Elearning blog: Learning re-imagined

Environmental, Safety and Health Employee Training

By Donna McEntee, Practice Manager, ES&H solutions, Skillsoft

Nearly every industry needs to conduct specific training because of mandates by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Transportation (DOT). To remain compliant, elearning is an effective way to reach broad audiences, provide multiple delivery methods and track completions—all in a consistent manner.

Whether it is new employee training or annual topic refreshers, Skillsoft’s learning resources are designed for a range of needs, from workers requiring rigorous training, to business professionals that might only need general awareness or periodic training on special topics. Through our Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) library, courses are available to your learners at their convenience through our cloud-based solution. This means that learners may access their training 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days per year through the Internet connection. The training is very interactive and includes review exercises, case studies and graphical representations. Organizations can utilize our LMS to assign courseware and track training efforts and ensure compliance with regulations.

Watch Skillsoft client, Kleinfelder, to learn how the organization uses elearning to keep their employees safe. 

Donna McEntee is a Practice Manager for Skillsoft’s Environmental, Safety and Health Solution Area. With more than 15 years of experience in online learning, she supports the development of new compliance courses and provides product expertise for our customers using our library of ESH courses and Learning Management Systems. She has worked as a safety training professional in hazardous waste operations, as a corporate compliance training manager and training consultant to government and commercial clients for more than 25 years. 

Adopting Training Processes to Suit an Ageing Population

With the number of pensioners in the UK forecast to rise by half by 2030, and the over-85s to double, it’s no surprise that the impact on society of an ageing population has been given an increasing amount of media attention recently.

Just a few weeks ago it was suggested that ‘Britain is 'woefully' under-prepared for the rising number of elderly people’, with both the Government and businesses failing to address the implications of our ageing population. The statement follows a report from the House of Lords’ public service and demography committee and, whilst many may deem it to be a simple case of ‘scaremongering’, it highlights a worrying truth that should be a cause for concern far beyond the issue of pensions and benefits.

According to a recent Guardian article, ten years ago there were 500,000 people in work over the age of 65. Today, that figure is approaching one million, with a rise of 270,000 since 2009. However, despite many employees now choosing to work past the traditional retirement age of 65, businesses are overlooking valuable skills and opting not to invest in this growing generation of older workers.

The Lords’ public service and demography committee has called for employers and the government to work together to help older people remain in the workforce, but this alone is not enough to put things right. Whilst enabling the older generation to remain in the workplace for longer is a vital step in addressing the issue of an ageing population, it will only work if accompanied by a change in thinking by organisations. This includes reworking HR policies and practices to meet the needs of this growing number of older workers in UK businesses.

Our research shows that currently only 8% of UK companies invest in training for the over 60s, but if we are to remain in the workplace longer then this has got to change.

Businesses need to take the lead and encourage older workers to enhance their skill set by offering both a job and training in one package, as they do for the younger generation. To ensure that all employees feel engaged, businesses can start by:

• Making sure managers and supervisors do not introduce age ‘cut offs’ simply because of their assumptions about different age groups

• Ensuring training and development is seen as an integral part of the culture of the business, with employees of all ages being actively involved in identifying their own development needs

• Monitoring the take-up of training to ensure that all employees are aware of the opportunities and are encouraged to take them up[1].

Organisations need to be preparing for this shift now or risk damaging the future development of their business.

 

[1] All bullet points refer to Age Positive business checklist: https://www.gov.uk/employer-preventing-discrimination

Protect your organization from legal action

With the Department of Labor stepping up wage and hour enforcement efforts, many businesses could be left susceptible to legal action from state and federal agencies. Simply knowing the latest government guidelines and regulations isn’t enough. What measures is your company taking to ensure compliance is carried out at every level of the organization? What actions are you taking to mitigate risk of legal action? These are answers you need to know in order to protect your business and build a positive work environment for employees.

Wage & Hour Enforcement: What Employers Need to Know
Complimentary webinar on Wednesday, February 27, 12-1 p.m. EST

Join us as Whitney Harmon, attorney at Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC, details the importance of wage and hour compliance and why it’s becoming is an increasingly critical concern for employers. During this webinar Ms. Harmon will explore:

• The Department of Labor’s aggressive enforcement efforts, including its record number of investigators being hired for 2013, targeted industries and harsher penalties.
• The need for extreme care when classifying employees.
• The importance of effective timekeeping practices.
• Strategies for avoiding costly pay violations.

Register today!

Speaker:

Whitney M. Harmon represents employers and management clients in all aspects of employment law, successfully arguing cases versus various state and federal agencies. She routinely drafts employee handbooks and policy manuals, trains supervisors and managers on the implementation of these policies, and provides guidance and advice on current employment-related legislation and agency initiatives.

