether your training evaluation practices should be updated.

By participating in this program, you’ll discover how to:

• Incorporate training evaluation elements into your programs.

• Gather training evaluation data using simple, non-technical methods.

• Maximize results from your training programs.

Thursday, January 11, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: What’s Exciting About TechKnowledge 2018? (Free for ATD members)

f you are attending (or thinking about attending) TechKnowledge for the first time, or if you need a refresher on how to make the most of your conference experience, this webcast is for you! Joe Koller of Tiffany & Co. and ATD's TechKnowledge Program Advisory Committee chairman, will provide you with an overview and highlight:

• Keynotes and sessions.

• TK Disrupt Room.

• Networking opportunities.

• Conference resources such as the program guide, conference app, and session and speaker evaluations.

This webcast will be recorded so that you can listen to it at your convenience, but make sure you register so you receive notice of its availability.

Monday, January 15, 2018, 5AM – 6AM PT: ATD 2018 International Conference & Exposition Preview (Chinese) (Free for ATD members)

As a talent development professional, you're passionate about ensuring that your workforce is prepared to face the demands of today’s ever-changing business environment. The ATD 2018 International Conference & Exposition will provide you with the knowledge, strategies, and solutions you need to effectively attract, develop, and retain top talent. You’ll gain insights into the latest trends, best practices, and new solutions for designing, delivering, implementing, and measuring learning programs. ATD 2018 covers all industry subjects, and provides in-depth guidance for what you need to know now to be successful. Come away with an outlook of what the future holds, and be prepared to address new challenges.

In this webcast, Wei Wang, the director of ATD International, and Gene Cai, the director of ATD China, will share with you the highlights you can expect in ATD 2018.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018, 9AM – 10AM PT: Blending Hard & Soft Skill Learning with Business Simulations

Business simulations offer organizations a unique opportunity to address hard skills gaps with experiential learning activities; however, many organizations miss out on the tremendous soft-skill development that is embedded in well-designed business simulations.

In this webinar, participants will see:

• An overview of business simulations as an experiential learning opportunity.

• Examples of hard-skill and soft-skill development unique to simulation exercises.

• How to embed your organization's competencies and development programs into simulation exercises for maximum results.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: Reinventing and Democratizing Leadership Development

Brandon Hall Group conducts Leadership Development research every year. The results are generally the same—the training is ineffective, but most organizations plan to spend more money and more time doing the same thing—largely classroom-based leadership training, predominantly to senior leaders.

In 2018, it’s time to get off this hopeless merry-go-round. Join Claude Werder, VP/Research Operations and Principal HCM Analyst for Brandon Hall Group, and Heide Abelli, Senior Vice President, Content Product Management, at Skillsoft, as they explore better ways to develop leaders. This includes:

• Viewing leadership skills as vital to all roles in the organization. This is important because as work environments evolve, work is often driven through projects and teams where different types of leaders, with varying skill sets, are critical.

• Democratizing leadership training by focusing on all leader levels, including individual contributors who have the potential to grow into project and team leaders as well as managers.

• Reinventing content to focus on how people learn best, which is through stories and scenarios and applying learning through action-based exercises.

• Continuous, multi-modal learning ranging from scenario-driven eLearning to various forms of experiential and informal learning that reinforce progressive leadership behaviours.

You will leave the webinar with new ideas and a firm resolve to make 2018 the year that leadership development matures into the effective, business-building tool it needs to be. 

Tuesday, January 16, 2018, 11AM – 12PM PT: A Blueprint to Retaining Your Top Talent (Free for ATD members)

An estimated 75 per cent of voluntary employee turnover is influenced by managers’ behaviours. Increased pay and benefits may have secured your talent at the start, but it is certainly not retaining them—78 percent leave for reasons other than pay. If we better understand the motivations of our top-performing employees, then we can structure management strategies and learning resources to keep talent happy.

This webcast will explore employee learning and development cycles and the role they play in engaging, developing, and retaining employees. Members who attend will learn:

• Ways to assess the impact of your current L&D program.

• Techniques to foster honest conversations around employee career and skills development.

• Resources needed to develop, practise, and retain new skills.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018, 12PM – 1PM PT: How to Bring Instructional Design Closer to Work Realities and Demands

Many instructional designers, developers, and leaders complain that content is dumped on them by their SMEs and internal customers. They have no one to go to and explain the details of the kind of content they believe would be useful to learners. They realize that content produced this way is too far away from the realities of day-to-day workplace events and therefore is not valuable. Consequently, the programs they produce are theoretical, bland, and have no sense of relevance to the workers at work.

In this webinar, you’ll get answers to these questions:

• Why are designers, developers, and leaders too far removed from realities of work? How does this impact the quality of our programs?

