HR Resource for HR Professionals and Trainers

Career Development is Key to Your Organization's Success

2010-10-05T05:07:00.000-07:00

Who is responsible for career development?

The employee, manager and the organization. Unfortunately two pieces of the puzzle are usually missing when it comes to career development. The employee and the manager rarely have discussions about future plans and or growth for the individual. Sometimes this comes down to the manager not wanting to lose their star employee, or the employee not knowing where they can go, or where they want to go.

Since implementing a Career Development Model (CDM) at the City of Richmond, we have discovered by implementing a process, providing curriculum, and one to one support that an organization can truly start to develop its true potential, while engaging and retaining its key talent.

What things should you do?

The main learning that we have had, is that you need to really know your employees. It is recommended that you take the time to interview them in detail about all aspects of their work history on a regular basis. A lot of employees working part-time in different jobs, volunteering in significant positions, going back to school and paying for it themselves etc. If you don't know this about your staff, you need to. By conducting career interviews, we have discovered that a lot of our employees are under utilized in their current positions. By working with the either in groups or individually we have started to help them plan their career plan and learn how to navigate the organization to get a job that is better suited to using their full capabilities.

Next Steps?

The key in this process being successful, is giving the managers the tools to understand that it is their responsibility to assist their employees in advancing thei career in the organization. A key stumbling block is that managers are not sure how to navigate the organization outside of their own business unit or how to assist the employee in creating their learning plans.

What are we doing?

At the City our next steps are to look at how to put some career resources on-line, and enable the employees to be more independent when planning their career. In addition, we will be hosting some more in-depth career planning workshops for managers to help them develop the skills that they need.

Experiential Team Building and Insights Powerful Tools for leadership reflection

2010-06-28T19:36:00.000-07:00

We just recently held a 1/2 day experiential team building session for our Supervisory Training Certificate program. By building in learning debriefs after each session and asking the mini-teams what they learned and how they were going to improve their performance on the next activity, we created some significant learning moments for the teams.

Having it integrated with insights made it a even more powerful experience, as team members could give feedback to each other on how to improve their communication and enhance the teams productivity in a safe and non-threatening way.

When we did a larger debrief, we had staff sharing deep insights, and creating development plans on a go-foward basis in the moment.

I highly recommend using Lewco Consulting, and the Insights System through Insights Vancouver with Joyce Gwilliam as a way to increase self awareness, and real leadership development.

Personal Branding

2010-04-02T05:55:00.000-07:00

Check out a video from Harvard Business Review on the importance of Personal Branding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtjWXzajQXw&feature=player_embedded

What is your personal brand? Mine is "Helping People and Organizations Succeed". Where do I add value, by coaching and mentoring people to succeed in managing their own career.

Engagement is not as hard as you think!

2010-02-08T12:03:00.000-08:00

The key to engagement is actually talking to your employees. But these days who actually does this? If you can get your managers understanding this key concept that knowing your people's talents and strengths, and then leveraging them in different and new ways is the key to engagement, then you have taken your organization to the next level.

We experienced this at the City of Richmond, when through the simple concept of getting staff excited about the Olympics we asked them to participate in the making of a video to send to our athletes. From this simple request, we were able to draw on the talent of our own people, and enable all staff to participate in different ways. From forming a dance team, to playing in one of our three house bands, to co-ordinating the actual filming, we had everyone involved. The end result was a fantastic video that will not only make our athletes proud and feel supported, but will help a young artist Matthew David get his first leg up in the competitive world of music.

Find out who your staff really are, and ask them how they would like to contribute to the organization, you will be amazed at the results!

Holland Codes a useful Tool

2009-07-20T22:58:00.000-07:00

Holland Code Assessment can be used as a way to help individuals identify what they like to do in their job and what kind of environment would be best suited for them when doing career exploration.

I typically do this one on one with clients using a Peak and Valley exercise whereby I ask the client to tell me what they like the most or least about each of their jobs. We then look at all the "peaks" or highs of what they like and that generally gives me a pretty good idea of potential career paths that I can recommend for them to investigate.

The Holland Code model does the same thing in a more scientific way and certainly has more resources attached to it, as you can take someone's Holland Code and start to match up potential career paths using the National Occupany Chart or NOC listing of careers.

