Elearning December 2015 - January 2016

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December 2015 / January 2016 Volume 11 Issue 4 • www.2elearning.com

>> 2015 Best of Elearning!

Award Winners Named Pg 27

>> Does Your Training Get High Marks? Pg 22

as a g n i n r Lea tive i t e p m Co Pg 16 e g a Advant Left to right, Red Roof Inn key training personnel: Vicki Houston, management trainer; Daniel Currier, HR and Training admin; Leslie Fisher, vice president of HR and Training; Steve Woodward, director of Training; and Michelle Wehrle, manager of Training.

A Management Education For Those Who Expect More American Public University knows the value of strong management and leadership skills. Learn talent development and other management strategies for organizational success in a competitive business world.

APU offers 190+ career-relevant online degree and certificate programs including: • Human Resource Management • Retail Management • Transportation & Logistics Management Partner with a nationally recognized leader in online education and strengthen your workforce investment.

Get started today at StudyatAPU.com/elearning

BEST ONLINE PROGRAMS BACHELOR’S

2015

We want you to make an informed decision about the university that’s right for you. For more about our graduation rates, the median debt of students who completed each program, and other important information, visit www.apus.edu/disclosure.

Contents

DECEMBER 2015 / JANUARY 2016 VOLUME 11 NUMBER 4

>> Cover Story: RED

Academy: Learning as a Comptetitive Advantage PG 16

Red Roof Inn is unique. The hotel chain is part franchise and part companyowned. The challenge to bring the entire chain into one unifying customercentric culture requires management skills that are complex and high-touch.

Communications to properties must be an artful blend of diplomacy, marketing, education and influence. Enter the RED Academy.

By Chris Osborn and Vicki Houston

>> Essentials 9 10 11 12

News People on the Move Trendlines Deals

PG 45

>> Features 22

Employee Training: A Gradecard from the Employee Perspective Training is a $200 billion industry globally. Employees spend thousands of hours to improve performance and knowledge. But what is the true value of training from the employee’s perspective? Discover how learners ‘grade’ training efforts in this unique industry study.

By Chris Osborn

27

The 2015 Best of Elearning! Awards Honor 100 Top Solutions The 11th Annual Best of Elearning! awards are the industry’s exclusive users’ choice awards. More than 4,000 nominations were received across 30 solution categories for best-in-class solutions. And the winners are….

By Jerry Roche and Catherine Upton

22

4

December 2015 / January 2016 Elearning!

>> News

PG 48

Learning! Champion Award Announced 9 How Much Do Talent

Pros Make?

10 The Key to Learning Efficiency 12 Call for Papers: ELC16

9

>> Management 13

Leader’s View Three questions for Dean Pichee, founder and president of BizLibrary, who peeks into the future of employee training and learning to find what he calls “end-to-end learning experiences.”

15

Insights: Brain Science and Learning Effectiveness How to leverage “brain science” to create learning that really engages learners and actually improves performance

By Bryan Austin

22

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How to Gain C-Suite Support

Virtual Edge: How to Engage Online Learners Apply these techniques to help presenters overcome their fears and create highly engaging learning experiences.

By Emma King

Employee Training: A Gradecard from the Employee Perspective Training is a $200 billion industry globally. Employees spend thousands of hours to improve performance and knowledge. But what is the true value of training from the employee’s perspective? Discover how learners ‘grade’ training efforts in this unique industry study.

By Chris Osborn

47

>> Tools & Practices

27

The Top 100 Best of Elearning! Named The winners of the 11th Annual Best of Elearning! awards include wellknown brands and many new brands.

Which of these 100 winners will be your next ‘must-have’ solution?

48

49

50

The Secret to Higher Employee Training Participation Do your employees participate in your training program at the rate you’d like?

How many courses per month does the

Best Micro-learning Practices Scientific research shows that we learn best when we are fed a single topic in five- to seven-minute chunks using video. It works to teach people new things on just about any topic.

>> Business 8

Editor’s Note This issue is our gift to our loyal readers: the “Best of Elearning!” awards, research and features that yield insights into organizations’ learning initiatives and products.

By Jerry Roche

The Right Training Content Mix Experts think best mix is a ratio of 10/2/1. So you want to provide about 10 off-the-shelf courses (Level 1), two moderately customized courses (Level 2), and one fully customized course (Level 3).

One of the foundational challenges for HR and learning professionals is building and then maintaining executivelevel support for investments in employee training.

average employee start and complete?

Here are some suggestions for improving employee participation.

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Trendlines Statistics, figures and industry trends

50

The CLO is Becoming Relevant Once Again This interview with Rory Cameron reveals 3 key trends that will impact your enterprise, business process and the emerging CLO role.

Elearning! December 2015 / January 2016

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DECEMBER 2015 / JANUARY 2016 VOLUME 11 ISSUE 4

Catherine Upton Group Publisher >> cupton@2elearning.com

Online@

2elearning.com Trending Topics

The Myth of Micro-Learning

By Sharon Boller http://www.2elearning.com/insights/ item/56126-the-myth-of-micro-learning Corporate Leaders Say ‘Don’t Over-Complicate’

By Matt Gilley http://www.2elearning.com/ideas/ item/56123-corporate-leaders-say-don-tover-complicate

Joe DiDonato Editor at Large >> jdidonato@2elearning.com Adam Weschler Manager Digital Programs >> aweschler@2elearning.com JW Upton Vice President >> JW@2elearning.com Marguerite Hoffman Event Operations Manager >> operations@2elearning.com Kim Lewis Art Director >> production@2elearning.com

Beverly Miller

Build a Smarter Organizaiton Via Consumerization http://www.2elearning.com/top-stories/ item/55911-using-consumerization-to-builda-better-learning-organization

Print Production Manager

Most Popular Web Sessions

Chris Osborn, BizLibrary Bryan Austin, mLevel Vicki Houston, BizLibrary Emma King, Inxpo

The Transformation of Learning https://presentations.inxpo.com/ Shows/ELearning/Microsite/home.htm Learning CEOs Power Panel: Trends in Tech & Practices https://presentations.inxpo.com/ Shows/ELearning/Microsite/home.htm

Events

On Demand: Virtual Learning Summit LIve! 2015 Through Jan. 13, 2016 http://www.2elearning.com/rss2/ item/56267-virtual-learning-summitlive-2015

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Jerry Roche Executive Editor >> jroche@2elearning.com

December 2015 / january 2016 Elearning!

Dianne McCauley Controller

Contributors:

Elearning! Media Group is the property of B2B Media Company LLC 44920 W. Hathaway Ave. #1794, Maricopa, AZ 85139 • 888-201-2841 • 951-547-1131 www.2elearning.com Elearning! magazine is published bi-monthly by B2B Media Company LLC, 44920 W. Hathaway Ave. #1794, Maricopa, AZ 85139. Application to mail Standard Class is filed with Sheppardville, KY Post Office.

POSTMASTER: Send all address changes to: Elearning! 44920 W. Hathaway Ave. #1794, Maricopa, AZ 85139.

Subscriptions are free to qualified professionals in the USA. All international or non-qualified subscriptions can receive Elearning! e-zine complimentary by ordering at http://www.2elearning.com/reg/choose. Elearning! magazine is a trademark of B2B Media Company and publishes under creative commons copyright.

Editor’s Editor’sNote Note

E

Best of Elearning! — Our Gift to You

very year about this time, there seems to be a rush to get business-related projects and problems taken care of before the joyous holiday season — simply because we don’t want those things hanging over our heads and weighing upon our shoulders for the week or two that we should be celebrating with our families.

Some years, it even works out that way.

But other years, we cannot escape wondering whether the grandiose plans we implemented this year

will yield positive results next year. Because “next year” is right around the corner — after we take down our ragged holiday decorations and banish our new bunny-rabbit pajamas to the attic. (If that sentence recalls the hilarious holiday exploits of Clark W. Griswold and Ralphie and Old Man Parker, well then, that’s an early gift to you.)

But, in honor of the holidays, we digress…

Each year, in one fell swoop — our annual December/January “Best of Elearning!” issue — we try to show you what worked magnificently for other learning professionals this year. We do it by revealing category winners and Awards of Excellence recipients in 30 different product categories. (See article beginning on page 27.)

That knowledge, incidentally, might come in handy in January, when many of you receive your new budgets and decide how you’re going to upgrade your learning programs with new initiatives and products. Therein lies another gift to you from the Elearning! magazine staff: 100 products that are selected as the best in their categories by the people who use them the most, our loyal readers and learning professionals around the world.

With this gift in hand, the Elearning! Media Group team wishes you and yours a Happy Holiday and a very prosperous New Year: Jerry Roche, executive editor Catherine Upton, group publisher Joe DiDonato, editor-at-large Adam Weschler, manager of digital programs JW Upton, vice president Marguerite Hoffman, event operations manager Kim Lewis, art director Beverly Miller, print production manager Amy Comley, customer service

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December 2015 / January 2016 Elearning!

News Deep Learning Technology Moves Onward and Upward

Talent Pros’ Salaries Unchanged In 2015, the median annual salary for someone in the talent development profession is between $70,000 and $79,999. The median salary is unchanged from 2011.

The concept of “deep learning” took a giant step forward last month when (1) Google released to the open-source community the machine learning system at the core of many of its services, and (2) Rice Analytics released its automated RELR deep machine-learning tool to the masses as a Cloud Web application and an API. Deep learning, or machine learning, involves using computer processors that act similar to neurons in the human brain.

Key findings in a new report from the ATD:

TENSORFLOW’S IMPACT Google’s artificial intelligence engine TensorFlow — is said to be five times faster than any of its previous versions. Company CEO Sundar Pichai says that it shows promise for when researchers “are trying to make sense of very complex data — everything from protein folding to crunching astronomy data.” While performing these operations, the “neural networks” discover patterns and relationships as they absorb all the available information.

By open-sourcing TensorFlow, Google is able to tap the broader developer and scientific community to vastly improve the source code, which in turn might help the company improve its own products. The chips were designed initially for rendering the graphics of the games, but engineers eventually found that it had many other uses as well. Many of Google’s tools have already use a few versions of “artificial intelligence (A.l.) to work, such as voice-to-text, language translation and Web search.

From using TensorFlow A.I. to filter out spam in g-mail to assisting faster discovery of life-saving drugs, Google has been applying the deep learning technology in a number of ways.

>> 56 percent have a base salary between $50,000 and $89,999. >> Pay tends to be higher in the Northeast and West. >> Participants who listed training delivery as their primary respon-

PROVIDING EXPLANATIONS St. Louis-based Rice Analytics says its automated RELR deep machinelearning tool differs from conventional A.I. approaches by providing explanations for the reasons behind its predictions. A Cloud-based version of the tool called SkyRELR is said to allow machine learning that extends beyond other forms of A.I. and neural networks by drawing on “deeper patterns that are hidden to other forms of artificial intelligence.”

The other selling point, the startup says, is transparency: “Deep learning is not a black box,” the company stresses.

RELR (pronounced “reller”) is short for “reduced error logistics regression,” which is described as a neuromorphic algorithm designed to model the deep explicit and implicit learning mechanisms of neurons.

Rice Analytics says its secret is leveraging an ability to provide “explanatory models” in the form of explicit models that can be used to interpret the reasons for predictions.

SkyRELR is touted as yielding models that are equivalent to a fourlayer deep-learning artificial neural network.

Now that the new deep-learning technology has been wrung out in targeted advertising campaigns, the Cloud-based version may open up the technology to other enterprise customers who are not data scientists.

—More info: http://or-politics.com/uncategorized/google-open-sources-its-tensorflow-deep-learning-engine/150519/; http://thenewstelegraph.com/2015/11/15/googles-tensorflow-machine-learning-systemis-now-open/; www.datanami.com/2015/11/17/cloud-based-deeplearning-tool-explains-predictions/

>> Most talent development professionals

have at least a four-year degree and nearly half (49 percent) have a master’s or advanced degree.

>> Median salary in the U.S., between $70,000 and $79,999, remains unchanged since 2011.

sibility made less that those who named other primary areas of responsibility (instructional design or change management, for example).

>> 75 percent of respondents received a raise the previous year, typically less than 4 percent of base salary.

>> 56 percent receive incentive rewards, but these make up less than 10 percent of compensation.

>> 88 percent were offered medical coverage by their employer.

—More info: www.td.org/salaryreport

Do You Know a Learning Champion?

Elearning! Media Group’s new Learning! Champion Award will recognize individuals for exceptional contributions to the industry.

Nominees can be innovators, thought-leaders, trail-blazers, mentors, cutting-edge technologists, creative consultants, or high-performing learning leaders that positively impact the learning industry.

Learning! Champion award-winners will be featured in Elearning! magazine’s May 2016 issue and invited to join the Learning! Champion Award Reception at the Enterprise Learning! Conference 2016.

A committee of practitioners, analysts and magazine editors will take part in evaluating nominations. A validation process will be conducted as well as relevance testing. After which, nominees will be selected and ranked within each category.