• What should we do when someone dumps a “truckload” of PowerPoints and says, “I needed the course yesterday!”

• In the absence of more details, what should we do? How and where should we focus our research? What questions do we ask? How do we understand the details of the content?

• How do we find the relevance and importance of the content in day-to-day real work?

Attend the workshop and learn Ray Jimenez’s Tips on “Finding the Relevance of Content" to accelerate worker ability and productivity, as we, in the learning world, face the challenge of keeping up or staying ahead.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018, 9AM – 10AM PT: Augmented Reality: Integrating Mobile Learning with Work

It’s no exaggeration to say we’ll never use our phones the same way again.

And the rule book for mobile learning just went out the window. Augmented reality is coming – and fast. This powerful emerging technology will be on hundreds of millions of phones in the next few months and on a couple of billion phones by next year.

More importantly, it may well be on your CEO’s phone the next time you meet. And you know what that means. You’ll have to explain how your group is going to be leveraging AR to improve enterprise learning and productivity.

This webcast will address:

• How to identify and design low-cost, high-reward AR pilots.

• Design principles when the world is your canvas.

• How to go beyond information overlay and develop storytelling and game-playing AR experiences to practise skills and reinforce concepts.

• How to collect user data and analyze it for actionable insights.

• How to make the case for AR to your CEO.

• The AR development process.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: Crash Course in Information Graphics for Learning

This webinar showcases one of the best-rated, most popular sessions, speakers, or topics from Learning Solutions 2017 Conference & Expo, now available to all through this special online presentation.

Do you know how to create an effective diagram? Can you create a graph that tells a story? Because visualizing abstractions can improve comprehension and facilitate learning, an important skill in L&D is the ability to convey abstract concepts and statistics in a meaningful way. But if you don’t know how to design the best type of graphic to meet your learning goal, how will your explanation be a success?

In this session, you’ll explore:

• How visual perception should influence the type of information graphic you choose.

• How to match the graphic type with the learning goal.

• A design process for creating information graphics.

• Where to find resources for designing information graphics.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018, 11AM – 12PM PT: Improve Employee Performance by Driving a Culture of Next-Gen Learning (Free for ATD members)

With disruptive market conditions rapidly changing the world of work, traditional approaches to workplace learning and development need to be rethought and reinvented if organizations are to successfully future-proof their workforces. Join this webcast to learn more about the key elements of modern learning in financial services. In this webcast, you’ll learn how to:

• Align learning with business objectives to ensure efforts are effectively moving the dial.

• Develop learning content that is engaging for the modern learner.

• Sustain learning activities and continue to cultivate desired knowledge, skills, and behaviours.

Thursday, January 18, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: Legacy vs. Modern: The Future of eLearning Platforms and Content

As learning undergoes a digital transformation, many companies are challenged by the amount of time, money, and energy they have invested in building and acquiring learning technology and content. Vast infrastructures have been built up and deep libraries amassed. It can be difficult to build up the momentum needed to begin to make changes.

Join David Wentworth, Principal Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Corey Marcel, Sr. Director of Sales for Docebo, as they discuss just how big the legacy challenge is, the impact it can have on a company’s learning effectiveness, and what organizations can do to begin modernizing.

Discussion topics include:

• The current learning landscape.

• High-impact learning strategies.

• Technology’s role.

• Beginning the digital transformation.

Thursday, January 18, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: Performance Consulting: What It Is and How to Get Started (Free for ATD members)

Each year, learning and HR solutions are implemented with minimal performance change or impact. This is because performance improvement requires the implementation of multiple solutions—single solutions, such as learning, rarely result in the desired performance change. Performance consulting is a process designed to achieve business results by maximizing the performance of people and organizations. But what do people who work as performance consultants actually do? How is this different from more traditional approaches to talent development? And how do talent development professionals successfully adopt this methodology? In this webcast, Dana Robinson and Chris Adams will answer these questions. After participating, you will be able to:

• Define performance consulting and why it is a strategic—not tactical—process.

• Describe the two components of the mental model used by performance consultants when they discuss requests for learning and other solutions.

• Ask powerful questions when responding to a learning solution request.

• Identify three proven practices for transitioning to a performance consulting approach.

Monday, January 22, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: Leveraging Learners to Help Employees “Stick” to Your Organization (Free for ATD members)

Help employees create an attachment, or “stick,” to your organization by identifying learning and growth opportunities that are meaningful to them. Cultivating an ongoing investment in the individual shows the employee their manager sees value in enhancing their knowledge. While most people may not start a discussion about learning with their manager, what they have to say when they are asked can make your organization stronger.