Check out the following link for a free Holland Code Assessment that you can use with your client groups when doing career counselling.

http://www.roguecc.edu/Counseling/HollandCodes/test.asp

A Lesson Learned - Service Recovery is Critical!

2009-07-11T09:55:00.000-07:00

Think twice before you fail the customer. With the most recent example of bad customer service, United Airlines is paying the price. What could have easily been solved with an offer of $600.00 United is now paying thousands as a result of having their "gaffe" broadcasted all over the world on U-Tube. The lead guitarist from the Sons of Maxwell tried patiently and calmly to get the situation resolved for 9 months when United Airlines brokes his guitar in transit. Finally fed up with the situation he made a song and a pretty corny, yet amusing video. Since posting it the song and video to utube it has been hit 1.5 million times, making United Airlines look like the bad guy all around the world.

Having a service recovery policy in place, and enabling staff to make good customer service decisions is critical to ensure that something like this doesn't happen to your business.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

MetaPlace the new Second Life

2009-07-07T19:45:00.000-07:00

Creating a new virtual world to conduct leadership simulations is a thought that has been bouncing around for a while. It would be interesting to give different individuals different parts of a case study with attached scripts, and then get them to act out how they would solve the problems applying the leadership learning that they receive in the classroom.

Each individual would be assigned an avatar with a code name, that wouldn't be identifiable until after the simulation or experience is over. An instructor would be on-line giving student feedback on all their interactions and problem solving methods.

Or you could even have different avators coaching each other without knowing who exactly they are.

I found a new site that is like second life except way easier to create your own virtual world. Within minutes I had my own space, furniture, trees and yes even a pet squirrel. Check out where the world of learning is going...

If anybody has done this type of learning using a virtual space for leadership simulation I would be very interested in hearing from them.

Social Media and Implications for Learning - Free Training

2009-07-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

Check out this free monthly on-line series on the implications of social media for learning.

http://AACE.org/GlobalU/seminars/socialmedia/

Worth Watching - World's Longest Serving Mayor

2009-07-01T10:56:00.000-07:00

My sister passed this along, and I thought it was hilarious. The Mayor of Mississauga has been in office for 31 years and 11 consecutive terms. Talk about leadership! Zero debt, 700 million in reserves. When asked what her secret was, she said simply "You need to take care of your people". Every great leader knows this, win the hearts and minds of the people and you have won the battle. In today's tough economic times go back to your roots and involve your people in helping to solve the business challenges you are facing. South West Airlines is a good example of this as well. When they were facing bankruptcy, they turned the company around by focusing on engaging their people. As a result they ended up becoming one of the most profitable airlines around. Part of their philosophy is no job is too small, and all the staff including the airline pilots pitch in to take the bags off the plane and get the airplane off the ground in the quickest turnaround time in the industry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY79KbCptTo

SDS and PCI Tools for Career Management

2009-06-28T11:57:00.000-07:00

I am very excited about the new approach we are taking at the City of Richmond for Career Management. We are using SDS inventory tools to assist in career exploration. This tool assists the individual in determine what areas of strength, interest and capabilities they have. What is super cool is we are then linking this with a tool called PCI. Once all the jobs have been assessed using the PCI tool we will be able to create our own Richmond Occupational Chart whereby once the career candidate has completed an SDS inventory tool it will match them up with the most likely or best suited career at the City of Richmond.

I am also starting to think about creating my own website re career management to document all the resources that are out there for these types of activities. It is a bit of a maze trying to find the best tool for the type of activity you are trying to do. Does anybody have any suggestions on other tools that they use?

Martha Stewart launches University

2009-06-23T06:52:00.000-07:00

Check out iamplify to see how Martha Stewart has launched her own university. In addition, there is also cool new tools out there such as itunesuniversity, where you can go and take free courses. A friend of mine uses illuminate to do live webinars. What are you using to integrate technology as a delivery tool?

http://www.iamplify.com/martha-stewart/

Career Management Resource

2009-06-20T09:44:00.000-07:00

This is an excellent website that has free resources for individuals in career transition. In particular, it has a behavioral based bank of interview questions, whereby an individual can put in their answers, and then compare them to answers generated by the system. I am starting to use this tool as a way to prepare my clients for the interview stage. We are starting to have some great success at the City of Richmond counselling internal staff for career transition. This initiative is an important part of our succession planning strategy. To date we have had over 40% of clients successfully transition into new roles, or be promoted.

http://www.quintcareers.com/sample_behavioral.html

Industry Training Authority - Available Funding

2009-06-08T19:13:00.000-07:00

I have been working on a project for 18 months now. The purpose of which is to develop a public works apprenticeship model. The idea of this model is to encourage cross training across the different functions of the public works yard from parks, water, roads and construction, fleet, water and sewer. For those of you that don't know many companies and industry associations are taping into the available funding that ITA has for this kind of initiative.