Nominating a candidate is easy via the online ballot and takes only minutes to apply. There is no charge. A candidate can be submitted only one time per year for consideration. Upon completion of the application, you will receive via email a confirmation of receipt along with a copy of the nomination. All applications must be received by Dec. 31.

While self-nominations are not explicitly prevented by the rules, they are somewhat discouraged.

Email questions to awards@2elearning.com for review.

—More info: www.2elearning.com/awards/learning-champion-award

Elearning! December 2015 / January 2016

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News

How Learning Transforms

Interactivity One of the Keys to Learning Efficiency If your intuition tells you that an online learning portal that prompts learners with notes and reminders at strategic spots, includes interactive polls and links to resources, and allows learners to take notes and send themselves reminders would be more effective than one that just entails watching the traditional video with periodic polls, you’d be right — times four. At least, that’s what data from a recent comparative effectiveness trial indicates.

The trial found that physicians, nurses and pharmacists who accessed 30-minute video-based activities through an interactive portal increased their knowledge and competency four times more in aggregate than those who accessed the same material through a traditional continuing medical education online activity.

The trial included three 30-minute video-based activities for healthcare professionals who manage patients with dyslipidemia. The same video was used in an interventional group and the traditional-format control group, with changes in knowledge and competence measured through identical pre- and post-activity tests.

—More info: www.archemedx.com

“In the last five years we’ve seen a transformation happen in the learning functions of many organizations — and the advent of new trends and technologies are responsible for much of this shift,” says Josh Squires, chief operating officer at Docebo. “All this points to the key to success in corporate learning today being to leverage technology to uncover, create and share knowledge.

“Many new wearable devices, gamification techniques and sociallyenabled technologies are being used to help employees find and connect with internal experts,” he adds. “Organizations that not only begin to think about learning through a more connected and participative process but also leverage that technology and apply it to learning in new and innovative ways.”

—More info: www.docebo.com

People on the Move

BRYAN AUSTIN became the new vice president of Products at mLevel this past summer. He had been CEO of Game On! Learning.

MLevel also has received $5 million in venture capital for expansion. It built out an enterprise-level platform with plans to extend into other types of content delivery from its platform.

Version 3.0 should be available early 10

next year at the earliest, mid-year at the latest.

Former DIA senior intelligence officer and Cyber deputy division chief TYLER COHEN WOOD has joined Inspired eLearning. He is also the critically acclaimed author of “Catching the Catfishers: Disarm the Online Pretenders, Predators, and

December 2015 / January 2016 Elearning!

Perpetrators Who Are Out to Ruin Your Life” (2014: Career Press). Prior to joining Inspired eLearning, Wood’s career has spanned more than 16 years in the security and intelligence sectors, 12 of which were with the Department of Defense.

AOL Tech and has nearly 20 years of experience working in the tech sector. Namely has also pulled in DEBRA SQUYRES from TriNet, who is now vice president of Client Services for the startup.

RADHIKA SAMANT and TERESA DIETRICH are new to Namely, a start-up business that will specialize in HR consulting. Samant was previously chief financial officer at EnterpriseDB, where she led human resources and operations and was integral in raising $60 million in funding, as well as growing out the team. Dietrich was senior vice president of Technology Operations and Security at WebMD, where she led a team of approximately 100 engineers. She was previously at

KEVIN ROYAL is the new executive vice president and chief financial officer at Bridgepoint Education. Most recently, Royal was in upper management at Maxwell Technologies, Blue Coat Systems and Novellus Systems, an S&P 500 company. He holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Harding University. Former CFO Dan Devine will remain with the organization through the end of this year to assist with the transition.

Trendlines Global E-learning Continues Growth The worldwide market for self-paced e-learning reached $47.9 billion in 2015. The five-year compound annual growth rate is flat at 1.0%, and revenues will only increase to $50.4 billion by 2020, according to the report.

Africa has the highest growth rate at 16.3%, where e-learning revenues will reach a billion dollars by 2020.

Revenues will more than double in 17 of the 29 countries in Africa by 2020.

Low growth rates are now common in 20 early adopter countries. But the flat global growth rate masks the phenomenal growth in dozens of countries. In fact, e-learning revenues will more than double in 49 of the 120 countries analyzed in this report.

—Complete report: www.ambientinsight.com

Whiteboard Market to See 16% Growth Through 2019

The global interactive whiteboard market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of close to 16% from 2015-2019.

A new market research report cites the technological advances in education, which have grown exponentially over the years. Educational institutions, such as schools and colleges, are adopting new technologies, such as mobile computing devices and interactive whiteboards, to gain greater access to multimedia documents and the Internet.

The new report also highlights innovative concepts such as e-learning and virtual learning, which are gaining popularity in educational institutions all over the world.

—More info: www.technavio.com

Companies Built to Be Mobile?

In recent years, many companies have become “remote friendly.”

But next year, that paradigm may shift toward companies that are built to be mobile from inception, according to a report in Fast Company magazine.

“You can create a virtual company today very, very easily,” says Josh Bersin, who founded his research and analyst firm, Bersin, as a virtual company in 2002, before Deloitte acquired it three years ago. “Organizations really aren’t companies, they’re like networks of teams. Even big companies are being reorganized like this. Everybody is working with a team that is somehow connected to another team, and that team may or may not be inside the company.”

Other 2016 innovations:

>> The rise of independent consultants >> Less PowerPoint, more video >> Different emphasis on work-life balance >> The new normal: consumer-grade design —Read the whole article: www.fastcompany.com/3052836/thefuture-of-work/6-ways-work-will-change-in-2016

‘Only 3.6% of CEOs and HR directors at more than 70 organizations had any kind of coherent approach for analyzing talent-related data that they could use to predict what expertise they were likely to require in future and what skills gaps could hit their business performance.’

—PA Consulting survey

Elearning! December 2015 / January 2016

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Trendlines

Poor I.T. Disgusts U.K. Students

Call for Papers: Enterprise Learning! Conference Papers to be presented at the Enterprise Learning! Conference 2016 (ELC16) are now being solicited by the Elearning! Media Group, host of Enterprise Learning! Events. Submissions will be accepted until Feb. 1, 2016.

ELC16 conference features four distinct tracks supporting the theme of “Building Smarter Organizations.” They are: >> “The Engaged Employee” >> “Consumerization of Learning Ecosystems: Enhancing the User Experience” >> “Best Practices of the Learning! 100” >> “Learning Technology at Work” ELC16 provides executives an engaged environment to network, share and learn from leaders across all sectors. Coupled with cutting edge research, Learning! 100 award winners, and expert learning technologists.

“Since 2008, the Enterprise Learning! Events provide an highly engaged intimate conference where top global learning leaders can share advice and best practices with leading-edge technologists and colleagues,” says Catherine Upton, conference chair and group publisher, Elearning! Media Group.

Submissions should be made at: www.2elearning.com/rss2/item/56406enterprise-learning-conference-call-forpapers.

New research shows that poor I.T. facilities are having a negative impact on university students in the United Kingdom. In a survey by AppDynamics, 63% of students cited poor software as a contributory factor in missed deadlines.

It comes as no surprise that almost all students (96%) use at least one application to complete their studies. Most students (63%) use two to four applications on a regular basis. Yet 68% of students say complex resources and substandard virtual learning environments impact negatively on their learning.

A significant proportion (71%) had experienced technical difficulties with university applications.

Almost two-thirds of students (63%) had missed assignment deadlines due to poor university software performance, which was the most commonly cited frustration.

Jeremy Duggan, EMEA vice president at AppDynamics, encourages CIOs to appreciate the role of software in developing students as brand ambassadors to attract further talent to their university.

—More info: www.appdynamics.com/resources

Deals GP STRATEGIES CORP. and FUTURE WORKPLACE have entered into a strategic partnership to provide a new set of leadership offerings under an initiative called Future Workplace University — the corporate training arm for developing employees around the concepts of the Future Workplace.

This innovative series of programs is designed to help executives, managers and individuals develop strategic solutions to address the challenges impacting workplaces in the coming decade. The impetus for the creation of Future Workplace University (and the source of much of its curriculum) comes from the groundbreaking work of author and workplace futurist Jeanne C. Meister and her executive development firm, Future Workplace. More info: http://futureworkplace.com/ our-network/.

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The New Zealand-based training and recruitment specialist BLOOM TRAINING AND RECRUITMENT is partnering with Docebo, enabling the latter to expand its presence in the Asia Pacific marketplace. Bloom also provides tailored training courses and learning materials via e-learning, blended learning and face-to-face workshops.

It believes Docebo has the most beautiful, easy to use, cost-effective and fully-featured blended learning platform on the market.

WORKPLACE ANSWERS, LLC has acquired CLICK 4 COMPLIANCE LLC to create a comprehensive and engaging online compliance training library.

Combined, the two firms create an organization that will offer more than 200 compliance-focused training courses translated in more than 30

December 2015 / January 2016 Elearning!

languages. Combined, these firms have helped more than 2,000 clients meet their global compliance requirements.

PROSITIONS, INC. has signed a multi-year agreement for the worldwide distribution rights of LEARNING COMMUNICATION’s entire content library. Featuring diversity and inclusion training content, Learning Communications provides DVD, streaming video, and e-learning content for development programs in a variety of industries. The library includes topics such as diversity, inclusion, ethics, safety, affirmative action and more.

Under a strategic partnership agreement between SAFETY MEDIA and EDTRIN, the latter will be responsible for the marketing and delivery of the former’s training programs to global markets. It will

also provide translation, localization and contextualization services. The Safety Media courses are expected to be available to Edtrin’s customers from January 2016.

Looking to innovate in the classroom, the Chicago campus of SAINT XAVIER UNIVERSITY selected the CHRISTIE BRIO content-sharing platform to enhance its classrooms and transform the way students learn.

In an effort to reimagine the traditional classroom, Saint Xavier created three “learning studios” at its Chicago campus. Complete with café-inspired furniture, these studios encourage collaboration via three Brios installed in each of the smaller studios, and four installed in the large studio. Each Christie Brio is connected to either a 65-inch or a 75-inch flat-panel display.

Leader’s LastView 3 Questions For... …DEAN PICHEE, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF BIZLIBRARY WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH LEARNING CONTENT DELIVERY AND THE TECHNOLOGY SUPPORTING IT? WE CONTINUE TO HEAR A LOT ABOUT MOBILE, GAMIFICATION AND RESPONSIVE DESIGN. WHERE IS THE LEADING EDGE TODAY? I’ve been in the training industry for quite a while, and I’ve really never seen things as unsettled as they are today. We went through a massive amount of consolidation a few years ago, and that created an open market for companies like BizLibrary to step forward with modern and innovative learning solutions. What’s happened as a result is that today small and mid-sized companies have access to far more interesting and innovative training solutions than do enterprise organizations.

Enterprise training vendors and their clients appear stuck, having made massive investments in legacy technologies and content that simply aren’t very effective at meeting the needs of a modern workforce and today’s learner. Smaller, more agile vendors are delivering far more interesting solutions — solutions that typically include short-form video content and mobile delivery.

Dean Pichee, Founder and President of BizLibrary

WHERE DO YOU SEE THE MARKET GOING IN TERMS OF THE CONSUMPTION OF TRAINING CONTENT? It’s already at the place some predicted a few years ago, with short video or micro-learning dominating the market. Since some vendors offer clients a diverse set of content options in a wide variety of formats, they are perfect “test tubes” for employee preferences. Those employees consume on average about five video training lessons per month, each averaging less than 10 minutes in length. Those that access older, legacy e-learning courses — the “click-and-advance” PowerPoint style — see their employees take about four courses per year. The message is clear. Employees are telling the entire market something very important. It’s all about video, and it’s all about short, bite-sized content, too.

WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE FUTURE OF EMPLOYEE TRAINING AND LEARNING? The future is so exciting. As I mentioned, there are many well-established “brand” names in the industry. They have lots of clients who’ve made big investments with them, so how do you go to those same clients and tell them it’s all got to change? That’s a hard conversation. It’s also a difficult logistics problem — one that requires them to engineer a new type of learning solution, migrate users and platforms, et cetera. So I see organizations that are smaller, more agile and don’t have a massive legacy system to re-engineer at the forefront of the future.

Organizations today need a new type of LMS and a new content solution as they migrate away from day-long instructor-led training programs to the short, on-demand learning that employees prefer. I think the next big thing in learning is going to be in the area of learning retention. If employees can learn what they need, when they need, and also be able to retain it, they will be able to apply their new skills to improve their performance. Which is the only objective of employee training. Tools are beginning to emerge today that allow vendors and learning professionals to deliver an end-to-end learning experience.

Elearning! December 2015 / January 2016

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Virtual LastEdge How to Engage Online Learners 5 Tips for Great Video Training Sessions

BY EMMA KING

Emma King, vice president Learning Strategy, INXPO

F

or many instructors, presenting educational programs via video is scary. The thought of speaking to a camera can make one’s pulse race and induce cold sweats. It needn’t be so stressful, however. The following set of techniques, used by broadcast professionals as well as many corporate enterprises that communicate with video programming, can help presenters overcome their fears and create highly engaging learning experiences.