Transform the way they think about elearning

The right blend of content, technology and marketing can transform the way your organization thinks about learning and development. That’s just what Dollar Tree, Inc did when it engaged executive and organizational support to develop and deploy engaging learning programs.

Attend a complimentary webinar tomorrow, January 17

Join us to learn how this organization works with Skillsoft to establish an innovative learning and communication culture by deploying a blended learning strategy.

This session will include perspective on selecting the right partner, technology, content and stakeholders to position your program for success. Dollar Tree will showcase its Field and Store Support Center (SSC) KnowledgeCenters, and share how it:

• Engaged senior leadership in marketing initiatives through video blogs to elicit support for distance learning.
• Utilized Skillsoft’s Core Services, Solution Services and Custom Development team to execute and evolve its elearning strategy.
• Capitalized on the dual functionality of KnowledgeCenters (training and communication) to advance user adoption and executive support.

Register today

Speakers:

Heather McCoy, SPHR, Manager of Learning Technology, will discuss how she led the strategic implementation and expansion of elearning at Dollar Tree, with its audience base of 50,000 learners in three distinct environments.

Nancy Everheart, Skillsoft Solution Services Architect, will be on hand to share her approach to collaborating with Dollar Tree to design a learning solution and create value-driven results.

Throw back Thursday: leadership succession planning

We receive so much valuable content from our customers, partners and internal subject-matter experts. On Thursdays, we thought it would be fun to do a “throw back” and bring back an older post that was valuable to our audience. Today’s throw back is about leadership succession planning.

How prepared are you for leadership loss?

By Shawn Hunter

AMA Corporate Learning recently surveyed over 1,100 senior managers and executives on the topic of leadership succession planning and discovered only 14% described their organization as properly prepared to confront key leadership loss, and over 80% said they were either “somewhat prepared” or “not at all prepared.” In the case of Apple and Steve Jobs, confidence appears reasonably high that Tim Cook is prepared to lead the company through Jobs’ health break. Yet, 14% nationally reflects a pretty sad confidence level in our leadership pipeline.

I’m reminded of the development culture at U.S. Cellular, which dictates the both/and equation when it comes to business results. In their culture, a defining metric of goal success is both achieving the business objective AND developing people in the process. The goal is considered incomplete if you ink a deal but the people growth component isn’t there. There is a clear expectation that business drivers include the people development part. Because people aren’t assets, they’re well…people.

Don’t miss the upcoming Skillsoft Live Event featuring David Nour

Skillsoft Live Events are produced annually providing executives with cutting-edge thinking in business and leadership through live and interactive presentations. These presentations feature the most recognized and sought-after thought leaders including Ram Charan, Tom Peters, Lynda Gratton, Dan Pink, Renée Mauborgne and more. Up to seven times per year, Skillsoft customers that subscribe to the Skillsoft® Leadership Development Channel™, 50 Lessons and Skillsoft® Leadership Advantage™ get access to these valuable virtual events! Customers can leverage this engaging content for team exercises or individual learning.

David Nour, Wednesday, November 28, 12 p.m. EST

Your personal and professional success depends on the diversity and quality of your relationships with others. Yet most of us don’t spend enough time building and nurturing the key relationships we need to achieve success. That’s where Relationship Economics® comes into play. Relationship Economics isn’t about networking. It’s about learning how to invest in people for an extraordinary return. It’s about exchanging Relationship Currency, accumulating Reputation Capital and building your Professional Net Worth. It’s about learning the art and science of relationships.

David Nour, author of the best selling business book, Relationship Economics, has developed a unique transformation process of individuals, teams and corporations in the way they build, nurture and leverage their personal, functional and strategic relationships.

Time: the hidden cost of free

By John Ambrose

As I described in my 2012 Skillsoft Perspectives Global keynote, “time” is the single most important asset of any organization. The hidden cost of “free” is the time required to make that content relevant to the individual in the context of the organization’s goals and mission. Misdirected time is the ultimate enemy of human productivity. Skillsoft’s business model has enabled it to invest literally hundreds of millions of dollars over the years in building a full spectrum of connected, inter-related learning modalities that optimize the transfer of relevant knowledge and skills. Unlike the academic world where reflection and scholarship are an integral part of a largely time-insensitive learning process, corporate solutions focus on delivering highest quality in the least amount of time to drive specific business outcomes. Time equals money.

Moreover, the larger and more complex the organization − the greater the challenge. An effective, global learning program in a large, dispersed organization requires not just access to content, but a significant amount of consulting, tailoring and advisory support to drive successful business outcomes. This includes subject matter expertise, platform integration, alignment to initiatives, program design, rollout planning, marketing communication, alignment to competencies, leveraging of social and mobile platforms, mapping to initiatives, reporting, and business impact analysis. 