Some basic criteria you need to address are:

1) Is this an industry led initiative?
2) Are there enough people to be trained?
3) Is there support from companies within the industry?

Once you submit a basic level proposal to the Federal Government they will assess the need for this type of program, and grant funding for the research phase of the project, forming a steering committee and producing a proposal back to the Industry Training Authority.

If once the proposal from the Steering Committee level funded by the Federal Government is accepted then ITA will fund the initiative to develop an apprenticeship model. This type of model doesn't have to be applied just in a "blue collar environment", as it could be applied to a supervisor apprenticeship type designation, a firefighter type designation and a myriad of other professions that may need to meet certain standards and competencies that are not currently mapped out. ITA will assist in funding the assessment of what education is currently available, put out a call for proposals for any identified gaps, and fund the creation of curriculum where the gaps are.

If an organization is wanting to get creative and create a funding source they could apply to be approved as a school providing the required training by ITA and receive funding to do so. In addition, an organization could apply to be PCTIA certified and if the program they are offering fits the Provincial Government criteria for retraining they could have applicants apply and receive on-job training while they are laid off.

If you are interested in finding out more about how to make ITA and the apprenticeship model work for your industry contact me to discuss in further detail.

Implementing Competency Models

2009-06-07T08:09:00.000-07:00

This is a great article to read on how to implement and maintain a competency model. I just attended a workshop on the lominger competency architect system. This model was very useful in that there is a card sort system that allows groups or individuals determine which competencies are critical, nice to have or least important for different jobs. Going through this type of exercise when creating a job profile/posting is critical as the key to having a great company is having the right person in the right job.

http://www.workstreaminc.com/downloads/PDFs/HCI_Implementing_a_Successful_Competency_Model.pdf

Beyond Training: Optimizing Productivity

2009-06-01T20:31:00.000-07:00

Getting ready to present at BC HRMA on Beyond Training: Optimizing Productivity:

http://www.bchrma.org/content/events/sym/details.cfm?EventID=039-020-60

Canada 6th Happiest Place to Live

2009-05-31T10:13:00.000-07:00

I wonder if they will get around to correlating the data between engagement scores in companies to happiest place to live data. I think this would be an interesting study to see if the two relate. Anyhow the good news is that Canada continues to be a good place to live.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/05/world-happiest-places-lifestyle-travel-world-happiest.html

State of Learning Declines in Canada

2009-05-28T19:10:00.000-07:00

How is it with our advances in technology, the current literacy levels of our nation, and the fact that we are one of the healthiest economies in the world today, still lead to a declining level of learning?

http://www.ccl-cca.ca/CCL/Newsroom/LearningLink/LearningLink20090528.htm?Language=EN

Carter McNamara

2009-05-15T08:21:00.000-07:00

This website that references Carter McNamara's work is an excellent resource for people developing leadership development training programs. A lot of the content of an in-house program could be designed around this resource portal of on-line topics in management and beyond.

http://www.managementhelp.org/systems/systems.htm

Live your Dreams

2009-04-17T20:13:00.000-07:00

The unbelievable performance by Susan Boyle represents the untapped potential that I am coaching every day. I meet the most amazing people and the hidden talent that they have is incredible. I admire Susan for following her dreams no matter what, and I believe that she is finally going to fulfill them because she took the first step of putting herself out there.

Career Management is all about putting yourself out there. Go back to the basics and make sure all your skills, accomplishments and attributes are on your resume. Network, Network, Network and if necessary go on television. Things can change, and things can happen it's up to you.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY">

Second Life is a Blast

2009-04-13T08:40:00.000-07:00

Not sure if you know about this yet. However, Second Life can be used for hosting your own virtual conferences, webinars, or training simulations. Check out what is going on in Second Life. Spent hours last night creating my own avatar, learning how to fly, walk, run, get free stuff, and in general have fun. I am looking at figuring out how to use this platform for a leadership simulation. If anybody knows how to do this stuff already, please contact me. Very interesting how language from Star Trek is still hanging around in today's virtual space. I was teleporting all over the place last night.