Start small and think in series. One way to build confidence and gain momentum is to try presenting smaller blocks of content. This approach works well in the virtual classroom environment, because modules are easier for learners to consume than lengthy content sessions. “Death by PowerPoint” is the tendency to cram a lot of material into a single session. It is usually overwhelming for both learners and presenters, so avoid that approach. Instead, think of the module approach to learning — like a televised series with segments and episodes. Allowing learners to proceed at their own pace is important in online learning, and a serial approach to learning modules is easily presented in video.

Make your presenters comfortable. There are several ways to increase people’s comfort level when they’re presenting on air. On-air talent can come from sources beyond your subject-matter experts.

When a confident, engaging presenter is found, your instructor doesn’t carry the full burden of keeping the audience engaged. Mine your talent from within. Not every presenter is comfortable appearing on camera, at least at first. If this is the case in your organization, consider making a “casting call” to find those colleagues who have engaging personalities and some comfort with video, such as past broadcast majors, aspiring stand-up comedians, or even those with experience in theater. Another technique to increase presenters’ comfort level on camera is to use an interviewer or include a segment with a subject-matter expert. A co-host or guest presenter can help keep track of talking points and provide an engaging flow to the learning content.

Story telling makes it easier to understand. A great deal of training content consists of statements and facts that, while important, can be dry and hard to digest. Instead, try to present learning content in the form of stories, which are more relatable and engaging, especially for online learners. Stories also are more natural to present on video than a recitation of facts.

Flipped classrooms enable deeper discussion. Pose questions in advance. Offer pre-work assignments. Don’t pile all of your handouts and presentation materials on your audience during and after the session. Instead, share material in advance that will allow the learner to begin thinking about the topic and be prepared to engage in a discussion rather than just listen.

Know the production basics. Organizations need not invest millions of dollars to create high-tech studios or hire talent with broadcast communication experience to produce video presentations that are easy to watch. Good audio and video can be inexpensively created using a high-definition webcam, such as those already integrated in many laptop computers, and a quality external microphone. Besides this basic equipment, there are some basic techniques that have been proven to increase the quality of the video experience. Some of the basics of video production are: control the lighting and background noise, minimize distractions such as mobile phones and other equipment that might disrupt the presenter, ensure a neat and organized “set,” and make sure to test your equipment and audio level before presenting.

With these tips in mind, presenters can use the power of video to reach and engage online learners, which helps organizations create a more enjoyable and effective learning experience.

—Emma King is vice president of Learning Strategy for INXPO, which markets enterprise video communication solutions. More info: www.inxpo.com 14

December 2015 / January 2016 Elearning!

Insights Brain Science and Learning Effectiveness

W

BY BRYAN AUSTIN

hy is most corporate learning not optimally effective? Many long-time L&D experts including Elliott Masie, Clark Quinn and Will Thalheimer have frequently lamented that much of the corporate learning they see is not really effective learning, because it is not mentally challenging.

Like them, I’ve found the issue is not that learning professionals don’t know how to create learning that is challenging enough to be effective. Instead, it’s usually the harsh reality of the time, resource and cost constraints within which most learning professionals work.

Every organization provides training to its workforce primarily to improve performance and drive business growth. So let’s discuss some brain science and how to leverage it to create learning that really engages learners and actually improves performance.

Bryan Austin, vice president, mLevel

BRAIN SCIENCE FOR LEARNING EFFECTIVENESS: A.G.E.S. A.G.E.S. is an outgrowth of neuroscientific research that examines the link between training retention and how strongly each learner’s brain is activated during training. The A.G.E.S. model focuses on four key categories that reduce distraction during training and dramatically improve retention: Attention (Focus) - Are your employees prone to multi-tasking during training? For the brain to fire at the level required to transfer learning from short-term memory to long-term memory (that is, necessary for retention to happen), learners need to pay close attention during a learning task. Deep focus is a critical factor for learning retention. Employees will engage if they intuitively understand how the learning is relevant to their success. Engagement is making the learning (and the brain!) active, not passive.

Generation (each learner makes his or her own meaning) - This means taking the “active” learning described above to the next level. Learners must generate their own mental links as they learn, not just passively listen. Training will be highly retained when learners create their own mental context to embed the knowledge.

This is most effectively done by involving multiple senses during learning. Not watching or reading, but thinking, listening, speaking and doing. If our training uses multiple senses (like playing an interactive game), we are activating different sets of the brain’s neural circuits to more tightly embed the meaning each learner creates during that learning.

Emotions (Better Recall) - The stronger the emotions each learner feels during training, the higher their retention of the material will be. These emotions can be either positive or negative. How can your training engender feelings of success? Or fear of failure? Are the majority of your employees inherently competitive? Trigger that competitiveness to create learning experiences that makes them want to win. Or avoid losing.

Spacing (Learning Blocks) - Remember how you “crammed” for that big test in school? This was effective in massing a large amount of knowledge, but only for short-term memory. Long-term recall/retention improves dramatically when we learn over several sittings. The longer employees must remember the knowledge that makes them successful, the more learning must be spaced out.

How often does your training initiative include a reinforcement strategy that extends well beyond the foundation training? Unfortunately, most strategic corporate training initiatives are more of a “Big Bang” with little to no reinforcement. Spaced repetition is key to learning effectiveness and retention.

BOTTOM LINE The A.G.E.S. model in neuroscience is essential to create more effective learning. The best part: there are now technology solutions built around A.G.E.S. that can enable your organization to produce “A.G.E.S.-level learning” within the time, resource and cost constraints you face.

—Bryan Austin is vice president at mLevel, which produces award-winning game-based learning.

More info: www.mlevel.com.

Elearning! December 2015 / January 2016

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Left to right, Red Roof Inn key training personnel: Michelle Wehrle, manager of Training; Steve Woodward, director of Training; Leslie Fisher, vice president of HR and Training; Daniel Currier, HR and Training admin; and Vicki Houston, management trainer.

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December 2015 / January 2016 Elearning!

RED Academy: Red Roof’s Learning Pathway to a Competitive Advantage

BY CHRIS OSBORN AND VICKI HOUSTON Red Roof Inn’s stated corporate goal is to be the No. 1 hotel in the economy segment of the hospitality industry.

But the hospitality industry is frequently among the hardest hit during economic downturns as people find less discretionary income to spend on travel — particularly when competing in the economy segment of the industry. So finding any edge to win business and build customer loyalty is absolutely essential to success.

Reaching No. 1 in any industry for any organization is extremely challenging.

But the challenge is compounded a bit by the organizational structure of Red Roof Inn — a common occurrence in the hotel industry. Properties are a blend of corporate-owned and -operated and franchise-owned and -operated. Therefore,

The academy was designed to test, evaluate and adjust the learning program in incremental steps as needed. to bring the entire chain into one unifying customer-centric culture requires management skills that are complex and high-touch. Communications to

Elearning! December 2015 / January 2016

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redacademy properties must be an artful blend of diplomacy, marketing, education and influence. Every location manager has to understand the “why” behind initiatives and training programs, and every property manager and franchisee needs to see the connection between brand initiatives and his or her own bottom line. With more than 400 properties all over the United States and now including international markets, these complex communication and education challenges are more daunting than ever.

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December 2015 / January 2016 Elearning!

Just like other organizations, Red Roof must provide compelling content to meet the needs of its teams.

ENTER RED ACADEMY In order to reach its goals, Red Roof Inn had to address very specific business needs.

The Learning and Development team realized that it must provide knowledge, support and continuous learning to the field teams that include: >> managers/owners, >> hourly GSRs (guest service representatives), >> corporate office and call center teams, and >> senior management.

The expressed strategic goal was to ensure properties across the entire brand consistently deliver the highest level of quality, service and value to their guests.

Like many other organizations with widely dispersed workforces, Red Roof Inn faces obstacles like making training easy and convenient to access for employees at all levels, and the ability to provide “just-in-time” training for programs to make the greatest positive impact. The organization must also track the completion of training across the brand, and it must provide compelling content to meet the changing needs of its teams to keep them growing and developing. All of these challenges must be met with an eye on the cost of labor.

RED Academy was built with the end user in mind. Like most organizations, Red Roof Inn views managing labor costs as a priority, but beyond the costs, it’s about effective and efficient use of time. With cost-control objectives in mind, learning program managers migrated Red Roof tools, resources, manuals, templates and videos from two existing SharePoint sites.

A key priority was to make it easy for employees to find what they need. This was accomplished by adding metatags to each resource to ensure that no matter how users searched for content, they could find the information they need.

Employees access RED Academy literally anyplace and anytime. Running a 24/7 business means it’s impossible to hold training sessions for all employees at the same time. The ability to take “on-demand” training allows the brand to deliver the same consistent message to all employees, who can now access learning away from the hotel, or from the office, and from the classroom. Managers and employees can access and launch training from any

computer or phone and any location — and for today’s learner, that means everything.

NEAR PERFECT RESULTS The impact of the program (in partnership with BizLibrary) has been outstanding. It all begins with high-level employee use. If Red Roof Inn couldn’t get employees interested in the learning program and engaged in the content, there was no chance the program could influence the business challenges the company faced. So RED Academy was introduced in a planned, methodical way designed to test, evaluate and adjust in incremental steps as needed. Managers got the first glimpse to get them engaged, and then mandatory compliance training was rolled out to every corporate-owned and -operated property.

It turns out the strategy worked nearly to perfection. Location managers now seek additional development opportunities via the BizLibrary Collection, which includes thousands of videos on a wide range of business

The number of course completions jumped from 15,529 in 2014 to 26,455 through September of this year. skills topics. Managers are also using RED Academy more frequently to access their daily operational tools, templates and materials, which was exactly why Red Roof moved these resources out of SharePoint. These materials, plus the learning resources, are now located in one central location with much easier access for more than 4,500 employees at all 400-plus locations. The result of

“

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING:

The launch of RED Academy has helped Red Roof ignite our learning and development initiatives! We took a great brand initiative (Red Roof’s Continuing Education Program) and made it exponentially better by layering on the BizLibrary learning platform. Not only have we seen an increase in learning at the hourly employee level, but use of the system has rippled throughout our management levels, corporate office, and our franchise community. Our team members now have a central location to access job aids, e-learning and videos that are packed with information for personal and professional development. I love it when I hear employees talking about going to RED Academy to take a class or download one of the many resources.

“RED Academy has been a great tool to empower our workforce to take ownership for their own development.”

—Leslie Fisher, vice president of HR and Training, Red Roof Inn

“

RED Academy allows us to further punctuate the Red Roof Inn philosophy of “One Brand. One Focus.” Now, all Red Roofers are leveraging the same system to get the tools and resources needed for success.”

“

—Vicki Houston, management trainer

One of our core values and commitments as a brand is to provide ongoing training and development at ALL levels of our organization. In the hospitality business, your people are what will differentiate you from the competition.

Your people are what create memorable guest experiences.

When you invest in your team and provide opportunities for people to grow and learn such as with RED Academy, the rewards are endless.”

— Andrew Alexander, president, Red Roof Inn

“I have been using RED Academy more in the last few months, both as a personal enrichment tool and as a way to show my franchisees where they can go to improve the operations of their respective inns. The search function, the content and the ‘curb appeal’ of the site [BizLibrary platform] are all positives.

I really like how it tracks what I have downloaded, finished and haven’t finished.

“I also find it very helpful that I can run reports to see how my own franchisees have been using the system and how many still are missing opportunities to get into the system. It is nice to have a learning system database that we can easily load the content and administer ourselves; it really is ‘branded’ and reinforces our brand messages.”

—Jane Palumbo, regional vice president, Franchise Operation, Red Roof Inn

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redacademy making this content easier to access is proven by the data.

As the data shows, employees have fully embraced RED Academy as the “go-to” place for learning and development. For the entire 2014 calendar year, employees accumulated 9,336 continuing education credits — compared to nearly 12,500 through the first nine months of this year.

And the number of course completions inside the BizLibrary system is even more staggering, jumping from 15,529 for all of 2014 to 26,455 through the first nine months of this year — a 70 percent increase with three months to go.

Red Roof Inn continues to emphasize continuous learning as a means to reach its goal as No. 1 hotel in the economy market segment. According to the ReviewMetrix Customer Satisfaction Index, Red Roof has earned the top spot in online guest reviews for five consecutive years in the economy lodging segment.

ON THE HORIZON… Red Roof Inn’s senior leaders see more value going forward in RED Academy LMS, so they are thinking of new ways to use the powerful tool in the future.

One possibility includes integrating RED Academy with Red Roof Inn’s new Human Resource Information System to get new employees using RED Academy for newhire training from their first day.

Additionally, the I.T. and Quality departments are looking at ways to integrate the statistics from courses completed in RED with a “quality dashboard” to further simplify quality metrics for the brand.

