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Employees are valuing career development more than ever—it’s a sign that the company is willing to invest in their future. How are businesses approaching training today? What are their pain points, and what topics are being addressed in training?
Organizations increased their spending on employee development by 9.5 percent in 2011—to a per-learner average of $800, according to The Corporate Learning Factbook® 2012: Benchmarks, Trends and Analysis of the U.S. Training Market from Bersin & Associates. The firm also reported that large businesses nearly doubled their investment in social learning—to an average of $40,000. […]
What Happened “Christopher” worked as a firefighter/paramedic for the City of Canton Fire Department for 11 years before being hired by the Nimishillen Township Fire Department, where he was employed in the same position for 12 years. The Nimishillen Township department required its firefighters to attend at least 50 percent of all trainings offered annually, but Christopher […]
A: Stories help learners remember key points from training sessions, reinforce the content, and help new trainers feel more poised and comfortable, says Mark Satterfield, founder and CEO of Gentle Rain Marketing, LLC (www.GentleRainMarketing.com), and author of Unique Sales Stories: How to Persuade Others Through the Power of Stories. “People remember stories,” he says. “People are […]
A: According to BLR legal editors, there is no federal law that would prohibit an employer from requiring an exempt employee to attend a training session over a weekend, especially where the training is necessary for the employee to perform the job. However, the company should consider any union contract, individual employment contract, or policy […]
“We believe that mobile technology can become an engine of business learning in the same way the World Wide Web became the backbone of learning during the previous technological revolution,” says Alex Heiphetz, Ph.D., author of “mLearning: A Practical Approach to Mobile Technology for Workforce Training,” a policy paper from The McGraw-Hill Research Foundation. Heiphetz […]
The business landscape abounds with HR-related traps for unwary new supervisors or managers, and the stakes are too high to think that they can get trained on the job. In yesterday’s Advisor, we talked about supervisors and managers who tried to be good supervisors, but their good intentions backfired. Instead, they laid the groundwork for […]
“No good deed goes unpunished.” Nowhere is that maxim more applicable than when untrained supervisors and managers try to be good bosses. If you’ve got new, or recently promoted, supervisors or managers, see if any of these situations are familiar: “Do you think you might be depressed?” asks the concerned, but untrained, boss. “I didn’t,” […]
Pregnancy and Discrimination: Are Your Practices Compliant? Most employers know that pregnancy and discrimination do not mix. But unfortunately it still occurs too often, though not always intentionally. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly half of the U.S. workforce is comprised of women, and out of that group, roughly 80 percent are or will […]
Emergency management preparedness often falls squarely in HR’s lap. Preparing for emergencies involves evaluating your risks, determining the legal and regulatory players, and determining the role of (and how to manage) unions, vendors, and contractors, especially on a multi-employer site. How can you design and communicate effective emergency management procedures? Why is this HR’s responsibility? […]
Yesterday’s Advisor featured the Four Ms of setting good appraisal goals; today, legal pitfalls in appraisals, plus an introduction to a unique leadership training system. Because poor performance is often advanced as the reason for a termination, the performance appraisal system is often the crux of the defense against a wrongful termination suit. Here’s how […]