Garner Multiple Intelligence Model

2009-04-10T18:28:00.000-07:00

In my practice I do a lot of career counselling. The Garner Multiple Intelligence Assessment can assist with people determining what they like to do and what their strengths are. Check out the link below for a free excel based test on the multiple intelligences that you can use.

http://www.businessballs.com/howardgardnermultipleintelligences.htm#multiple%20intelligences%20tests.html

International Facilitators Conference in Vancouver

2009-04-09T06:52:00.001-07:00

Check out this very reasonable conference on facilitation skills offered by the International Association of Facilitators. It is located in Vancouver.

http://www.iafna.org/AnnualConference/pricing.html

John Wooden - Talk about Success

2009-04-03T19:00:00.000-07:00

This is an inspiring speech on success by UCLA great basketball coach John Woden. He coached UCLA to be one of the highest achieving teams in college basketball with records that are unmatched today. I found this video on TED. You should check out TED as it is a resource of many famous speakers at conferences or giving speeches in other venues that you can use for free in your training. I am thinking of using this video in our leadership development program at the City of Richmond.

Check out these free Quick Reference Guides for Microsoft Products

2009-04-02T19:30:00.000-07:00

I was thinking of ordering smart reference guides, to the tune of $25.00 per piece. Duh! When in doubt type in free training materials. Seek, and ye shall find :)

http://www.mousetraining.co.uk/ms-office-training-manuals.html

Business Balls a great training resource

2009-04-02T05:52:00.000-07:00

Check out Business Balls for games, training exercises and research related articles. Excellent resource. For instance, I was just reviewing jungian theory and was reading all the related research on where the model came from.

http://www.businessballs.com/personalitystylesmodels.htm#carl%20jung's%20personality%20types

Employee Engagement Network

2008-12-12T09:41:00.001-08:00

Check out the Employee Engagement network. Some interesting discussions are occuring. Particularly the one on how to measure happiness. There is empirical research that shows the happier you are, the happier not only others around you will be, but others that are connected to your network will be happier. How cool is that!

My interest in this research is all about making people happier by ensuring they are in the right job fit through career counselling. We are having great success at the City of Richmond, by working with staff to enable them to better position themselves for the career of their dreams.

What would the world look like if everybody was happy?

http://employeeengagement.ning.com

Free Webinars from Linkage

2008-12-11T08:00:00.000-08:00

Free Webinars from Linkage. Check out these great topics including a recorded webinar from William Rothwell on Talent Management and Employment Branding.

http://www.linkageinc.com/forms/webinarthx.aspx?a=c38c0f0c-cb94-4746-ba31-70d2bbbb0b45

Leadership Development Best Practices

2008-12-10T19:32:00.000-08:00

White paper on leadership development best practices from Ninth House. Probably not new to all. However, does confirm direction that most are going in i.e. action learning, defined competencies, variety of delivery channels etc. Provides a nice compilation of common leadership competencies that would be a good place to start if you are looking to develop your own framework - similar in structure as to the Kaplan Balanced Scorecard model.

http://www.odl.rutgers.edu/e-leadership/pdf/Orlando.pdf

International Leadership Exchange

2008-12-02T18:08:00.000-08:00

I have copied this dialogue on leadership assessment tools from the International Leadership Exchange Discussion thread. These tools look like good leads to follow-up on re leadership assessment

1. One of the books I’ve enjoyed is Peter Northouse’s LEADERSHIP, which has numerous instruments for a variety of leadership approaches and styles. I worked a lot with servant-leadership, so I do know that there are some instruments out there for that as well.

2. Perhaps she could try http://www.findaphd.com/

3. I suggest you consider the Leadership Practices Inventory..details re the instrument (accompanying book) etc. are at:http://www.leadershipchallenge.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-131089.html
4. Because of its superior psychometric properties I'm partial to the Big Five. [Timothy Judge has done a lot of work in this area, see, e.g., Judge, et.al. Personality and Leadership: A Qualitative and Quantitative Review, JAP, Aug. 2002.] The commercial firm that did a nice job of operationalizing the Big Five dimensions in a work context is CentACS based in Charlotte, NC. see http://www.centacs.com/.