Meanwhile, the Training and Human Resources teams want to continue to find new ways to use the BizLibrary Collection and custom content to both support and develop successful teams at every level in the brand.

So the future is bright, and the use of the system in partnership with BizLibrary looks like it will continue delivering business benefits for some time to come.

—Editor’s Note: “Red Roof ” and “Red Roof Inn” are registered trademarks. “One Brand. One Focus.” is a registered slogan.

“ReviewMetrix” is a trademark.

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December 2015 / January 2016 Elearning!

BEST PRACTICES TIP:

BRAND YOUR LEARNING PORTAL

Marketing isn’t just for generating new sales. In fact, you could argue persuasively that marketing ought to be a core competency for training departments.

Think of it this way. If your employees do not know about your training program, does it even exist as a practical matter? The answer is, “No.” But simple awareness only gets you started. Employees have to understand the value of the content, see the relevance of the content to their jobs, and participate in the program (consume the product). Each of these important steps towards gaining employee engagement in training requires marketing.

An important element of this marketing is to establish an internal “brand” for our training program. A perfect place to start building an internal brand is with your online training platform. Red Academy, the internal training brand for employees of Red Roof Inn, is a perfect illustration of such a brand. But you don’t have to be a major company to build an internal training brand. Here are a few tips to get your branding efforts started.

GREAT BRANDS ARE LINKED TO GREAT BRAND NAMES.

This can also be a fun exercise and a way to get employees involved right from the beginning of your branding efforts. Have a naming contest among employees. Solicit ideas from employees and offer a prize for the winner. Let the employees vote on the brand name of their choosing. By getting employees involved like this, you set the stage for a much more direct connection between employees and the program.

NOW YOU HAVE TO SET UP YOUR LEARNING PLATFORM.

Use your organization’s color scheme, and use a logo designed specifically for your “training brand.” By using a logo you’ve developed for your brand, the name your employees gave you and your organization’s core color scheme, you’ve created a direct connection from employees to learning program to organization. It may seem subtle, but this represents an important symbolic and visible level of support for your employees’ learning efforts on the part of your entire organization.

Branding your learning platform will not guarantee success, but creating an internal brand for employee training will give your employees a sense of shared purpose and a common frame of reference for learning resources and effort.

—Chris Osborn

Employee Training:

A Grade Card from the Employee Perspective 22

December 2015 / January 2016 Elearning!

SURVEY SAYS LEARNING LEADERS SHOULD BE PREPARING THEIR EMPLOYEES FOR THE FUTURE AS WELL AS THE HERE-AND-NOW.

BY CHRIS OSBORN Each year, multiple organizations publish reports about the state of the training industry featuring data points developed by asking questions from the organizational perspective. The value of some of that benchmarking should not be diminished.

It’s important to know that investments in employee training are rising, and that organizations are telling the industry that they are making a certain amount of training available to employees, and that some training topics are more important than others. But we think another perspective is important, too.

Now consider nearly every other

industry. How do they report on their health and vitality? How about electronics?

Automotive? Telecommunications?

Entertainment? Without exception, every other industry asks its consumers about the products and services it delivers to gauge the effectiveness and health of its respective industry. How much credibility would any of us give a report about the state of the cable industry, if the only people surveyed are cable providers? Aren’t we really most interested in how the consumers of cable services feel?

Since there isn’t much widely published data on what consumers (employees) of the training industry’s products and services think, we thought that kind of research would be invaluable. Therefore, starting in early June of this year and running until early August, BizLibrary gathered 1,821 survey responses from employees about their employer-provided training programs. The respondents answered three

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employeetraining strategic questions: How effective is your employerprovided training program at teaching you new things?

How effective is your employerprovided training program at improving your performance?

How effective is your employerprovided training program at preparing you for the future?

The responses were separated into two broad categories: 1,002 who work at organizations that are not clients

1 2 3

For training programs, acquiring new skills and knowledge should be foundational competencies.

■ Public ■ Control Group

Very Effective

Effective

Neutral

Ineffective

Very Ineffective

1.56%

4.39%

4.17%

6.19%

7.81%

10.28%

23.31%

22.75%

19.27%

18.46%

37.92%

50.52%

Effectiveness at Teaching New Things

N/A

■ Public ■ Control Group

Effective

Neutral

December 2015 / January 2016 Elearning!

Ineffective

Very Ineffective

1.30%

4.59%

4.56%

6.29%

8.07%

26.30%

12.77%

Very Effective

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25.45%

20.83%

15.17%

35.73%

45.57%

Effectiveness at Improving Performance

N/A

of BizLibrary, and 819 who work at BizLibrary clients (the “control group”).

For the purposes of this conversation, it’s less important who provides the solution.

What is relevant is the type of solution the employees use. The control group uses a solution with the following characteristics: >> Heavy emphasis on technology-enabled learning >> Video-based content >> Primarily micro-learning (seven minutes is average length of the most recently added 2,500 courses) >> A completion average of 4.8 courses per month >> LMS’s that are designed expressly to maximize impact of video >> LMS and video that’s all fully mobileready and mobile-optimized >> A wide selection of content topics, and generally a high awareness of content availability >> Minimum of 5,000 courses, and in some organizations 14,000-plus video courses >> Low emphasis on ILT, though most organizations use some classroom instruction The broader public participants reported a wide range of content-delivery tools, with ILT being the dominant form. The public participants reported some access to technology-enabled learning including traditional e-learning (click-and-advance PowerPoint-style courseware), virtual classroom and online videos. These participants generally reported fewer content options than the control group.

In other words, the public participants generally reported access to traditional employee training programs.

THE RESULTS Question 1: How effective is your employer’s training program at teaching you new things?

Employee learning is about acquiring new skills and knowledge. For training programs, this should be a foundational competency. Every employee learning program should be effective or very effective at teaching employees new things.

The chart on the left compares the responses for the public participants to the control group in response to Question 1.

There are significant differences between the public responses and the control group

responses. When we combine the responses “Very Effective” and “Effective,” control group employees report that their training programs are 23.77% more effective at teaching them new things than nonclient employees (69.79% to 56.39%). The negative ratings are also lower.

Question 2: How effective is your employer’s training program at helping improve your performance?

Employees should perform at higher levels of mastery after they have been trained. That’s a given. Unfortunately, not all training programs deliver improved performance, and the survey confirms that employees believe many programs substantially under-perform.

Once again, the difference in the top two tiers, “Very Effective” and “Effective,” are striking. The control group employees report they believe their training programs are “Very Effective” or “Effective” at helping improve their performance at a combined rate of 66.41%, but 50.90% of public employees report the same levels of effectiveness for their employers’ training

Control group employees report great disparities in how their training programs help prepare them for the future. programs. The difference is 30.47% (66.41% “Very Effective” and “Effective” combined, compared to 50.90%).

Question #3: How effective is your employer’s training program at preparing you for the future?

Control group employees report even greater disparities in how their training

programs help prepare them for the future: 34.99% better than their peers at other companies. In the top two tiers, 58.33% of employees at control group companies say their training program is either “Very Effective” or “Effective” at preparing them for the future. Only 43.21% — less than half — of the public participants said the same thing.

Of the three strategic questions in the survey, this question about preparing employees for the future elicited the fewest positive responses across the board. This ought to be an area of concern for all of us in the learning and development and training industry. Teaching employees new things and improving performance are outcomes that benefit our organizations in the here-and-now. However, preparing employees for the future is something that we should be working toward for the ongoing success of our organization.

The top graph on the next page summarizes the differences between the public responses and the responses of control group employees.

When the survey was launched, we did

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employeetraining

Very Effective

Effective

Neutral

Ineffective

Very Ineffective

2.08%

5.09%

5.86%

7.98%

14.17%

Plot Area

10.03%

30.34%

29.54%

■ Public ■ Control Group

18.62%

13.37%

29.84%

39.71%

Effectiveness at Preparing for the Future - All Responses

N/A

66.41%

■ Public ■ Control Group

43.21%

50.90%

54.41%

56.39%

69.79%

Summary of First Three Questions: “Very Effective” & “Effective” Responses Combined

Question 1: New Things

Question 2: Improve Performance

not expect to see this much of a difference between the perceptions of the control group (BizLibrary client employees) and employees at non-client organizations. The differences are real and rather dramatic — the product of substantive distinctions between the ways employees access learning resources. We believe this because 26

December 2015 / January 2016 Elearning!

Question 3: Prepare for the Future

we asked some details about the training programs of the survey participants.

Doubtless, much more research is needed. In fact, you can learn more about this research at http://goo.gl/crrCo5. But we need data on actual performance.

Data from this survey tells us an important story about what employees

Bottom line: employees don’t think traditional training programs work very well.

They want more choices, more video. think — and they don’t think traditional training programs work very well.

Employees tell us to give them more choices, more video and to minimize the use of classroom delivery. Does this data prove the effectiveness of the methods employees prefer? Not conclusively, but when employees are engaged in the training methods, there is a far greater likelihood of success than when they are checked out and not engaged in boring, out-of-date training methods.

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION Think carefully about critical jobs and professions that most organizations need.

They rely on professionals with expertise in Web design, user interface, social media recruiting, and inbound marketing. More jobs or critical job skills (depending upon your specific industry) are likely “hard to find.” Some of these jobs and skills simply did not exist as recently as five years ago.

The reality of today will certainly not be the reality of tomorrow. That’s why it’s so important we help employees — and, by extension, our organizations — prepare for the future. We can get ahead of some of this by shifting our training efforts to develop skills and competencies around things like adaptability, learning agility and change leadership. If we can make that strategic shift in our development focus, we might see the next round of answers to this question be more favorable.

—The author is vice president of Marketing for BizLibrary.

‘Best of Elearning! ’ Awards Honor 100 Top Solutions

BY JERRY ROCHE AND CATHERINE UPTON

service. The “Best of E-learning!” program formalizes this referral process.

The 2015 “Best of Elearning!” awards honor best-in-class solutions across the learning and technology marketplace. Celebrating their 11th year, the awards received more nominations for more brands in more categories than ever.

Best of Elearning! awards are the industry’s exclusive users’-choice awards. All nominations are made directly by users of solutions. More than 4,000 nominations were received in 2015.

“Given the number of nominations, to make the list in 2015 is quite an honor,” says Catherine Upton, Elearning! Media Group’s publisher. “There is no better honor than to be nominated by users and customers of these best-in-class solutions.”

The Best of Elearning! awards program was first implemented to formalize the recommendation and purchase process for the e-learning community. Research indicated 85 percent of readers had recommended an e-learning solution to a peer over the most recent 12-month period, and 61 percent claimed that award recognition “impacts their decision” to consider a product or

BIG WINNERS Multiple winners this year are BizLibrary (three), ej4 (three) and Adobe (two).

Repeat winners from last year are: >> Skillsoft Leadership Development Training in the Leadership Development category, >> Cornerstone OnDemand Unified Talent Management in the TMS category, >> Inxpo Online Learning Environment in the Virtual Learning Environment category, >> ej4 Business Skills Library in the Soft Skills Content category, >> mLevel’s Game-Based Learning Platform in the Gamification category, >> Vubiz Compliance Training in the Compliance Training category, and >> Adobe Captivate in the Mobile Authoring category this year and the Best Simulation category last year.

BEST OF THE BEST An exclusive handful of organizations have won Best of Elearning! (best-in-class solution) and Learning! 100 honors (top global

learning organization). These honorees are: Skillsoft; Cisco; SuccessFactors, an SAP Company; Inxpo; IBM; Adobe; and Oracle.

ABOUT THE VOTING PROCESS Elearning! Media Group community members, readers, subscribers and online visitors were invited to nominate their solution provider via an online ballot during June 1 to October 15, 2015. The ballot was openended with 30 categories stipulated. At close, the ballots were reviewed. Duplicates were removed, vendor ballots were nullified as well as votes without a verifiable company domain address (ex.: gmail, aol, etc.). Editors verified product types and categories before counting. The top vote earners in each category were identified as finalists. Those with a 10 percent lead over all other products in a category earned category winner status. Close vote counts and runner-ups earned Award of Excellence.

To learn more, visit www.2elearning.com/ awards/best-of-elearning-awards.

AND THE WINNERS ARE….

Elearning! and Government Elearning! magazines take great pride in announcing the Best of Elearning! 2015 winners:

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bestofelearning!

Learning Platforms LMS CLOUD

Winner: BizLibrary LMS PRODUCT INFORMATION BizLibrary’s complete learning platform meets the needs of today’s learners involved with both online training and classroom training.

