Wrong month? Check out our latest list of free L&D webinars.

2020 turned us upside down and inside out. We learned how to work differently, and in many cases better. We accepted difficulty with grace. We didn’t let distance get in the way of teamwork. We adapted, flexed, modified, accommodated, pivoted.

The sense of renewal and hope that comes with a new year has never been more welcome. We look forward to new connections, new projects and new learning. Yes, there will be many more days of working from home in PJs, but that won’t get in the way of doing great things.

A little inspiration always helps. With that, here’s January’s round-up of free webinars to get you thinking for 2021.

Tuesday, January 5, 2021, 11 a.m.–12 p.m. PT: Leading with Optimism in Challenging Times (Free for ATD members)
Two decades of research shows that the greatest competitive advantage in the modern economy is a positive and engaged brain, especially during crisis and suffering. The more positive the brain becomes during challenges, the more capable it is to proactively adapt to changing circumstances and recover from stress, anxiety and trauma. In this webinar, hosted by Jordan Voigt, President of Genesis Medical Center-Davenport, and Shawn Achor, Positive Psychology Researcher at International Thought Leader Network, you’ll hear the story of Genesis Health System, recently featured in Harvard Business Review, as you explore “what leading with optimism really looks like” in times of significant challenge.

Wednesday, January 6, 2021, 11 a.m.–12 p.m. PT: Navigating Your Career During VUCA Times (Free for ATD members)
It may be the understatement of the century to say that 2020 didn’t go as any of us planned. The once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic has cost us so much. It put a lot of plans on hold and cancelled others. The good news is your purpose — that which you are destined to achieve and accomplish in your one, precious life — is pandemic proof. Join Olu Burrell, CEO of Olu Burrell Consulting, for a session where you’ll:

• Learn the Three Value Proposition, a framework for aligning your values to your career path no matter the conditions.

• Discover how to effectively network in a physically distanced world.

• Learn how hiring a coach (ICF-certified) and incorporating coaching into your career planning can add to your resilience during these times and take it up a notch to “prosilience.” 

Thursday, January 7 2021, 12 p.m.–1 p.m. PT: Articulate Storyline: Creating, Saving, and Sharing Custom Players
There are many variations in customizing the Player in Articulate Storyline. Create a custom Player for your organization or multiple custom Players for various departments within your organization. Saving your custom Player theme’s easy and then you can export it and share it with other co-workers. In this webinar, Kevin Thorn, Chief NuggetHead at Nuggethead Studioz, will show you how to customize both the Classic and Modern players, save them as custom templates, export and share, and how to import them.

Tuesday, January 12, 2021, 9 a.m.–10 a.m. PT: Yes! You Can Evaluate Soft Skills Training with the Kirkpatrick Model
Have you been tasked with showing the value of a major soft skills initiative, such as leadership development, onboarding or change management? Participate in this interactive program to learn the critical elements for evaluating programs, where the desired outcomes are not strictly numeric in nature. During this webinar, you’ll learn the keys to making soft skills training effective directly from Kirkpatrick Partners’ Senior Consultant, Dr. Jim Kirkpatrick, and President, Wendy Kirkpatrick, world leaders in training evaluation. You’ll come away with the understanding of how to structure your program so you create results and what you need to do to capture the value. Whether you’re new to training or a seasoned veteran, this information-packed hour will help you remain relevant and valuable to your organization.

Tuesday, January 12, 2021, 11 a.m.–12 p.m. PT: Six Workplace Learning Trends Shaping the Future of Work (Free for ATD members)
Move your 2021 L&D plans forward with confidence. Join Udemy’s Director of Learning and Development, Mark McDonald, and Udemy for Business’ Vice President of Marketing, Christine Royston, as they share an inside look at the trends shaping today’s workplace learning with. This webinar will provide you with industry-specific insights that expand on the data within the Udemy for Business annual Workplace Learning Trends report. During this session, you’ll learn:

• Top skills and trends that are driving business results this year.

• How self-mastery is prioritized for everyone, not just employees.