5. Part of my Leading Change and Capacity Building course is having them take a leadership agility questionnaire from http://leadershipagility.com/assess_style.php. This is free access and a report occurs that can be downloaded. It is from the book Leadership Agility and is, for my use for in a leadership development class, results in an awakening by those who use the process honestly and genuinely.

6. There are three 360-degree feedback instruments that your colleague might want to consider when working with non-profit board members (however, your colleague might need to hire someone certified in the use of those instruments to administer & facilitate, at least for the first two).a. The Denison Leadership Development Survey at http://www.denisonconsulting.com/ is excellent for linking leadership to the mission, culture, and bottom line . . . grounded solidly in quantitative research from thousands of organizations, great comparative database, practical and easy to use, without oversimplifying . . . will help paint a picture of strengths and opportunities for growth and raise good questions.b. The Leadership Circle Profile at http://www.theleadershipcircle.com/ is best for in-depth coaching and leadership transformation . . . very rich in cross-disciplinary theories and models (including human development, psychology, organizational behavior, leadership) and newer than Denison . . . allows you to get into deeper conversations very quickly, not as superficial as some others.c. Kouzes & Posner's Leadership Challenge at http://www.leadershipchallenge.com/ is available by Wiley. I've never used it or taken it, but I have used their books and am familiar with the model. It seems like a practical, workshop-based tool for leadership assessment & training. . . also been used for a while and based on research, including in-depth interviews.

7. I have not found one great instrument for leadership skills/attributes. For skills, some assess charisma as energy, rather than storytelling, listening and connecting; attributes should tap in to determination, humility, constant curiosity, dependability, etc.. We just put a fair amount of money into the Campbell Leadership Index which has great reliability and the discrepancy ratings between the board members and their raters (it is a 360) can be helpful for reality testing and targeting broad goals. However, it does not assess conflict styles, which is imperative in my estimation. On a positive note, the people at Vangent were great to work with throughout the entire process. They might have other instruments that you would like.

With another group of professionals, we use a combination of 5 assessments to paint a picture-- MBTI/ FIRO-B (quick, cheap and informative) combination from CPP publishing and we get the combined leadership report. Then we use Skillscope (out of Center for Creative Leadership); EQ-i emotional quotient inventory from MHS; and the CDP (conflict dynamics profile) from Eckerd College. The Skillscope and CDP are both 360s. Taken together, these paint a clear picture of areas of strength and places for development. For under 250.00, you can do the CDP and MBTI/FIRO-B combo on each participant. We know from research that it is the interpersonal piece and conflict management that trips aspiring leaders up the most. Besides, self-report only instruments only provide a snapshot of self-perception, not necessarily what you want to tap, as we are all faulty historians. If money is not an issue, do them all and watch the patterns emerge over and over in a most undeniable way, so that it is crystal clear to anyone to interprets the results, where the problems are hiding. I would also make sure that you do a 360 of some kind with a space for raters to include narrative. Anonymous responses provide critical information that people are usually too hesitant to discuss face to face. Once your people have had their individual coaching sessions about the results and set their goals, they might do the Five Dysfunctions of a team workshop (there is a good video with the kit) together to identify what they are working on so that it is all on the table as they proceed to form a cohesive unit that benefits the organization.
8. The Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) is the instrument I administer in both organizational (specifically, nonprofit leaders) and academic contexts. It’s an evidence-based multi-rater system that evaluates the frequency of a leader’s behaviors in 30 statements. The website below includes a detailed description and sample reports:

http://www.leadershipchallenge.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-131089.html

9. This instrument is not based on statistical, but I think the Kouzes and Posner's Leadership Index 360 provides good feedback to leaders. You can check it out and see if it would be appropriate for your needs. In my view it asks questions in good categories of leadership. It can be taken online.

10. I like Susann Cook-Greuter's Sentence Completion Test, based on Jane Loevenger's work and its modification by Bill Torbert and his associates as the Leadership Development Profile. I am less familiar with it, but I understand that Ron Caciopee in Perth, Australia (Integral Development) also has developed an instrument.