The LMS delivers all of its critical functions at an affordable price. As a Softwareas-a-Service (SaaS) provider, BizLibrary manages access to the application, including security, availability, and performance, allowing I.T. personnel to focus on improving the day-to-day technical operations of your company providing rapid deployment, easy administration and quicker return on investment.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Fully hosted and maintained >> Easily import of SCORM and AICC content >> Integrated email messaging and notifications >> User-generated comments and ratings >> More than 50 standard reports >> Filtering based on groups, date range, courses, activity and more CUSTOMERS Go Solution, Marquette Savings Bank, Covenant Healthcare, Bally Technologies CONTACT INFORMATION 285 Chesterfield Business Parkway Chesterfield, MO 63005 (888) 432-3077 www.bizlibrary.com

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December 2015 / January 2016 Elearning!

Award of Excellence:

Award of Excellence:

Intellum Exceed LMS

Litmos by Callidus Cloud, Litmos LMS

PRODUCT INFORMATION Intellum’s Exceed combines flexible content management, enrollment, assessment and reporting functionality with a clean user experience that drives course completion.

It seamlessly handles off-the-shelf and custom courseware, instructor-led, “blended,” and virtual classes, videos, and a wide range of informal learning content.

Optimized for mobile devices, it also has cutting-edge assessment and survey functionality built-in. Access a variety of auto-graded question types or free-form response options, like long-text answers and user-recorded video responses, which can then be graded by instructors or peers.

PRODUCT INFORMATION Litmos allows you to integrate with any system, including a separate version that integrates with Salesforce (“Litmos LMS for Salesforce”).

The best part of Litmos is that it is a hosted training system, which means you don’t need help from the I.T. department to set it up and get started. You can literally begin creating your courses in minutes.

And it has an intuitive user interface that is fully responsive, built using powerful and flexible BootStrap technology.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Powerful, elegant and simple to use >> Rapid deployment: most customers are up and running in less than a month >> Unlimited, real-time reporting >> User language localization >> Rapid integration with enterprise and HR software CUSTOMERS AlliedBarton Security Service, Randstad Professionals U.S., Titleist CONTACT INFORMATION 3525 Piedmont Rd. NE, Suite 7-210 Atlanta, GA 30305 (404) 890-7690 www.intellum.com

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Accessible anywhere from the Cloud or mobile device >> Partner and contractor certification >> SCORM- and Tin Can-compliant >> Core features include course builder, assessment, quizzes, surveys with feedback, checklists, course library, reports, dashboards, e-commerce, gamification with leaderboards and CEUs, messages, learning paths, discussion forums, instructor led training, and learner uploads.

CUSTOMERS Zumba, Samsung, Box, YouTube, Build.com, Xero, Quantcast, nCino, Coupa CONTACT INFORMATION 4140 Dublin Blvd., Suite 400 Dublin, CA 94588 (925) 251-2220 www.litmos.com

Still waiting on your learning vendor to innovate?

Try Litmos. Deploy your learning in minutes not months.

www.litmos.com/trial

The Learning! Champion Award honors individuals for exceptional contributions to the Learning industry. Nominees can be innovators, thought-leaders, cutting-edge technologists,or high performing learning leaders that positively impact the learning industry. Nominate a client, leader, mentor or partner for consideration. Apply by 12/31/15 for free.

Apply Now at: http://www.2elearning.com/awards/learning-champion-award

Learning! Champion Award is hosted by Elearning! Magazine, a B2B Media Company. www.2elearning.com

bestofelearning!

Learning Platforms LMS ENTERPRISE

TMS

Winner: SumTotal Learn

Award of Excellence:

PRODUCT INFORMATION SumTotal Learn provides the personalized, contextual learning required to help your people be better at their jobs while they are doing them. The company can serve all your learning needs — from simple to complex requirements. Especially in compliance-heavy industry verticals, such as manufacturing, airlines, healthcare and financial services. It has been in learning management since 1985, serving hundreds of industries, across 156 countries worldwide.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Choose your deployment option, SaaS, hosted or on-premise >> Reduce your total cost of ownership >> Personalized, intuitive user experience >> Built-in advanced reporting >> Mobile and offline learning capabilities CUSTOMERS McAfee, Edward Jones, Capgemini CONTACT INFORMATION 2850 NW 43rd St., Suite 150 Gainesville, FL 32606 (352) 264-2800 or (866) 768-6825 www.sumtotalsystems.com

IBM Kenexa Talent Manager

PRODUCT INFORMATION The suite of IBM Kenexa talent products includes BrassRing, Skills Assessments, Talent Insights, Talent Acquisition Suite, Survey Enterprise and BrassRing Candidate Relationship Manager.

BrassRing allows its users to attract and hire top talent using applicant tracking systems. Then, you can quickly sift through talent pools with the right skills assessment test. Making decisions is easier using Talent Insights’ analytics. The Talent Acquisition Suite hiring solution helps you attract, hire and onboard top talent. The remaining two products help you build a better employee engagement survey and devise a proactive recruitment marketing campaign.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Attract the right candidates to the right roles >> Understand what motivates and engages employees >> Build compensation and reward programs that invest in your employees >> Foster organizational growth >> Manage talent while maximizing their performance CUSTOMERS Potash, FRHI, the Apollo Education Group, H&R Block CONTACT INFORMATION 650 E. Swedesford Rd. Wayne, PA 19087 (877) 426-3774 www-01.ibm.com/software/smarter workforce/

Award of Excellence:

SumTotal Talent

PRODUCT INFORMATION SumTotal Talent offers the ability to discover hidden talent and capabilities within your current workforce and provide tools to help all of your people be more productive. With SumTotal Talent solutions, you can unlock hidden potential in your people and watch your business soar.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Improve employee engagement because employees understand how their work connects to overall strategy >> Reduce voluntary turnover as employees understand how to build a career with you and acquire new skills >> Increase productivity as you show employees how to get better at their jobs >> Achieve better visibility because analytics are embedded in all of our solutions >> Integrate solutions easily because our solutions are built on the flexible, scalable elixHR Platform >> Offer employees the best possible development opportunities that are most applicable to building the skills and competencies required for the job with contextual recommendations and actions CUSTOMERS Edward Jones, Capgemini, Express Scripts, Pfizer CONTACT INFORMATION 2850 NW 43rd St., Suite 150 Gainesville, FL 32606 (352) 264-2800 or (866) 768-6825 www.sumtotalsystems.com

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Learning Platforms SOCIAL LEARNING

Winner: BizLibrary Community PRODUCT INFORMATION In a knowledge-based world, employees need immediate access to information and data to perform at their full potential. BizLibrary’s Community puts the collective knowledge of your entire organization at everyone’s fingertips.

With Community, your business can increase employee engagement, communication, collaboration and innovation. You can also increase (a) the efficiency of your employee learning and training and (b) organizational I.Q. FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Share documents, files, ideas and status updates >> Ask and answer questions >> Organize employees into communities based on job role, function, team, project, etc. >> Share links or files for input, ideas and suggestions >> Post best practices learned from clients >> Search and sort posts by content and tags CUSTOMERS Go Solution, Marquette Savings Bank, Covenant Healthcare, Bally Technologies CONTACT INFORMATION 285 Chesterfield Business Parkway Chesterfield, MO 63005 (888) 432-3077 www.bizlibrary.com

VIRTUAL CLASSROOM

Award of Excellence:

Award of Excellence:

Cisco Collaborative Inxpo Virtual Knowledge Program Classroom PRODUCT INFORMATION Cisco Collaborative Knowledge is a complete, end-to-end solution that strategically combines best-in-class digital workplace capabilities to redefine the customer and employee experience. With it, organizations can gain the critical information they need in real-time to make informed business decisions. The result: improved performance, productivity, and competitive advantage.

The Cisco Collaborative Knowledge “digital workplace” solution can empower your organization with the digital tools and technology it needs to access experts, learning, and knowledge in real time. It can help you solve real-world business challenges anytime, anywhere.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Mobilize your workforce with knowledge, speed, and flexibility to create a more empowered, productive and engaged organization >> Foster a culture of continuous learning and innovation >> Form agile teams to rapidly collaborate on and innovate new solutions >> Capture, share, and manage content with laptops, tablets, and smartphones >> Access data that is synchronized and stored in Cisco Collaborative Knowledge >> View information online or offline

Inxpo’s Virtual Classroom is an interactive way to educate corporate and enterprise learners through video and open collaboration on a single platform. Virtual Classrooms have enabled organizations to better track learning progress, provide certification, and analyze knowledge gaps for better education programs.

Inxpo’s Learning Environments & Virtual Classrooms are globally accessible, and can be cloned and reused for different programs. With the combination of video, collaborative tools and making learning truly a conversation, Inxpo’s Learning Environments and Virtual Classrooms deliver the ultimate blended learning experience in a cost-effective way.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Scheduled and self-paced virtual classroom >> Engagement through gamification, badging and interaction >> Mentoring and peer to peer community support CONTACT INFORMATION 770 N. Halsted St., Suite 6S Chicago, IL 60642 (312) 962-3708

CUSTOMERS Baylor College of Medicine, City of Barcelona, Sony, National Food Services CONTACT INFORMATION 170 West Tasman Dr. San Jose, CA 95134 (800) 553-6387

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bestofelearning!

Learning Platforms VIRTUAL EVENT PLATFORM

Winner: Inxpo Virtual Learning Environment

Award of Excellence:

PRODUCT INFORMATION Inxpo’s Learning Environments are private and secure virtual learning portals that incorporate interactive user forums and group collaboration to help build a community and promote knowledge transfer through open content sharing.

Inxpo’s Online Learning Environment gives users the power to connect with a global audience and tailor the event to meet business objectives. The environment gives learning professionals full and self-service options for creating stimulating, measurable and secure online events. It also has robust analytics and reporting that includes chart slicing, monitoring of downloads and interactive data zoom and scroll.

PRODUCT INFORMATION InterCall virtual events for marketing, training and recruiting are an innovative channel to engage with your customers, prospects, partners and employees. Some ways to use virtual events include: user conferences, trade shows, product launches, company meetings, partner communities, road shows, sales kick-offs, employee training, corporate universities, roundtables and job fairs.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Live and on-demand programming >> Recommended content keeps users engaged >> Scalable to more than 100,000 visitors >> Track results real-time and measure effectiveness CUSTOMERS Association of Corporate Travel Executives, RSA Security Analytics, Professional Convention Management Association CONTACT INFORMATION 770 N. Halsted St., Suite 6S Chicago, IL 60642 (312) 962-3708

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December 2015 / January 2016 Elearning!

InterCall Virtual Event Platform

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Easy to use and learn: The platform is intuitive and easy to navigate. It does not require users to switch applications or click through multiple pop-ups >> Better communication tool: Rich registration information, activity data and comprehensive lead ranking. All data is delivered through web-based reporting, which makes it easy to access and share information with partners and sponsors >> Customizable branding: Up and running in a matter of hours, with point-and-click customization and predefined templates and themes >> Global reach in multiple languages: available in 17 languages with a global services model, which is crucial for delivering online events to an international audience CUSTOMERS Novartis, IBM, KPMG, Fortune magazine, Spark Interactive CONTACT INFORMATION 8420 W. Bryn Mawr, Suite 1100 Chicago, IL 60631 (773) 399-1600 www.intercall.com

Content ADAPTIVE LEARNING CONTENT

Award of Excellence:

Salesforce Success Community

PRODUCT INFORMATION Salesforce University offers a wide range of training options, from in-person classes featuring hands-on instruction, to virtual training, self-led courses, private workshops, and more.

You can choose from classes for Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Analytics Cloud, and Community Cloud, along with training for the Salesforce1 Platform.

Classes are available for administrators, developers, solution designers, technical architects, marketers, sales and service management, and end-users.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> One- to five-day, instructor-led regional or virtual classes available >> Main topics: sales Cloud, service Cloud, marketing Cloud, community Cloud, analytics Cloud and more >> Integrated Success Community for collaboration and learning CUSTOMERS Shutterstock, Information Logistics, Siemens CONTACT INFORMATION The Landmark at One Market, #300 San Francisco, CA 94105 (877) 872-4610

CONTENT LIBRARY/AGGREGATION

Winner: BizLibrary Collection PRODUCT INFORMATION The BizLibrary Collection is an awardwinning “NetFlix-style” employee training solution of online training videos and eLearning courses.

Employees have unlimited access to thousands of online training programs on virtually every topic they might need, including Communication, Leadership, Management, Customer Service, Compliance and Desktop Computing, and much, much more.

More than 50 new courses are added monthly.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Twenty-five topic areas include communication, leadership, customer service, computer skills >> Unlimited employee access from desktop, mobile and/or tablet >> Variety: 60-minute e-learning courses, 15- to 25-minute videos, 2-to 5-minute performance-support programs CUSTOMERS Go Solution, Marquette Savings Bank, Covenant Healthcare, Bally Technologies CONTACT INFORMATION 285 Chesterfield Business Parkway Chesterfield, MO 63005 (888) 432-3077 www.bizlibrary.com

Award of Excellence:

Degreed, Inc. Degreed Learning Platform

PRODUCT INFORMATION Degreed is a community of college students, professionals and lifelong learners dedicated to advancing their education. Members receive tools to help track, organize, share, and validate everything they learn.