• What L&D teams are doing to place learning into the flow of a remote workplace.

Wednesday, January 13, 2021, 9 a.m.–10 a.m. PT: Controlling Your Nerves When Presenting: No Vomiting Allowed!
What do you do when you have to lead a virtual presentation, but your heart’s beating out of your chest and all you can feel’s the overwhelming urge to vomit? Your friends might be full of good intentions as they try to calm you down and say to you “Don’t be nervous,” but nerves are your fuel and nerves can be your friend. The question becomes, “What you do with all of that energy coursing through your body?” In this webinar, led by Rick Altman, Director of BetterPresenting, you’ll explore specific strategies to adopt, skills to learn and actual behaviours to employ to help you feel more comfortable before an audience.

Wednesday, January 13, 2021, 10 a.m.–11 p.m. PT: Minimize the Noise: Methods and Examples to Reduce Cognitive Load
In the information age, it’s believed that more is better. However, when it comes to learning, we often find the opposite: less can be more. Because of the cognitive load limits of people’s brains, we’re only able to focus on and learn a finite number of any given items on a screen, slide or page. The problem for most instructional designers is finding balance: balance in content, balance in graphics, and balance in motion and placement. In this webinar, Tim Kozlowski, Technical Courseware Developer at Palo Alto Networks, will discuss how cognitive load plays a part in how people learn and retain information, and how to best find the balance of giving people the information they need without overloading them.

Wednesday, January 13, 2021, 10 a.m.–11 a.m. PT: Talent Readiness: The Key to Conquering the Unknowns of 2021
In the uncertain post-COVID world, talent readiness will take on new importance. Organizations will need to be ready for any number of unknowns: 

• What methods are available for recruiting and talent mobility? 

• How can we use the people we have for projects and new opportunities?

• What will we do if there's a workforce reduction?

• What if we still can't return to the office?

These and other talent needs will require a new level of flexibility and insight. In this webinar, Steve Feyer, Director of Product Marketing for Eightfold, and Claude Werder of Brandon Hall Group, will provide strategies to guide you through the talent management obstacle course.

Wednesday, January 13, 2021, 11 a.m.–12 p.m. PT: How to Overcome the Top Three Challenges of Sales Content Management
60-70% of sales content is never used (SiriusDecisions). It’s not enough for your marketing team to simply hand over a presentation deck or solution brief. Sellers need to understand how and when to use a new asset. Relying on traditional sales content management won’t change seller behaviour or drive results. You need new tactics in 2021 to create, manage and deploy high-quality sales content on time and on budget. Join Wayne St. Armand, Chief Marketing Officer at Allego, and Janelle Fortelny, Director of Global Sales Enablement at Logz.io, to learn how you can activate the best possible sales and marketing content to drive results.

Wednesday, January 13, 2021, 11 a.m.–12 p.m. PT: Make Training Videos That Work: Six Common Habits to Avoid (Free for ATD members)
Video has become today’s go-to medium for everything from communication and knowledge-sharing to delivering remote training. While working with video has traditionally been complex, expensive and time-consuming, recent advances have dramatically simplified the process of capturing, managing and sharing it. Ajay Jain, Senior Learning Advisor at Panopto, will be sharing six easy ways to enhance your videos, and how updating your approach to video will enable you to maximize its value. 

Thursday, January 14, 2021, 10 a.m.–11 a.m. PT: Training the Extended Enterprise — A Guide to Getting It Right
Companies often struggle with training multiple audiences that exist outside the four walls of the organization — customers, resellers, channel partners, franchisees, and more — also known as the extended enterprise. Many extended enterprise stakeholders, whether they’re from marketing, sales, product teams or even learning have difficulty managing this kind of training through their existing learning management system. Join David Wentworth, Principal Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Patrick Devlin of Meridian Knowledge Solutions, as they explore the challenges with extended enterprise learning, alternative approaches and the steps you can take to head in the right direction.