These services have been key to distinguishing Skillsoft’s value proposition over low cost and “free” sources of content, as well as higher priced alternatives such as classroom-based learning which is costly and not scalable.  

Nonetheless, the “free” dynamic is a big driver of why Skillsoft continues to push its thinking around how to evolve our business model to continually enhance the overall value and service it delivers. It is clear that all types of standalone content products, including traditional courseware, face some level of greater pressure especially when the “buyer” is less discerning about quality, accuracy, relevance, time-commitment, and consistency of the content.

Skillsoft understands this dynamic and continues to migrate to a model that leverages our relentless focus on organizational development and results. Ultimately SkillSoft must and will continue to deliver an experience that customers cannot receive elsewhere through its unique combination of content, services and total user experience.

The 7 deadly skills of the perfect employee

By Kevin Young

Here, Kevin Young, Managing Director of Skillsoft EMEA, outlines the seven deadly skills that organisations should look for in any future employees.

Replacing a member of staff is a costly and lengthy process. In fact it can cost as much as a year’s salary to replace an employee.* But with businesses investing serious amounts of time and money on recruitment, how can they make sure that any new recruit is going to add to the long term success of the business?

1. Killer problem solving skills

The ability to solve complex problems is the Holy Grail for HR teams searching for that perfect candidate. Employers want people who work on their own initiative and under minimal guidance: people who are proactive rather than reactive. Regardless of the size of the issue, problem solving will always rank high on the desired skill set list.

2. A master of basic IT and new media skills

In the new digital age, keeping up to date with existing and emerging technology is essential for the modern employee. New media channels provide consistent lines of communication with customers and potential customers; employees need to have a working knowledge of how platforms can be put to use. Employees unable to fully operate common Microsoft® Office applications will almost certainly affect business productivity.

3. Written communication – not quite Shakespeare, but clear, concise and professional

Text speak has seeped into mainstream communication and even found its way into the workplace. There’s nothing more unprofessional than sending an email littered with colloquial spelling and grammar. Business communication should always be kept clear, concise, professional and free from jargon. You don’t have to be Shakespeare, but an ability to easily communicate through written language is certainly a must-have.

Skillsoft helps you think like a CFO

In today’s business where departments are competing for more resources and budget, professionals need to make a strong business case and value proposition for their operations. Managers need to have a chief financial officer (CFO) mindset when running a department to help them make decisions and business proposals that are more likely to win senior management's support, as they’ll be based upon sound financial and operational analysis.

To help professionals take a strategic view of financial decisions and activities in their organizations, Skillsoft today announced a new solution created to help managers develop a CFO mindset in the management of their departments to ensure that their decision making is founded on solid financial considerations and aligned with the overall goals of the organization. 

The new series, Thinking like a CFO, is offered through Skillsoft’s award-winning Business Skills Library. The new series is based on the financial priorities and mindset of a CFO, including growing the top line, keeping fixed costs low and maintaining cash flow needed for paying bills and making funds available for new projects. The series also discusses how to make key organizational decisions involving financing, investments, and risk.

To learn more about Skillsoft’s Business Skills Library and specific products such as the Thinking like a CFO series, please visit http://www.skillsoft.com/online/fy12/courseware-innovations/?srcID=BLOG

Designing Skillport® 8: notes from the trenches

By Stephanie Pyle

At the 2012 Skillsoft Perspectives conference, we unveiled an advanced look at our upcoming Skillport® 8 release. Skillport 8 brings together all formats of learning content, integrating books, courses and videos in the same library, giving the user a single, seamless experience. To support users on-the-go, Skillport 8 is cross-platform and cross-device – it works as well on a tablet as on a desktop. Many customers asked how we arrived at such a dramatic (and effective) design. There’s a story there and we’re pleased to share it.

Early on, the team went back to basics to ask ourselves just what is Skillport’s “role” in the customer relationship?  Is Skillport why they do business with Skillsoft in the first place? After much discussion, we arrived at the collective realization that though Skillport was our own passion (because we work on it every day), it is really more of a supporting player to most of our customers. For them, Skillsoft content is the driving force behind the business relationship, with Skillsoft’s service and experience sealing the deal.

Reflecting further, we realized that while the various features and functions of an LMS are important, it is the optimization of the user experience with the content that’s key. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about Skillsoft content or an organization’s proprietary content.  By focusing on the content, we’ve designed Skillport to be a richer total user experience. The visual design features a more streamlined look to allow the content to be the focus. The navigation and actions are readily apparent and intuitive because of the use of established standards and consistency within the application. Our team took the latest web design principles into consideration for Skillport 8. With mobile on the brain, we made sure it would be suitable on a tablet by optimizing it for a gestural interface.