11. You might want to consider the LB-L Achieving Styles Inventory, which actually measures an individual’s Connective Leadership profile. It has 9 related scales that measure the degree to which an individual uses the 9 behavioral categories (i.e., achieving styles) through which connective leaders accomplish their goals. Each of the 9 behavioral categories (e.g., intrinsic, competitive, power, etc.) subsumes many behaviors of that specific type.

There are four related instruments that use the same 9 behavioral dimensions: 1) the individual profile [ASI]; 2) the leadership behaviors an organization rewards [OASI] (used with the individual instrument, you can assess the fit between the indiv. & the org); 3) a situational evaluation instrument, which allows you to assess any situation or project in terms of the leadership behaviors (i.e., achieving styles) required for success [ASSET]; and 4) a 360 degree evaluation instrument that allows an individual/focal person, his/her peers, direct reports, and supervisor or any other set of people who interact with the focal person to assess a focal person’s leadership behavior.

The instruments have been tested rigorously, beginning with the original instrument (ASI) developed in 1973. They have high reliability and validity. We have a data base on the individual instrument of more than 25,000 cases from numerous countries. Many dissertations in the US and abroad have used these instruments.

For a MUCH BETTER description, see http://www.connectiveleadership.com/.

Employee Engagement - a paper for discussion

2008-11-09T18:59:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting read on employee engagement. The most critical part about going down the path of conducting an engagement survey, is are you actually going to do anything about it. If you have a plan to close the gaps identified and hold management accountable to the necessary change required, then you are on the right path. Doing the survey for the survey's sake is a recipe for disaster. Most importantly, if you are not prepared to deal with the good, bad, and ugly you are putting your organization and your employees in a position to become even more disengaged. What's an employee to think, if you ask them their opinion, and then sweep disastrous results under the rug?

In particular with Gen X and Gen Y you must be sure to understand that if you do take this approach, the chances of them leaving you are significantly higher, as one of their core values is feeling listened to and involved in the decision making process.

http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dg53xqqr_33g94x5fgf

Learning Org

2008-09-07T07:47:00.000-07:00

This website has lots of interesting content on e-learning. It also includes a discussion thread which is very useful.

www.learningtimes.net

Linkage - Great Conference for OD Professionals

2008-08-21T14:19:00.001-07:00

http://www.linkageinc.com/company/linkage_worldwide.aspx

FREE HR templates

2008-08-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Check out the HR Council for the Voluntary and not for profit sectors for some great HR Templates, Forms and more.

Keep in mind with this resource you do have to register. However, once you do get registered, all the resources are free.

http://www.hrcouncil.ca/hr-toolkit/right-people-job-descriptions.cfm

Best Practices in Mentoring

2008-08-07T10:10:00.000-07:00

Check out the International Mentoring Association for best practices in setting up a mentoring program.

http://www.mentoring-association.org/Bridge.html

E-Learning Resources

2008-08-06T13:59:00.001-07:00

E-learning guild is an excellent resource for a wide variety of information on e-learning. Check out this report on recent trends in e-learning.

http://www.elearningguild.com/pdf/1/mar05-trends.pdf

2008-08-06T13:59:00.000-07:00

E-learning guild is an excellent resource for a wide variety of information on e-learning. Check out this report on recent trends in e-learning.

http://www.elearningguild.com/pdf/1/mar05-trends.pdf

Free HR Learning

2008-08-04T16:35:00.000-07:00

Hr.com is an excellent resource for free webinars and related articles on hr topics. Their conference is also excellent as it features employers in the Top 100 bracket.

Check them out at www.hr.com

Knowplace - a resource for free learning on e-learning

2008-07-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

Knowplace is the place to be if you want to learn about e-learning, moodles, communities of practice and more. Check out this wonderful on-line community that let's you learn all of this stuff for free.

http://knowplace.ca/moodle/course/view.php?id=234

Training and Development Outlook Survey - Conference Board of Canada

2008-07-16T13:28:00.000-07:00

The training and development outlook survey is an excellent resource. Specifically I have used it to help build the business case to get more staff or increase the training budget.

If you participate in this survey you can get the results for free, or you can purchase it from their website.