Thursday, January 14, 2021, 11 a.m.–12 p.m. PT: Forward-Focused Learning: Inside Award-Winning Organizations (Free for ATD members)
Our era of dynamic change and its profound impact on personal lives and businesses throughout the world represents a new normal. How organizations learn will determine whether they rise to the occasion and adapt or struggle behind outdated practices and processes. This webinar features Tamar Elkeles, Chief Human Resources Officer at XCOM, Jayne Johnson, Talent Leader in transition, and Kevin Wilde, Executive Leadership Fellow at Carlson School of Management. You’ll learn:

• Lessons about how to shape a learning organization that’s innovative and aligned to business needs.

• Rich examples of what has worked when managing the learning function in terms of vision, people and process.

• Strategies to gain support for learning from key organizational stakeholders.

• Ideas about how to use the resources you have to deliver high-impact learning.

Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 9 a.m.–10 a.m. PT: Producing Engaging Virtual Training, Meetings and Webinars
The first 10 minutes of live online sessions is often spent on struggles to get everyone connected and making the audio work. Identifying someone to be your virtual producer will transform not only the way you run your online training, but also how you and your attendees feel about them. Attend this session, hosted by Kassy LaBorie, Principal Consultant at Kassy LaBorie Consulting LLC, and you'll learn how to: 

• Identify the different types of producers and when to use each depending on the virtual session being delivered.

• Determine the necessary skills to develop people to be effective producers.

• Create an action plan to ensure the production of your virtual sessions are engaging every time.

Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 7 a.m.–8 a.m. PT: Outsourcing to Make Learning Strategic
Learning leaders have always known that to be a partner to the business, they need to focus on the strategic side of learning and development. However, the learning function’s typically bogged down in the day-to-day, transactional aspects of L&D, as well as keeping track of costs. There are many pieces of L&D management that can be outsourced, and not in pursuit of job cuts but rather in pursuit of becoming more strategic. Join David Wentworth, Principal Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and David Rivas, Learning Offering Director, and Gabriel Negrii, Learning Offering Manager of Conduent Learning Services, as they discuss how outsourcing supplier/vendor management can help organizations improve the ROI of provider relationships, create accountability and improve service levels.

Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 12 p.m.–1 p.m. PT: Amp Up Your Learning Experiences with Adobe Captivate Prime LMS
The Netflix phenomenon has inspired an entire industry in learning and development, generally referred to as Learning Experience Platforms (LXPs). The unfortunate side effect is that most Learning Management Systems (LMSs) with serious compliance and reporting engines don’t really support the LXP experience well, and most bolt on LXPs are seriously lacking when it comes to enterprise support and support for traditional LMS functionality. Join Director of Product Evangelism, Adobe Digital Learning Solutions, Dr. Allen Partridge, for a fascinating exploration of these approaches to learning, along with more brand and marketing savvy sensitivities for a detailed discussion of how all these approaches may be used across various industries in order to improve organizational outcomes.

Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 8 a.m.–9 a.m. PT: Maximizing and Measuring the Impact of Learning
Organizations put huge amounts of time, money and energy into creating and delivering learning, yet real insight into the impact that learning has on the business remains somewhat elusive. Most companies do a good job of tracking who has completed what training, but that isn’t really telling the whole story, let alone helping determine the ROI of learning. Please join David Wentworth, Principal Learning Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Asha Pandey, Founder and Chief Learning Strategist with EI Design, as they examine the challenges companies face when it comes to learning measurement, and the strategies for maximizing and measuring learning’s impact.

Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 10 a.m.–11 a.m. PT: Five Key Principles For Designing and Delivering Video-Based Learnings
The need to train remote employees using video has rapidly grown in importance. For the training departments and managers who need to implement it, video-based training offers new opportunities for increased remote employee performance and job satisfaction. In this webinar, Rajdeep Chokar, Video Specialist at Panopto, will dig into essential techniques to implement video training successfully. You’ll also explore how to measure the impact of these changes, and how to further improve content using the analytic data you collect from video interactions. 

Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 11 a.m.–12 p.m. PT: Five Things Companies Get Wrong About DEI and How to Get It Right (Free for ATD members)
To build and sustain an inclusive workplace culture where all employees have equitable opportunities to thrive, organizations can’t rely on leaving things to chance or the one-and-done approach. In this webinar, Lydia Frank, Vice President of Marketing at Chronus, will discuss where even the most well-intentioned organizations can take a wrong turn. Learn how to create a DE&I strategy that establishes measures of accountability, fosters a truly inclusive culture and exists across all stages of your employee experience. 

Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 12 p.m.–1 p.m. PT: Why Skills-and-Rules-Only Training Fail — Apply Workflow Thinking
Much of training is on skills and rules, so when workers face problems, their capacities are limited. Workflow Thinking breaks the dependencies on skills and rules to do unbounded thinking — empowered to fix, solve and improve work issues. Join Dr. Ray Jimenez, Architect of TrainingMagNetwork.com and Chief Learning Officer of Vignettes Learning, for this webinar, which will answer: 

• What studies show that skills-and-rules-only training, limits workers in problem-solving incidents?

• What are the practices in training and learning that hinder proper handling of unhappy incidents? 

• How do we design training and learning programs that goes beyond following rules and knowledge?

• What needs to be done with outdated policies, procedures, systems, and knowledge and skills?

• How should we implement the 4-Step Process for Workflow Thinking?

Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 9 a.m.–10 a.m. PT: Create Compelling Presentations for Virtual Training
Remote learning’s here to stay, as is the Zoom fatigue that many learners experience. The importance of compelling content’s becoming ever more apparent, but trying to do that with the same tools you’ve always had can be hard, right? Wrong. PowerPoint gives you terrific tools to create the kind of dynamic, visual content that you need to capture your audience’s attention, with functions that allow interactive sequences, navigable content to respond to your audience and pop quizzes for informal knowledge checks. Join Richard Goring, Director at BrightCarbon, for this masterclass packed with live demonstrations of how to create compelling presentations for successful training in a virtual environment.

Thursday, January 21, 2021, 8 a.m.–9 a.m. PT: Designing Meaningful Graphics for Your Elearning Courses
When designing an elearning course, the main emphasis is on crafting the content correctly. Coupling it with well-crafted graphics will instill a new life to your instructionally-sound content. Join Dr. Pooja Jaisingh, Lead Elearning Evangelist at Adobe Digital Learning Solutions, to learn about the visual design principles you can utilize to create meaningful graphics. You’ll learn how to make a slide composition, choose images, icons, colours, type fonts and other user interface components. She’ll also share best practices and resources to get inspired while creating your elearning courses. 

Thursday, January 21, 2021, 10 a.m.–11 a.m. PT: How to Engage an Isolated and Remote Workforce with Collaborative Learning
The modern learning environment within organizations must recognize, embrace and facilitate collaborative efforts in learning. This has never been as important as right now, when many people are feeling more isolated than ever as they work remotely. Brandon Hall Group’s research finds that employees feeling less connected is one of the top five reasons for productivity loss among remote workers. If companies want learning to engage people and drive results, they have to use the tools that enable collaboration to thrive. Join David Wentworth, Principal Analyst with Brandon Hall Group, and Lars Hyland, Chief Learning Officer with Totara, as they explore the impact that collaboration can have on learning and the organization overall.

Thursday, January 21, 2021, 10 a.m.–11 a.m. PT: Step It Up: Ten Steps to Certification in 2021 (Free for ATD members)
It’s a new year at last. What are you going to do to survive and thrive in 2021? Is this the year that you have decided to pursue a professional credential? Join this webinar to hear from Holly Batts and Sue Kaiden from the ATD Certification Institute about the steps you need to take to earn one of the coveted talent development credentials: the Associate Professional in Talent Development or the Certified Professional in Talent Development.