After participating in this webcast, you will:

• Understand how discovering the learning goals of an employee can help the person “stick” to the organization.

• Discover how creating organizational attachment can drive business results.

• Identify how and when to create an environment for a successful stay interview.

Tuesday, January 23, 2018, 9AM – 10AM PT: Feelings Count: Using Movies to Link Learning

Which is more powerful: facts or feelings? If you want to win over everyone in your audience, your best bet is to address both. Explore how movie scenes can quickly help participants connect the emotions experienced in watching a movie clip with the content we are teaching. According to a University of Notre Dame study, learning is tied to “an emotionally charged experience,” either positive or negative.

This session will dive into the psychology behind emotion and teach you how to select the right movie scene to tap into the power of emotion to increase retention of information.

Objectives:

• Recognize how emotions affect learning.

• Discover tips for determining the right emotion and selecting the best scene that taps into that emotion.

• Explore tactics for making the most out of the movie scene and managing the scene for optimal learning and discussion.

• Learn how to easily and legally select and use movies that teach and train.

Tuesday, January 23, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: Making the Workplace Feel Safe Again: How to Improve Civility in Your Organization

Many environments today aren’t comfortable. The workplace shouldn’t be one of them. The professional atmosphere of the workplace was seen as a relative safe haven from an increasingly uncivil society. But the stress and extremism that drives incivility in the outside world has infiltrated the workplace to a high degree. One research study shows that 98% of workers report some level of incivility in their work environment. The causes are many, but so are the cures. This webinar focuses on the costs of incivility, which are greater than you might think, and the ways in which organizations can combat the trend and protect against low engagement, declining productivity, and higher healthcare costs and sick-day usage, among other problems.

Join Michelle Reed, Chief Marketing Officer for SkillSurvey, and Claude Werder, VP/Research Operations and Principal HCM Analyst for Brandon Hall Group, as they explore this important topic. You will leave with:

• An understanding of workplace incivility’s impact on human capital management issues such as employee attrition, employee engagement, and employee experience.

• Concrete strategies and resources to reclaim—or improve—civility in your organizations.

Wednesday, January 24, 2018, 9AM – 10AM PT: Do or Die: The 10 MASSIVE Mistakes Practitioners and Professionals Make Preparing for L&D Disruption and the Future of Work (and What to Do About Them)

This session explores MAJOR mistakes talent, training, learning & development practitioners and professionals make when preparing for L&D disruption and the future of work—and shows you what to do about them.

The following mistakes will be covered: learning technology investments; human expertise and machine intelligence; training delivery strategies; learning experience design; instructional and informational interventions; training measurement, metrics and learning analytics; centres of control and learning in workflow; outside competitors and new L&D business models; cognitive and affective domains; and L&D skills, capabilities and career development. And how to fix them.

Wednesday, January 24, 2018, 10AM – 11AM PT: The Five ‘E’s of Exceptional Onboarding

According to Brandon Hall Group’s 2017 Evolution in Onboarding Survey, 69% of organizations have not yet figured out how to effectively onboard their new hires. They either have no formal practices or are just developing their formal practices for onboarding. The poor new-hire arrives on the first day of work without any idea of what to expect, fills out the “employment paperwork,” learns about a few policies, and is left to figure out how to navigate their new employer’s culture.

This webinar will discuss how to avoid that situation and effectively motivate and train new hires with the five exceptional “E” approaches to onboarding: Employ, Engage, Excite, Educate, and Empower. Each of these approaches will provide practical information about how your organization can improve your onboarding process and deliver on improved time-to-productivity and new hire engagement.

Join Daria Friedman, Principal Talent Acquisition Analyst for Brandon Hall Group, and Jeremy Reid, Senior Principal Product Manager—Recruiting Systems, for SumTotal, a Skillsoft Company, as they discuss how organizations can improve their onboarding.

Discussion topics to include:

• Employ – Facilitating employment documentation.

• Engage – Collaboration, mentorships, team introductions, other engagement activities.

• Excite – Gamification and other techniques to excite new hires.

• Educate – Company and job training.

• Empower – Building a solid employee/employer relationship.

Wednesday, January 24, 2018, 11AM – 12PM PT: Why Mentoring Matters (Free for ATD members)

Mentoring programs can play a critical role in talent development in any organization. Formal mentoring programs—those that have clear objectives and guidelines—are found in roughly a third of organizations, according to research by ATD. In this webcast, the facilitators will discuss common mentoring program structures, benefits, and objectives. You’ll also hear recommendations for developing and strengthening your mentoring programs. You’ll learn about:

• The definition of formal mentoring programs.

• The effectiveness of formal mentoring programs.

• The barriers organizations face when creating formal mentoring programs.

• What type of training is incorporated into formal mentoring programs.