Degreed applies an algorithmic and normalized approach to track and measure educational achievements including formal (e.g., degrees), informal (e.g., books read, conferences attended), and soon, experiential learning.

Talent is built by connecting teams to the best training materials across vendors and allowing them to track and share their progress in a social, collaborative way.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Administrators get flexibility to allow employees to learn at will and a simplified way to manage all employees’ learning >> Employees get more than 225,000 courses at their fingertips and more than 1,300 learning platforms and providers CUSTOMERS Gigaom CONTACT INFORMATION 1251-B Armistead Rd San Francisco, 94129 www.degreed.com

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Content I.T. TRAINING

COMPLIANCE

Award of Excellence:

Award of Excellence:

Winner: Vubiz Compliance Library

PRODUCT INFORMATION All aspects of MS Office are available, but the luxury of being able to select the most important course for your employee at that specific time is rewarding. ej4 lets administrators easily group software courses that are critical for their department. No wading through introductions of Excel to get to what matters most.

For instance, your accounting division’s ability to learn and apply a course on pivot tables to make better spreadsheets explaining company financials. Perhaps your sales team needs to learn how to make better PowerPoint presentations for prospects. It could be that everyone in the office needs to learn how to format memos and create company templates with a detailed walkthrough of Word.

PRODUCT INFORMATION BizLibrary offers a series of specialty content bundles of e-learning courses designed to supplement the BizLibrary Collection.

These small, single-topic bundles are designed to meet the advance and specialized learning needs of small groups of employees.

E-learning bundles are available in three categories: business skills, computer skills, and certification, and custom bundles are also available. These e-learning bundles are available in flexible quantities of 5, 10 or 20 courses.

PRODUCT INFORMATION Vubiz provides full service — content, development, and delivery software — offering solutions that are extraordinarily flexible in practice. Thousands of hours of off-the-shelf content are available for purchase as-is or tailored to a specific client situations.

The company has built an excellent reputation over the past decade, offering outstanding value with comprehensive services from its large, impressive online library to content creation, an LMS and Vubuild, which is a do-it-yourself authoring tool.

ej4 Microsoft Office Package

COURSE LIST >> New Features Training: Office, Excel, Word, PowerPoint >> Special Features Training: Office, Excel, Word, PowerPoint >> Essentials Training: PC Fundamentals, Office, Excel, Word, PowerPoint CUSTOMERS Allison Transmission, Mahindra, The Corridor Group CONTACT INFORMATION 12125 Woodcrest Executive Dr., Suite 300 St. Louis, MO 63141 (314) 878-6700 or (800) 566-3159 www.ej4.com

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December 2015 / January 2016 Elearning!

BizLibrary I.T. Content Library

COURSE LIST >> Security Essentials, Avoid Social Engineering Attacks >> Protecting Your PC >> MS Windows 8.1: File Management and Organization CUSTOMERS Cellular One, Farmway Co-Op, Celergo CONTACT INFORMATION 285 Chesterfield Business Parkway Chesterfield, MO 63005 (888) 432-3077 www.bizlibrary.com

FEATURES/BENEFITS Vubiz has 93 titles in its Compliance Training library. Included are: >> Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action >> Business Ethics >> E-mail and Internet Use >> Fair Labor Standards >> Harrassment/Discrimination >> Sarbanes-Oxley >> Family and Medical Leave CUSTOMERS Forbes Industries, Goodrich, Lockheed Martin, Mattel CONTACT INFORMATION 2872 Colorado Ave. Santa Monica, CA 90404 (310) 358-9583 www.vubiz.com

Get Smarter in 2016 at Since 2008, Enterprise Learning! Events host top global learning leaders and bestin-class technologists in exclusive Hybrid event format. All are focused on helping executives build smarter organizations with learning and workplace technologies.

Enterprise Learning! Conference | June 2016 Build Smarter Organizations | www.ELCEShow.com ELC16 is also home to the 2016 Learning! 100 Award Gala and conference featuring top global learning leaders. Plus, the Best of Elearning! convene to showcase best-in-class learning solutions and best practices. Meet 2016 Learning! Champions and Celebrate Excellence.

Enterprise Learning! Conference Online | September 2016 Learn more at: www.2elearning.com/events ELC Online is a live full day virtual event featuring new content and popular sessions to 2000+ attendees. Share what strategies and technologies move the performance needle and how and where to deploy them. Hear from the newest Learning! 100, Learning! Champions and the Best of Elearning!

V

Virtual Learning!

6 Summit

Creating Great Learning Experiences….Virtually. ces….V Virtually.

“The [Enterprise] Learning!

Conference is one of the best events to attend. There is something new to learn every year. The event’s focus on technology and learning impact is important for every learning leader to know about. We need to attend events like this so we can learn from one another and stay current.”

– Dr. Christopher Hardy, Global Director, Defense Acquisition University, Dept of Defense

Virtual Learning! Summit | December 2016 Creating Great Learning Experiences…Virtually | www.2elearning.com/events The Virtual Learning! Summit is a live full day online event dedicated to Creating Great Learning Experiences... Virtually. Convene with 2,000 corporate and government learning executives online to: Hear success stories from learning leaders; Share best practices with virtual experts; See best-in-class solutions; and Network with experts at this live virtual event.

B2B Media Company LLC www.2elearning.com

bestofelearning!

Content (314) 878-6700 or (800) 566-3159 COMPLIANCE TRAINING

Award of Excellence:

ej4 Workplace Compliance Library

PRODUCT INFORMATION ej4’s Workplace Compliance Library supplies you with the courses needed to maintain compliance. The programs included are: Anti-Harassment, Anti-Harassment for California, Connecticut, and Maine, HIPAA, FLSA, FMLA, Hiring and Firing procedures, and more. When the regulations change, programs are updated accordingly, so you don’t have to keep track of the changes.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Short, tactical e-learning >> Fully customizable >> Multi-platform, including mobile >> Most video titles are 10 minutes or less in length >> Off-the-shelf programs can be customized using ej4 Thinkzoom CUSTOMERS Pepsi-Cola Bottlers, Golden Harvest, Community Coffee CONTACT INFORMATION 12125 Woodcrest Executive Dr., Suite 300 St. Louis, MO 63141 (314) 878-6700 or (800) 566-3159 www.ej4.com www.ej4.com

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SOFT SKILLS CONTENT

SALES TRAINING

Winner: ej4 Business Skills Library

Winner: ej4 Sales Skills Library

PRODUCT INFORMATION ej4’s off-the-shelf e-learning is a collection of proven solutions that are built with instructional design specific for e-learning in today’s multi-platform mobile workforce. ej4 offers an immediate solution that employees can use to get the information they need while being back to work in 10 minutes or less. Plus, with ej4’s Thinkzoom platform, you have the ability to personalize the learning with your own custom video.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> More than 1500 courses on everything from sales, compliance, IT training, and general soft skills for every business. >> Content that is delivered through any device or platform >> Professionally created videos that are informative and up-to-date >> A customizable learning management system (Thinkzoom) >> Dedicated learning professionals to support your business >> Complete custom videos for your unique needs CUSTOMERS Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, greatcall, Goodwill CONTACT INFORMATION 12125 Woodcrest Executive Dr., Suite 300 St. Louis, MO 63141

PRODUCT INFORMATION ej4’s libraries of courses consist of ready to use solutions for your organizations specific needs. They are broken up by topic in Business Skills, Workplace Compliance and Microsoft Office that can be deployed on any platform.

The company’s Business Skills Library offers courses in Professional Productivity, Communications, Sales, Project Management, Leadership, Supervision, Safety and Presentation Skills — to name a few.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Other titles: Assertive Verbal Skills, Business Travel, Business Statistics, Business Writing, Time Value of Money, and more >> Library expands every month, based on customer feedback >> Course titles can be added upon customer request CUSTOMERS Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, The Corridor Group, Western Equipment Dealers Association CONTACT INFORMATION 12125 Woodcrest Executive Dr., Suite 300 St. Louis, MO 63141 (314) 878-6700 or (800) 566-3159 www.ej4.com

AWARD WINNING CONTENT FAST 4WARD YOUR LEARNING®: ej4 creates award-winning content based on the 4 “J’s”: just as needed, just enough, just in time, and just right. This content is delivered through short, tactical videos designed to teach new skills and change behaviors through an engaging delivery style based on adult learning methodology. ej4’s content library contains more than 1,500 courses with new and updated content every month. ej4’s off-the-shelf e-learning is more than a video learning library. It offers a collection of proven solutions that are built with instructional design specific for e-learning in today’s multi-platform mobile workforce. The current and future business environment demands tools that are quick, strategic, and accessible on all devices. ej4’s content delivers in all areas. ej4 provides your company with an immediate solution that employees can use to get the information they need while being back to work in 10 minutes or less. Plus, with ej4’s Thinkzoom platform, you have the ability to personalize the learning with your own custom video. ej4 bridges the gap between potential and results. It offers: >> More than 1500 courses on everything from sales, compliance, I.T. training and general soft skills for every business >> Content that is delivered through any device or platform >> Professionally created videos that are informative and up-to-date >> A customizable learning management system (Thinkzoom) >> Dedicated learning professionals to support your business >> Complete custom videos for your unique needs PRODUCTS: Off the Shelf Videos - At ej4, e-learning is done a little differently. While the company does offer hundreds of e-learning courses on topics like Management, Productivity, Anti-Harassment and Customer Service, it looks for the business need first.

It analyzes your problems and builds solutions that fit your needs.

ej4’s libraries of courses consist of readyto-use solutions for your organization’s specific needs. They are broken up by topic in Business Skills, Workplace Compliance and Microsoft Office that can be deployed on any platform. http://ej4.com/resourcescatalog LMS Platform - Thinkzoom by ej4 is more than a learning management system.

It’s a powerful knowledge-sharing platform tool for a customized user experience.

Thinkzoom is an easy-to-use platform that allows you to record, edit, track and share your company-specific knowledge that integrates seamlessly with all ej4 content. http://ej4.com/services-thinkzoom Custom Videos - There are times when an off-the-shelf course does not effectively teach an industry-specific skill or communicate your company message.

Partner with ej4 to create custom e-learning videos that are short, to-the-point, and communicate YOUR message. http://ej4. com/services-custom-elearning

Support - It’s easy to get started using the ej4 solution. You can be up and running in a few days. Its team of dedicated learning professionals partner with you to ensure your learning program meets the needs of your learners.

CUSTOMERS ej4 has customers that cover the spectrum in size, industry and products. To name a few: Goodwill, TigerDirect, First American Title, Allison Transmission, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper Snapple, Mahindra, Wells and Community Coffee.

WHAT CUSTOMERS SAY: >> Dr. Pepper Snapple Group: “At Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, we needed to take the disciplines and common practices that we wanted to instill to over 20,000 employees across 250 locations. Using ej4, we were able to achieve these goals in a quick, efficient, and effective manner.” >> Greatcall: “With ej4, course completion rates have increased over 80 percent, and employees continually request additional professional development.”

CONTACT INFORMATION: 12125 Woodcrest Executive Dr., Suite 300 St. Louis, MO 63141 Sales: (800) 566-3159 Headquarters: (314) 878-6700 sales@ej4.com www.ej4.com

People grow business.

We grow people.

ej4.com/freetrial

Award-Winning Soft Skills Training Library

800-566-3159

Topics Include • Leadership

• Supervision

• Compliance

• Communication

• Sales

• Safety & more

Tools GAMIFICATION

VIDEO CAPTURE

Winner: mLevel GameBased Learning Platform

Winner: ej4 Thinkzoom

PRODUCT INFORMATION mLevel offers a low-cost solution that immerses employees in a fun, casual learning experience that can be easily scaled across an organization. Its SaaS-based platform makes quick creation and delivery of interactive learning games easy. Employees can play anytime or anywhere, all backed by leaderboards, badges, social learning interactions and detailed analytics.

Users can access mLevel on any device, and training missions can be completed just about anywhere. Because mLevel’s training is progressive, users have to score above a certain threshold before they can unlock the next round of educational content. Their colleagues’ scores become visible once a mission is complete, adding a friendly, competitive component and an incentive to score well, too.

Thus, engagement is at the center of the platform.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> No coding required to create rich, interactive learning missions in hours >> Its games drive individual and team competition, as well as social learning >> Analysis function allows managers to uncover what employees know and don’t know about critical business topics, then react in real-time to close the gaps CUSTOMERS D4, IHG, U.S. Foods CONTACT INFORMATION 205 W. Wacker Dr., Suite 422 Chicago, IL 60606 (888) 564-5395 www.mlevel.com

PRODUCT INFORMATION Thinkzoom by ej4 is a powerful knowledge-sharing platform tool for a customized user experience. It’s an easy-to-use platform that allows you to record, edit, track, and share company-specific knowledge. The bottom line is that ej4’s Thinkzoom does more than house e-learning. It’s a tool that you can use every day to train, communicate and share information with teams.

Its easy-to-use recording features allow you to create video content with your computer or mobile device. Think of the knowledge sharing opportunities that exist outside of the training department!