The Conference Board of Canada also has an e-library which has some fantastic free resources. Check it out at:

http://http://www.conferenceboard.ca/documents.asp?rnext=1300

Volunteerism as part of Succession Planning

2008-07-15T06:19:00.000-07:00

Leading By Example

Already as part of its own training and development program, career and leadership coaches at Deloitte recommend skilled volunteerism to their internal clients for developmental purposes. The organization is also putting in place a process to assign senior managers to support partners, principals and directors in their work on nonprofit boards, which will serve as an opportunity for participants to gain tangible leadership experience in a way that produces measurable results. Deloitte also offers a robust pro bono program, which presents valuable development opportunities for personnel at all levels.

As another example of Deloitte’s ongoing commitment to community involvement, on June 6, 2008, Deloitte is hosting IMPACT Day, the organization’s ninth annual celebration of volunteer service. Many of the events that take place on IMPACT Day allow Deloitte’s 40,000+ employees to volunteer their business skills to nonprofits in their communities.

The 2008 Volunteer IMPACT Survey is the latest installment in Deloitte’s research series, a key component of the organization’s commitment to building the business case for, and advancing the dialogue about, corporate community involvement. Through compelling research on issues of strategic community involvement, as well as its own world-class program, Deloitte advocates the contribution of intellectual capital to strengthen the nonprofit sector, and the strategic use of community involvement to achieve business goals. For a complete archive of the Deloitte Volunteer IMPACT research series, visit www.deloitte.com/us/community

2008 Volunteer IMPACT Survey Methodology

This study represents the findings of a phone study conducted by Converge Marketing using a random sampling of Fortune 500 HR managers. The sample size of 250 resulted in a 95 percent confidence level with a + or - 2.2 percent margin of error. Interviewing was completed during the period of February 12 – 20, 2008.

Search Me

2008-07-14T05:41:00.000-07:00

What a cool new search tool. Instead of the traditional google links get back the front screen of each web page. You can quickly see if the site has the relevant information you are looking for. This looks like Iphone screens on the web.

For a sample of what you would find when you use Search Me for Adult Learning check out the following link

http://www.searchme.com/#/0/&pi=0/&q=adult%20learning/&ci=all/&session=3E61CBA8BE53BF8D86BE5C60D7BAB0F63EE3BECE/&vs=searchState/

Commonwealth of Learning

2008-07-11T06:24:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting site and has tons of information on distance learning. Check it out at
http://www.col.org/colweb/site

The Canadian Council on Learning

2008-07-10T06:44:00.000-07:00

The Canadian Council on Learning provides a wealth of information on adult literacy projects, international e-learning for third world countries, grants for research and more.

http://www.ccl-cca.ca/CCL/Home/index.htm?Language=EN

International Leadership Association

2008-07-10T06:34:00.000-07:00

The International Leadership Association has a listserv that is great to join. For a robust and interesting dialogue on all aspects of leadership you can join the association's listserv by visiting their website at:

http://www.ila-net.org

Need a Conference?

2008-07-06T18:06:00.000-07:00

Check out alerts@conferencealerts.com - get on the mailing list and find all conferences in one easy place.

Instructional Design Handbook

2008-07-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

What an excellent resource for Instructional Designers and new trainers. This website, has all sorts of tools including a job analysis template, the instructional design model and much more. A definite must read and a great resource even for those of us with tons of experience.

Instructional Design Handbook

Aligning Strategy to Execution

2008-07-04T08:30:00.000-07:00

Using the Kaplan Balanced Scorecard as a Competency Model is an excellent way to synthesize value statements, performance metrics, and or corporate service standards into one cohesive performance management system.

The Kaplan Balanced Scorecard Model includes the basic elements of staff satisfaction, customer satisfaction, financial strength, innovation, and operational efficiency. You would be pretty hard pressed to find outlying competencies at a positional level that wouldn't fit into this competency framework. However, if you have the need for that level of customization, you could just add one or two positional competencies and have a solid framework to design organizational key performance indicators, team performance indicators as well as individual performance indicators.

Having an integrated approach to managing performance is a powerful business strategy that will accelerate results regardless of which environment or sector you are in.

Read more about the Kaplan Balanced Scorecard model here...
http://www.balancedscorecard.org/BSCResources/AbouttheBalancedScorecard/tabid/55/Default.aspx

Recruitment Anyone?

2008-07-03T06:20:00.000-07:00

Linked In is the best thing since sliced bread. This powerful social networking site for professionals has made recruitment easy and free.

The best way to use this tool is make sure you are constantly adding your contacts. From this simple activity you can expand your network considerably. For example, I have 500 contacts, and my network 3 degrees away is over 2, 600,000 contacts.