Thursday, January 21, 2021, 12 p.m.–1 p.m. PT: Achieving Learning Efficiencies: Turning What You Have Into What You Need
At a time when resources may be tight but demand is high, we need to work more creatively with the tools we have, or at a minimum, succinctly describe why you need something else and the value it will bring. In this session, PeopleFluent’s VP Solutions, Jeff Fissel, Chief Technology Officer, TJ Seabrooks, Product Manager, Jim Johnson and Senior Strategic Marketing Manager, Dawn Baron, provide you with a new way to think about the tools you have and learn how to turn that “learning stack” into the “learning ecosystem” that meets your objectives, supports the culture you want and achieve goals. You’ll hear how some of the most well-known global companies have designed and redesigned learning ecosystems to adapt to remote working and pandemic restrictions.

Wednesday, January 27, 2021, 10 a.m.–11 a.m. PT: Virtual Onboarding with a Human Touch — Creating Connection, Culture, and Community
Brandon Hall Group research has shown that the highest-performing organizations have onboarding that is streamlined, uniform in process but personalized to role, and offers activities to engage a diverse audience. More so, these organizations understand the social, collaborative and empathetic nature of people, who want to feel connected and not just be counted as productivity units. Join Cliff Stevenson, Principal Analyst and Talent Acquisition of Brandon Hall Group, and Rebecca Castro, Senior Customer Success Manager of NovoEd, as they discuss the strategies, best practices and technology that will allow your organization to:

• Offer a consistent, high quality onboarding experience to a globally dispersed group of new employees.

• Leverage technology to accelerate onboarding through peer learning and opportunities for formal and informal feedback.

• Develop a holistic onboarding process that cultivates deep social connections and empowers new employees.

• Learn best practices from peers, as we spotlight real-life enterprise onboarding case studies.

Wednesday, January 27, 2021, 12 p.m.–1 p.m. PT: Creative Learning and Coaching in the New World for 2021
We now live in a virtual and non-virtual world. People have gone through an incredibly stressful 2020, so what are some creative strategies to facilitate learning through training and coaching that drive talent and build positive mentalities? This webinar, hosted by Tim Hagen, Chief Coaching Officer at Progress Coaching, will teach five innovative strategies for 2021 training, which are:

• How to use simple conversational strategies to build engagement and cooperation.

• How to use journal-based learning for learning and mental health.

• How to use peer-to-peer coaching and feedback strategies to build learning ecosystems.

• How to use digital lessons to build greater learning retention and avoid online burnout.

• How one simple coaching conversation strategy will explode training and learning needs.

Thursday, January 28, 2021, 9 a.m.–10 a.m. PT: Five Key Principles for Designing and Delivering Video-Based Learning
The need to train remote employees using video has rapidly grown in importance. For the training departments and managers who need to implement it, video-based training offers new opportunities for increased remote employee performance and job satisfaction. In this webinar, Mark Lagemann, Chief High Five Officer and Video Evangelist at Panopto, will dig into essential techniques to implement video training successfully. You’ll also explore how to measure the impact of these changes and how to further improve content using the analytic data you collect from video interactions.

Thursday, January 28, 2021, 11 a.m.–12 p.m. PT: Short Sims: Training that Speaks the Language of Salespeople
Salespeople need action oriented online training that quickly develops skills. This is true around new hires, new services and new market conditions. Short Sims are learning scenarios that speak the action- and goal-focused language of salespeople. Clark Aldrich, Managing Partner of Clark Aldrich Designs, will present real-world examples of how quick-to-develop “Short Sims” are empowering training groups to empower sales organizations. In this webinar, you’ll see examples of Short Sims used in sales and learn how you can build Short Sims using authoring environments you likely already have.

Thursday, January 28, 2021, 12 p.m.–1 p.m. PT: Ready or Not: How Digital Transformation Will Impact Your Training Program Forever
Digital transformation has impacted nearly every aspect of our lives, from how we consume entertainment to how we purchase goods. It’s changed the way we communicate, the way we do business and how we learn. Elearning software’s now on the brink of “eating” professional learning, radically changing the way we deliver and consume education and training programs today. In this webinar, BenchPrep’s Director of Business Strategy and Operations, Nish Ravichandran, will talk about the massive transformation we’re currently experiencing and how you can leverage this unique opportunity in your 2021 training program strategy.

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