Thinkzoom allows you to record and share best practices from the field, the sales floor, or even information from your customers and competition. Then you can build a training plan around the content with existing off-the-shelf courses and business book summaries.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Create completely custom training: record and share best practices >> Reporting features allow managers to see who’s taking which courses, and then analyze viewing trends CUSTOMERS Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Pepsi-Cola Bottlers, Golden Harvest CONTACT INFORMATION 12125 Woodcrest Executive Dr., Suite 300 St. Louis, MO 63141 (314) 878-6700 www.ej4.com

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Elearning!

Web Seminar Series

You are Invited!

Join us for these engaging, live and free sessions with today’s thought leaders.

REGISTER FREE TODAY HOSTED BY:

SPONSORED BY:

Government

How Neuro-Science Drives Learning Effectiveness & Retention

Date: Thursday, January 28th, 2016, Time: 10:00am PT/ 1:00pm ET – 11:00 AM PT/4:00 ET Speaker: Bryan Austin, Vice President, mLevel An increasing number of learning solutions on the market leverage “brain science” and “neuroscience” as part of their marketing. Very catchy buzzwords, but often little more than that. In this webinar, Bryan Austin V.P. at mLevel, discusses the A.G.E.S. model (Attention – Generation – Emotions – Spacing) and how learning professionals can utilize it to improve the effectiveness and retention of their programs. This webinar will not only cover why to facilitate A.G.E.S. – but how to do so!

Bonus: Each session attendee will receive the E-learning Trends Executive Report complimentary.

Register for free at: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/85950294068593666

E-learning Trends, Predictions & Practices

Date: February 25th, 2016 Time: 10:00am PT/ 1:00pm ET – 11:00 AM PT/4:00 ET Speaker: Catherine Upton, Elearning! Media Group and invited Best of Elearning! Panelists Every day new learning technologies and practices are born. Which are fads and which have staying power? Join Catherine Upton in this session when she reveals the results of the E-learning User Trends Study. What drives investment in learning and development? Which tools are learning leaders investing in and why? Catherine will also be joined by three learning thought leaders about several e-learning trends, predictions and practices. Attend this seminar and share insights with technologists who are on the front lines of development and implementations. Bring your questions and challenges and discuss with best-in-class technologists: The role of e-Learning in the consumerized world, Learnerdirected learning and enablement, Evolution of learning ecosystems, How organizations are leveraging technologies to create the engaged workplace. Bonus: Each session attendee will receive the E-learning Trends Executive Report Study complimentary.

Register for free at: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5076944734335034370

Creating Engaging Virtual Learning Experiences

Date: March 24th, 2016 Time: 10:00am PT/ 1:00pm ET – 11:00 AM PT/4:00 ET Speaker: Catherine Upton, Elearning! Media Group and invited Best of Elearning! Panelists Go from Yawn…to Wow in your next virtual learning experience by taking these 5 key steps! Today’s platforms are more sophisticated than ever offering learners highly engaged experiences. Join this session hosted by Catherine Upton and virtual learning pros to discuss how to go from Yawn to Wow! Bonus: Each session attendee will receive the Virtual Learning Trends InfoGraphic complimentary.

Watch the CLO Executive Forum: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6721932876743818754

Elearning! Web Seminar Series is a product of B2B Media Company LLC www.2elearning.com

Services TRANSLATION AND LOCAL SERVICES

OUTSOURCED LEARNING SERVICES

Winner: TransPerfect Translation & Localization Services

Award of Excellence:

PRODUCT INFORMATION TransPerfect can provide multi-language translation of company training materials or a centralized e-learning solution to serve an internationally distributed workforce. TransPerfect’s education experts can help you enhance sales force effectiveness, drive customer satisfaction, and deliver on-demand research and collaboration to take your global learning and training programs to the next level.

TransPerfect offers multiple levels of service based on client needs, ranging from draft / summary translation up to certified translation, featuring our three-step process with a translator, editor, and proofreader, all designed to meet the evolving needs of global businesses.

Its Human Translation Quality Assurance process assigns three professional linguists — translator, editor and proofreader — to create each translation.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Network of more than 4,000 linguists, all of whom are native speakers of the target language, experts in their subject areas, and accredited by numerous translation and interpretation industry organizations CORPORATE FAMILY Adams Globalization, Epic Global Solutions, WorldLingo, eTranslate CONTACT INFORMATION 3 Park Ave., 39th Floor New York, NY 10016 (212) 689-5555

Skillsoft Learning Services PRODUCT INFORMATION Skillsoft e-learning consultants, customer support and application engineers provide core program support services, a fundamental value-add. These teams deliver the expert e-learning services and advice to help establish general strategy for deployment and adoption of powerful learning programs.

FEATURES/BENEFITS >> Deliver strategy, competency mapping, blended learning design, technology deployment and value measurement >> Boost the ROI, engagement, and success rate of any implementation >> Empower managers to effectively manage complex blendedlearning programs >> Reduce overall administrative burden >> Help identify when custom development services could be more effective >> Include customer support, 24x7x365, by telephone, email, Web or chat CUSTOMERS FM Global CONTACT INFORMATION 107 Northeastern Blvd.

Nashua, NH 03062 (603) 324-3000 or (877) 545-5763) www.skillsoft.com

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TRANSLATION & LOCALIZATION SERVICES The world’s top companies trust TransPerfect to help them excel in the global marketplace.

TransPerfect turns global goals into worldwide achievements. From translation, localization to multicultural communications, we are your best-in-class partner. Thanks to our customers who voted TransPerfect Best Translation & Localization Solution 3 years running.

Got 3 minutes? Learn how GlobalLink can help you streamline multilingual content managment. Scan the QR code to view the video

TransPerfect Global Headquarters 3 Park Avenue, 39th Fl New York, NY 10016 Tel: +1 212.689.5555

Change the face of your

global training When the time comes to extend your learning and development modules around the world, leave the heavy lifting to us.

• • • • • •

Courseware & Portal Translation Software & Graphics Localization Multilingual Audio/Video Recording Live Interpretation for Classroom Training Cultural Consulting Services Online Platform for In-Country Review

For more information, contact: eLearning@transperfect.com

bestofelearning!

BEST OF ELEARNING! 2015 COMPLETE LIST OF HONOREES: LMS CLOUD >> Category Winner: BizLibrary LMS (www.bizlibrary.com) >> Awards of Excellence: Docebo LMS, eLogic Learning eSSential LMS, ePath Learning ASAP, Intellum Exceed LMS, Litmos by Callidus Cloud, Litmos LMS LMS ENTERPRISE >> Category Winner: SumTotal, a Skillsoft Company, Learn (www.sumtotalsystems.com) >> Award of Excellence: GeoMetrix Data Systems, Inc TrainingPartner/GeoTalent LMS LCMS >> Winner: DominKnow Learning Systems, Claro (www.dominknow.com) >> Awards of Excellence: eXact Learning Solutions LCMS, CD2Learning Single-Solution Ecosystem, IBM Kenexa LCMS Premier TMS >> Winners: Cornerstone OnDemand Unified Talent Management, Halogen TalentSpace Suite >> Awards of Excellence: IBM Kenexa Talent Manager, SumTotal, Talent HR TECH/HCM >> Awards of Excellence: Oracle HCM Cloud, SuccessFactors HCM, Workday HCM SaaS ADAPTIVE/PERSONALIZED LEARNING PLATFORM >> Winner: D2L Brightspace (www.brightspace.com) >> Awards of Excellence: Dreambox Learning Adaptive Learning Platform, Knewton Adaptive Learning Platform SOCIAL LEARNING >> Winner: BizLibrary Community (www.bizlibrary.com) >> Award of Excellence: Bloomfire, Cisco Collaborative Knowledge Program WEB SEMINAR SOLUTION >> Winner: Adobe Connect (www.adobe.com) >> Awards of Excellence: Cisco WebEx Meeting Center, Citrix Online GoToWebinar VIRTUAL CLASSROOM >> Winner: Colorado Technical University CTU Virtual Classroom (www.ctu.edu) >> Award of Excellence: Cisco WebEx Training Center, Inxpo Virtual Classroom VIRTUAL EVENT PLATFORM >> Winner: INXPO Virtual Learning Environment (www.inxpo.com) >> Awards of Excellence: Blue Sky Broadcast Path Event Learning Platform, InterCall/West Corp. Virtual Learning Environment, On24 Virtual Event Platform

OPEN-SOURCE SOLUTION >> Winner: Forma LMS >> Awards of Excellence: eFront Authoring Tool, Moodle, Udutu Online Authoring Tool ADAPTIVE LEARNING CONTENT >> Winner: American Intercontinental University IntelliPath (www.aiu.edu) >> Award of Excellence: Oracle Personalized Training Catalog, Salesforce Success Community

GAMIFICATION >> Winner: mLevel Game-Based Learning Platform (www.mlevel.com) >> Awards of Excellence: Bunch Ball Nitro, Game Learn Merchants Game VIDEO CAPTURE >> Winner: ej4 ThinkZoom (www.ej4.com) >> Awards of Excellence: Articulate Replay, TechSmith Camtasia Studio

CONTENT LIBRARY/AGGREGATION >> Winner: The BizLibrary Collection (www.bizlibrary.com) >> Awards of Excellence: Degreed, Inc Degreed Learning Platform, Lynda.com Skills Library, Udemy

VIDEO PUBLISHING TOOL >> Winner: Kaltura Corporate TV (www.kaltura.com) >> Awards of Excellence: KnowledgeVision KVStudio, KZOInnovations Video Suite

I.T. TRAINING >> Winner: Lynda.com Web Development Library (www.lynda.com) >> Awards of Excellence: BizLibrary I.T. Training, ej4 Microsoft Office Package

MOBILE AUTHORING >> Winner: Adobe Captivate (www.adobe.com) >> Awards of Excellence: Brainshark, IBM Hot Lava Mobile

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT >> Winner: Blanchard Situational Leadership II >> Award of Excellence: Skillsoft Leadership Development Training, Vado Leadership Development Track SOFT SKILLS CONTENT >> Winner: eJ4 Business Skills Library (www.ej4.com) >> Awards of Excellence: Cegos Mgmt. Training, Rosetta Stone Advantage for Business COMPLIANCE TRAINING >> Winner: Vubiz Compliance Training (www.vubiz.com) >> Awards of Excellence: ej4 Workplace Compliance Library, Mastery.com Compliance Course Library, RedVector, Vivid Learning Systems On-Demand Safety Training SALES TRAINING >> Winner: ej4 Sales Skills Library (www.ej4.com) >> Awards of Excellence: CloudCoaching International Pathways to Growth, Masterskill Sales Skills Library E-LEARNING DEVELOPMENT TOOL >> Winner: Articulate Storyline 2 (www.articulate.com) >> Awards of Excellence: Harbinger Knowledge Products Raptivity, Lumesse CourseBuilder V7, iSpring Solutions iSpring Suite 8 SIMULATIONS >> Awards of Excellence: Code Baby, Forio Epicenter-Training Simulations, NexLearn SimWriter

PRESENTATION TOOLS >> Awards of Excellence: Articulate Presenter, GoAnimate, Prezi MOBILE APP >> Winner: AllenComm DesignJot >> Awards of Excellence: CloudCoaching International Pepper, Skill Pill Mobile Training Content TEST & ASSESSMENT >> Awards of Excellence: Articulate QuizMaker, Qualtrics Employee Engagement, Questionmark OnDemand LEARNING ANALYTICS SOLUTIONS >> Winner: Rustici Watershed LRS >> Awards of Excellence: ArcheMedX ArcheViewer, IntelliBoard.net TRANSLATION AND LOCAL SERVICES >> Winner: TransPerfect Translation & Localization Services (www.transperfect.com) >> Awards of Excellence: Rosetta Stone Language Learning Suite for Business, SDL Trados Studio OUTSOURCE LEARNING SERVICES >> Winner: GP Strategies Learning Services >> Awards of Excellence: GK Corp. Custom Content Development, Skillsoft Learning Services

Elearning! December 2015 / January 2016

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TipsManagement Tips Don’t Have

C-Level Support

for Your Training Programs? Here’s How to Get It.

There are very few absolutes in the world of employee training and development. However, one thing is true for all organizations: Without visible and substantive executive-level support, employee training efforts rarely deliver significant business benefits or ROI. One of the foundational challenges for HR and learning professionals is building and then maintaining executive level support for investments in employee training. Here are some suggestions to help:

1

LINK TRAINING PROGRAMS TO ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS We are not using the buzzword “alignment” here for a very specific reason. “Alignment”

has largely ceased to have any real meaning. It might have meant something once. But now people just toss around the term casually to suggest some kind of connection, but people don’t typically associate it with action — which should be an active pursuit.

Identify what your organization needs to achieve in the coming year. Make sure your employee training program is designed to help departments, teams and employees improve mastery of competencies, skills and behaviors that will help your organization reach its goals. Remember: If you don’t have clear goals, you will not have any idea where you are going; and if you don’t know where you are going, any place will do.