Why do you want this? Well, imagine, being able to go on-line and type in Manager of HR, within your postal code range. Immediately all HR Managers within your geographic area pops up with their on-line resumes ready for viewing.

Not only can you use Linked In this way, but you can send a summary of the job you are looking for to all of your contacts, and they send you referrals at the drop of a hat.

I personally use Linked In to ask my contacts all sorts of work related questions. Like I need an OD strategy framework, or how to rank and rate Hi Potentials etc. Using Linked In has made my job way easier, and it will make yours easier too.

http://www.linkedin.com/

2008-07-02T05:51:00.000-07:00

I have been playing around with Udutu a free e-learning authoring system. You can create the course, view the course and extract the course for free to your server. If you want the course hosted it is $1.00 per month/per page. This is an excellent tool, at a reasonable price.

In addition, you can integrate Captivate screens in this platform, and within Captivate create quizzes, so you can save on the number of pages you need to use in Udutu.

With Captivate you can also have the answers submitted and the log of what questions you got right or wrong pop back up in an email.

Combining these two authoring systems is a powerful way for beginners to create e-learning at low cost, with a minimal learning curve.

http://www.udutu.com

2008-06-30T13:17:00.000-07:00

I have been away from this for awhile, so here's to starting up again. Most recently I have been exploring Career Assessments. A great starter assessment that is free is the Princeton Review career assessment tool, which is a mini-version of the Birkman. At approximately $100.00 per person the Birkman is a decent relatively inexpensive tool that could definitely be incorporated into your career planning strategy.

These days most organizations are missing the boat, and haven't yet started to offer internal career counseling services. However, when I was Manager, Organizational Development for Envision Financial I saw a dramatic improvement in staff satisfaction results on our engagement survey. In fact, they went from 65% to 89% satisfied in a 1 year period and I really believe it had a lot to do with focusing on career planning services.

Check out the Princeton Review career assessment tool at http://www.princetonreview.com/login3.aspx?RDN=1&uidbadge=%07

Any comments or suggestions on career planning and assessment tools are welcome.

2008-01-07T08:30:00.000-08:00

A great site for tons of research and free information is the Conference Board of Canada. Check out their free Self Assessment that will assist your organization in determining if it is a learning organization.

http://www.conferenceboard.ca/humanresource/LPI/pdf/SelfAssessmentTool.pdf

In addition, if you sign up you can participate in the Training Outlook Survey for free. If you partcipate in this survey, you receive a free report of the results. This is a great tool to assist you in the budgeting process, as it clearly breaks down expenditures by fte by sector etc.

HR Technology doesn't need to be expensive

2007-06-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

Check out HRVantage in Vancouver. This system has it all for much less than you expect. Depending on amount of licenses, and modules you can get system for between 10,000 and 20,000 dollars. This system has been used by different credit unions for almost twenty years and has expanded into multiple sectors and is now being offered in many international countries as well.

Craigslist works for Recruitment

2007-06-17T14:43:00.000-07:00

I know a lot of people think Craigslist is junk for recruitment, but I find it actually works. The trick is to think of Craigslist as a new way to advertise for people. Instead of trying to limit your words as you would in a normal posting, you can use as much text as you want. By making the job posting detailed enough, you will naturally filter out some of the candidates that wouldn't qualify.

Free On-Line Conference re Assessment and Feedback in Higher Education

2007-03-08T14:45:00.000-08:00

Research in Adult Learning

2007-03-08T14:31:00.000-08:00

Reflections of an Adult Learner

Research in Adult Learning
I don't know about you but I try to read most of my email everyday. Yes even the junk stuff. The reason being is there quite a few gems out there that can make your life easier in the world of instructional design and faciliation. Or heaven forbid, the dreaded planning, budgeting and building a business case time has hit once again, and you need data to justify that 10% increase in your budget, or you really want to sell that mentoring program.

One such gem is the report that was just published by CSTD on the importance of investing in learning. You have probably read in the news that Canada is losing ground in productivity compared to other nations, and some experts believe it is because Canada is also losing ground in how much it is investing in the training of our workforce. According to this study, Canada has slipped to 20th in ranking from 12th not to many years ago.

If you are interested here is the study that might help you sell why you need that increase in your training and development budget.