Thursday, January 25, 2018, 9AM – 10AM PT: Mousify Your Training: Disney-Inspired Strategies for Practically Perfect Learning

Walt Disney knew it and he had Mary Poppins sing it. A spoonful of sugar does help the medicine go down. He once proclaimed, “The normal gap between what is generally regarded as ‘entertainment’ and what is defined ‘educational’ represents an old and untenable viewpoint.”

The entertainment Disney created was both informative and enjoyable—unlike many learning programs. When entertainment and learning are aligned Disney-style, the results are magical; participants pay attention, they absorb information, and they change behaviour.

In this session, you'll learn how to...

• Identify strategies Walt Disney used to draw people into an experience so you can apply specific tactics to capture learner attention and maintain focus.

• Examine the techniques Disney’s team used to transform rides into immersive environments so you can create your own captivating learning experiences.

• Discover Disney’s approach to making a message so memorable that the meaning sticks for years afterward so you can create magical memories for your audience.

Friday, January 26, 2018, 9AM – 10AM PT: Managing Your Career After Age 40 (ATD subscriber content)

In our youth-oriented society, it's common to hear fears of age discrimination in the workplace and hiring process. While it's true that there is some discrimination, job seekers often unwittingly reinforce the stereotypes that others have about older workers. In other cases, older job seekers hinder themselves because of their own beliefs and assumptions. If you're concerned about any of the following issues, this webcast is for you!

• Are you over 40 and concerned that you will have difficulty finding a job the next time around?

• Do you have some ideas for a business or new career direction, but are afraid to give it a try because you need to pay the mortgage?

• Are you tired and bored with your current job but afraid to make a change?

• Have you been applying online but haven't had any luck? Have you heard that you may have to dumb down your resume?

• Are you wondering how to get employers to be interested in you if you want to change careers or industries?

Join this webinar to hear from career coach Marilyn Feldstein about steps you can take to avoid some of these challenges and move your career forward at any age.

Monday, January 29, 2018, 9AM – 10AM PT: 10 Tips for the ATD BEST Awards Application (Free for ATD members)

The talent development function plays an important role in organizational success, but it doesn’t always get the recognition it deserves. Winning an ATD BEST Award will demonstrate your value as a strategic business function by raising awareness of your impact on business success.

ATD BEST winners are the benchmarks for the talent development industry. Ready to apply? This webcast can help you put your best foot forward on your application. This webcast will walk you through the criteria and process of applying for a BEST Award, and give you tips for success. Applications are due March 31, 2018, so don’t miss this opportunity to have all your questions answered!

Tuesday, January 30, 2018, 11AM – 12PM PT: Forecasting Success: A Look at Digital Learning Trends for 2018 and Beyond (Free for ATD members)

Today, most companies realize that they’re not adequately prepared for the disruptions they expect to emerge from digital trends. Nearly 90 per cent of respondents to a recent global survey of managers and executives conducted by MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte stated that their industries will be disrupted by digital trends to a great or moderate extent. As companies adjust their strategy to become digital, the expectation is that their learning organizations will adapt as well.

In 2018, the stage is set for transformative moves, as last year’s digital learning developments continue to mature and converge, and trends such as adaptive learning, MOOCs (massive open online courses), augmented reality, and virtual reality increase their presence in the industry. This webcast will deliver easy-to-understand insights on the questions 2018’s learning professionals will be asking, such as:

• What is digital learning?

• How can I improve the learner experience?

• What new developments are ahead in adaptive learning?

• What are some practical uses for augmented reality?

• What are some of the tools that I can use to get started with these trends?

Tuesday, January 30, 2018, 12PM – 1PM PT: Copyright Basics for Trainers: Selecting Images and Music That Won’t Break the Budget – or the Law

Research indicates that images are vital for engaging, as well as informing, our audiences. Or a catchy tune can aid as a reminder tool. But in the rush to find the perfect image or music, the role of copyright and licensing may be overlooked.

In this session, Barbara Ingrassia provides an overview of copyright basics and how to utilize those concepts when selecting images and music for training materials. Barbara is a certified copyright manager, speaker, and trainer. She has a passion for raising awareness of the role of copyright in our daily lives. We are all consumers and creators of copyright-protected works, and understanding some copyright basics can help us avoid unpleasant “surprises.”

Sources of free and no-cost (with conditions) content, search techniques, and best practices/guidelines will be discussed. How to protect your own original content will also be addressed.

Following this webinar, attendees will be able to:

• Explain the importance of copyright awareness.

• Identify appropriate sources for finding suitable content.

• Determine the copyright status of works found on the Internet and elsewhere.

• Develop and apply best practices for complying with copyright law and licence terms.