2

IDENTIFY AND CLOSE PERFORMANCE GAPS Quit thinking about needs analysis, and start conducting performance-gap analysis. If you ask sales managers what training they need, they will inevitably tell you they need sales training. What does that really tell you? What specific behaviors need to be improved to close the gap between the current level of performance and the desired level of performance? Do sales reps need better phone skills? Do they need better negotiation skills?

Do they need better presentation skills?

Ask for a clear description of the desired state of performance, and compare that to the current level of performance.

Next, analyze the behaviors that need to improve that will close the gap between these two states of performance. Using these behaviors as your guide, identify the competencies, skills and knowledge that must be improved to close the gap. This analysis must be ongoing to close gaps and begin building a series of continuously improving employees, teams and departments.

3

MEASURE AND REPORT SUCCESS The first two steps are designed to answer a foundational question: “What will success look like?” Now it’s time to answer this question: “How will we know if it

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works?” Executives need to know that their investments will yield returns and deliver business benefits such as reduced costs or increased revenues. We must learn to translate our employee training language into the vocabulary of business for executives.

Linking training initiatives to business goals and working to improve behaviors to close the performance gaps you’ve identified puts you in a position to do exactly that. If the organization wants to increase customer retention and you’ve identified the performance gaps and behaviors that need to improve to drive an increase, you can deliver a report linking your training efforts to a percentage increase in customer retention. Each customer retained has a dollar value. Know what that is, and report it. Now you are delivering a report in the vocabulary of executives, proving the value of employee training. The objective is to make a similar link for every initiative you start.

These three steps, taken in this order, will help you get and keep C-level support for your employee training programs.

Deliver real business results, and you’ll never have to ask for a seat at the table again.

—Check out BizLibrary’s ondemand webinar on “How to Gain Leadership Buy-In” at http://goo.gl/82wPPq.

TipsContent Tips

The Right Training Content Mix 10/2/1 Every organization has a diverse range of core business, professional and technical skills their employees require for success.

Among these skills are leadership, manager and supervisory skills, new manager training, sales, customer service, communications, problem solving, and desktop computing. We could probably name more, but you get the idea, right? Organizations require foundational skills development across many different competencies and topic areas.

Further complicating the job is the fact that there are three levels of content needed for most training: Level 1 – Basic off-the-shelf content designed to provide a foundational level of mastery of a specific skill or competency.

Level 2 – Content designed to illustrate the application of Level-1 content to an organization’s industry, business, processes or challenges.

Level 3 – Content that is 100 percent customized, based upon subject-matter expertise that is unique to the organization and/or industry.

How do we find the right mix or blend of these levels of content to deliver the right training content to our employees? We believe the best mix is a ratio of 10/2/1. So you want to provide about 10 off-the-shelf courses (Level 1), two moderately customized courses (Level 2), and one fully

customized course (Level 3).

This mix may vary depending upon your unique needs, but this ratio will serve as a useful starting point.

A good way to see 10/2/1 in action is to tell a story: ABC Widget Corp. manufactures a unique widget. Its customers love the product and are continually finding new ways to use it. These creative uses posed challenges for product-support specialists. Customer satisfaction ratings of the product remained good, but there was a slip over six months as support reps struggled to answer new product questions from customers.

So ABC licensed an off-theshelf collection containing thousands of courses that included customer service, telephone skills, problem solving, dealing with difficult customers, and listening skills. It worked with the vendor to create a curriculum of 10 micro-learning videos on topics that would improve key support skills. Based upon the managers’ review of customer calls, ABC developed two additional videos to show the support team how to apply the foundational problem solving, customer service and listening skills to the calls coming in about the product. These videos helped the reps uncover more effectively and efficiently the root cause of customer problems and facilitate much faster resolution of requests for help.

ABC finally built one entirely

customized course explaining the product itself: its design, intended use and how customers could maximize value from the creative ways customers were finding ways the widget could work.

This 10/2/1 approach allowed ABC Widget Corp. to do some very important things with the content and training team. >> The Level 1, off-the-shelf, content provided skills training on the foundational skills employees needed to quickly and effectively solve customer service problems.

By having access to a broad selection of content, each employee could focus on an individualized approach to improvement while freeing valuable training-team resources to develop more complex content.

>> Level 2 content allowed the

training team and managers to illustrate how mastery of core customer-service skills worked in their company culture, using their systems and process to handle customer calls quickly and effectively. >> The fully customized Level 3 content allowed ABC to take advantage of its unique subject-matter expertise and not waste time developing foundational training courses that were readily available in their OTS collection.

—To learn more about incorporating off-the-shelf content into your learning program, download BizLibrary’s complimentary e-book, “Got Content” at http://goo.gl/lu46KP.

Elearning! December 2015 / January 2016

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TipsEmployees How to Drive Higher

Employee Participation If you build it, will they come? Do your employees participate in your training program at the rate you’d like?

How many courses per month does the average employee start and complete? By way of a benchmark, the average employee at a BizLibrary client takes 4.9 video courses per month. How does your employee population compare?

If your employees aren’t participating at the level you’d like, it’s time to take some action. Here are some steps you can take to drive higher employee participation in your training programs — starting today.

1

ASK EMPLOYEES, “WHAT IS WORKING AND WHAT ISN’T?” Ask your employees for their opinion. It’s really that simple.

Your employees are your customers. So let’s ask them what they want and work toward delivering training programs they will want to use. This is a great mindset to adopt as you strive to drive higher participation.

Keep the surveys short, direct and to the point. Try to keep the survey about two to three minutes in length, and keep the responses anonymous.

Be prepared to act upon the information you receive. You’ll lose all credibility if you ask

your employees for feedback and then fail to take the necessary steps to make improvements. Also, you should be transparent. Publish survey results, and tell employees that you appreciate their suggestions and will take steps to make the program better. This will give employees a reason to pay attention the next time you ask.

2

REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF CLASSROOM TRAINING It doesn’t work. Really. Scientific research proves beyond doubt that lengthy, immersive classroom-type training sessions are a waste of time and money. Check out “Make it Stick, the Science of Successful Learning” by Brown, Roediger and McDaniel; “Thinking Fast and Slow”

by Kahneman; or the work published by Art Kohn in this area. Move as much content as possible to delivery methods that really work.

3

MAKE EFFECTIVE USE OF MICRO-LEARNING Employees frequently complain that traditional learning is too long, too boring, too out-ofdate, and too inconvenient.

There’s actually a litany of other complaints. Science tells us that micro-learning is the most effective employee training method and is consistent with the ways in which people naturally learn and retain information.

Don’t fight nature ... embrace it

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in Training Programs

to improve your training programs and participation.

4

MARKET YOUR TRAINING PROGRAMS TO EMPLOYEES One reason why employees may not participate in training is that they may not even know about it.

So make sure they know. This is a fundamental marketing challenge for many training professionals.

Employees have to be informed, they need to be able to see the value in training, and they have to be motivated on some level to act and consume your product: the training program.

Many training professionals make the mistake of believing that once the program goes live and the initial blast of communication goes out to employees, the marketing of the program is complete. That’s a common mistake, but one that must be avoided. Marketing requires an ongoing, continuous effort to keep the value and importance of your training programs at the very top of employees’ minds.

It’s like advertising. Think about how many times you see a commercial for a product. You have to “advertise” the value of your training program the same way — continuously, creatively and in such a way that employees are always aware of it.

—To download BizLibrary’s complimentary e-book on “How to Create a Marketing Plan for Online Employee Training,” visit http://goo.gl/iVDbt8.

TipsLearning Tips

Best Micro-Learning Practices Has the term “micro-learning” reached buzzword status yet?

It is everywhere in and around the training and development industry. And there’s good reason for the constant drumbeat of the virtues of microlearning, bite-sized training, or whatever other term you choose to use.

Scientific research shows that we learn best when we are fed a single topic in five- to sevenminute chunks using video.

It works to teach people new things on just about any topic.

The growing support for micro-learning, however, has not translated into clarity around exactly how to apply microlearning to drive employee learning results. For instance, many very well-informed professionals continue to argue that micro-learning only applies to reinforce learning. But that’s not the case. Here are a few ideas to help you make effective use of micro-learning in your organization.

1

FOCUS ON CONTEXT Many micro-videos are published as part of a series of videos. For instance, BizLibrary and other leading producers publish new content on a topic area such as new manager and supervisor skills. The topic area contains as many as 10 to 12 separate video lessons, each of which are in the five- to sevenminute range; in other words, micro-learning. Employees who consume these video lessons can watch the entire

series, or they can go straight to an individual video lesson on a specific subtopic or skillset (for example “delegation” in the new manager series). Once the employee completes the entire series, he or she can revisit any video lesson for a quick refresher or reinforcement.

2

TEACHING COMPLEX SKILLS AND SOFT SKILLS One of the greatest things about micro-learning video is that it matches the way employees learn outside of work.

So it’s the perfect choice for learning at work.

But can you use it to teach complex skills or soft skills?

Actually, both.

First, the short, single-topic approach taken in high-quality micro-learning videos matches the amount of information our brains can handle at a time. In psychology, this is called “cognitive load.” Research shows that we can effectively transfer this volume of information from short-term to long-term memory. Next, the visual images and speakers shown in the videos reach us in ways that help anchor learning by tying new information to visual cues (neural markers).

Last, behavioral sciences have long held that most complex human skills related to human interaction are learned through observation and then imitation. Video allows us to observe complex skills applied to a wide variety of situations

so that we can later apply what we’ve observed to our own workplace situations.

3

MICRO-VIDEO PLUS OPPORTUNITIES TO TRY, EXPERIMENT AND FAIL Ultimately, nothing teaches like experience. By using micro-learning to establish a foundation of skills and knowledge, your employees will be well-prepared to try out the skills they’ve learned. Remember: with video, they have the chance to observe, have content delivered that matches the capacity of their cognitive load, and have visual anchors to enhance memory. Now it’s time to give them the chance to apply what they’ve learned.

With micro-learning available, they also have the chance to go back for a quick

refresher and review the learning immediately after an experience to analyze their behavior and performance.

This type of review-andrefresh approach isn’t possible with longer online courses or instructor-led classroom training. Employees don’t have the same immediate access to critical learning content and information as they do when micro-learning forms the basis of their learning plan.

—To download BizLibrary’s infographic on “Why Video is Better for Employee Training,” visit http://goo.gl/TKEKFQ. —To view BizLibrary’s ondemand webinar on incorporating “Micro Video into Manager Training,” visit http://goo.gl/O0MgWO.

Elearning! December 2015 / January 2016

49

LastWord The CLO is Becoming Relevant Once Again Interview with Rory Cameron, EVP of Litmos by CallidusCloud - Leader and disruptor in the corporate learning space.

Rory Cameron, EVP of Litmos by CallidusCloud

WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST TRENDS YOU ARE WITNESSING IN THE LEARNING INDUSTRY? We see a couple of interesting trends in our own business and across the sector. Firstly, small Mediumsized businesses (SMBs) and corporate silos, that would have previously found it technically and cost prohibitive to set-up structured corporate learning programs, are now benefitting from rapid learning platforms. I believe that this is one of the biggest growth drivers in the market and is expanding use cases across customer, supply chain, compliance, channel and employee learning. Secondly, interoperability; historically learning management systems have been closed proprietary platforms designed to be administered and worked on in a vacuum. We were an API first platform and over 40% of our customers are either using the API or one of our over 25 packaged integrations. This has allowed learning to be seamless, embedded and automated across the day to day operational workflow.

HISTORICALLY YOU HAVE BEEN VOCAL ABOUT THE CLO ROLE. WHAT LIES IN STORE? They are becoming relevant once again and clearly do not belong in HR. In the past 5-6 years, the major growth in uses cases is for extended enterprise and outside of the firewall. HR is an internal organization and not outward facing to customers, partners and supply chain. We are seeing the CLO office more and more become a strategic function similar to IT. It is similar because departments are managing their own tools and platforms but the CIO office provides strategic advisory, program management and governance. I firmly believe the CLO office will replicate this model.

WHAT DOES 2016 HAVE IN STORE FOR THE LEARNING TECHNOLOGY LANDSCAPE? We are going to see some major changes in the technology landscape. There are still over 700 [LMS] vendors in the space; many of which have not added a single line of code in years. Not only are they vulnerable, but companies that are stuck with these vendors are vulnerable to very low user engagement that could have serious business impacts. Secondly, in a hot market like technology with so many vendors and, now private equity companies, buying some of the largest players, I expect to see more and more consolidation.

WHAT DO YOU ENVISION FOR THE FUTURE OF LITMOS? I really feel that Litmos will become the corporate standard for learning management, just like Salesforce has become the corporate standard for CRM. We are following a very similar trajectory. We have seen silos and business units deploying on their own, but we are now seeing the corporate division making us the standard in the organization.

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December 2015 / January 2016 Elearning!

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