The best L&D resources of April 2022
Lavinia Mehedin?u
Co-Founder & Learning Architect @ Offbeat | Learning & Development
Not sure if it was just me or something in our field, but there's been a lot of focus on career development in April. People have been exploring career development for a number of angles. How do you know you should switch careers? What can you do if you feel like switching careers is a good choice? How can companies support career development? What frameworks are out there? Is the career ladder dead? So many questions! You can find some answers just below in some of the nicest resources we shared in April! ??
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First, this article starts by arguing there are 4 types of career transitions: (1) being fired or laid off, (2) escaping a dead-end job, (3) receiving an unexpected opportunity, and (4) deciding to take a leap of faith. Second, no matter which might be your case, they mention a couple of things you can do to make the transition smoothers: (1) introspection, (2) seeking community support, and (3) build up your bravery.
An article both for your eyes and for the ones of colleagues interested in career development. We all have these questions: should I leave my current role? How do I compare or choose between two or more opportunities? What is preventing me from moving forward? This article explores a framework that might help in the decision making process.
Some pretty neat advice on how to deal with career management in a world where we’re not so sure what we’re going to do next month: (1) start by figuring out what you don’t want, (2) pick one direction as your “provisional hypothesis” for where you want your career to go, (3) Double down on foundational skills and knowledge that will make you better, no matter what direction you ultimately decide to pursue, and (4) take stock of your emotional and mental energy.
Deborah tells the story of why Blinkist decided to revamp their development framework, all the steps they went through, and shares the framework itself for others to see and have some inspiration in their own work.
An economic moat is a company’s competitive advantage over its competitors which allows it to protect its market share. But what about a career moat? This article covers the definition of career moats, how to identify and cultivate it, and some examples of career moats in action.
In this article, Darcy Peters, Customer Advocacy Manager at Buffer walks us through why they decided to engage every member of a team in onboarding new colleagues, how that went through, and the expected and unexpected benefits of the process: (1) a quicker integration into the team, (2) it created a system of reinforced learning, and (3) it furthered the sense of significance for existing team members.
The findings are not surprising. In short, people mentioned they need: (1) support for work-life balance (61%), (2) flexible work arrangements (39%), (3) “Gives me control over how I do my work” (33%), (4) recognition & encouragement (30%), (5) clear expectations (30%).
The report also covers considerations for hybrid workplaces, where the top three most common challenges are: (1) building and maintaining relationships with colleagues (63%), collaborating with others (58%), (3) communicating with my team members (51%). All three of them can be directly impacted by the manager, especially when the transition it’s just happening, and new habits & behaviours are forming in the workplace. So leaders have their plate full!
So I was left with a question. Is there something we can do to support managers in supporting employees? Either in our leadership development programs, by sharing resources, or who knows, maybe other ideas? If you have something on your mind, feel free to share your thoughts!
Setting up a hybrid workplace is complicated. And it has its pros and cons. Although obviously not everyone, a lot of people would choose a hybrid workplace rather than an on-site one. This article deep dives into who’s more likely to prefer it depending on, for eg., age, gender, or gender expression. And it also looks at three things you should nail if you want to have a chance at creating an inclusive hybrid workplace: work-life support, team building, and mutual respect.
My heart literally skipped a bit when I saw this article. I’m part of two peer support groups that have formed naturally in the small Offbeat community. We meet twice a month and the level of insight I get out of them is tremendous! So I could definitely relate to the importance of being part from such a group. But the authors of this article have studied peer groups and they came up with some suggestions for making them actually work. Amazing, amazing info in there!
There’s been a lot of chatter about the workplace as a community, employee resource groups, and internal communities (of practice or not). This article looks at how Humu puts belonging at the forefront, by supporting internal communities' creation and development. They offer community leaders a bonus, a budget, and leadership support. So instead of viewing community work as something extra, something you might do outside of work, community leaders are seen and supported as leaders in the organization. Nice one!
We’re excited to recognize Humu community leaders financially, too, with a bonus of $2,500 (or equivalent local currency) for each 6-month leadership term.
领英推荐
I recently read in the L&D report from LinkedIn that L&Ds started getting involved in mental health and wellbeing programs. So maybe this resource might be helpful to some of you. It’s full of many ideas, but the most actionable one is the list of Internal mental health awareness initiatives to help employee engagement and retention.
The last few years have been long, dreadful, and might have led to us being exhausted. If you feel like that, it’s completely understandable. It might be hard to get back or acquire some new healthy habits, but it’s not impossible. The key is to start small, to take a gentle, whole-person approach to long-term change.
I love when people outside of L&D take the time to talk about stuff that relates to our role. This article covers 8 cognitive biases the author observed he had when doing performance reviews: recency bias, strictness bias, leniency bias, horns bias, halo bias, similarity bias, central tendency bias, and the contrasting bias.
Some very interesting thoughts about the common pitfalls in DE&I training and tips on how to avoid them. The pitfalls? (1) Focusing all efforts on raising awareness while neglecting broader objectives. (2) Requiring everyone attend mandatory, non-tailored trainings. (3) Using a business-as-usual approach, lacking focus on the human side of behavior change.
I rarely come across coaching frameworks mostly because they are not yet on my radar as much as it could be. But I do know some of you are either coaches or interested in growing as a coach. This resource is quite interesting, covering positive psychology, how to use it in the coaching process, and additional resources you can explore.
I think this article sums up a thought I’ve had for a while. It’s hard to learn what’s real, especially when it comes to the human brain. So I’d better not hold on too strongly to any theory. But rather inquire and use the best of what the theory provides. This one’s about growth mindset, but probably the same train of thought can be applied to other popular opinions as well.
The foundations of mind-set theory are not firm… bold claims about mind-set appear to be overstated…. Time and money spent on mind-set-related programs diverts resources from other programs with potentially greater effects and stronger theoretical underpinnings.
A really fun workbook exploring 10 confidence gremlins, the beliefs that hold us back from doing our best work. I’m afraid most of these gremlins were or still are my acquaintances. I really like how they divided the e-book between explaining why these beliefs are holding us back and concrete ideas we can explore to counter them.
The information didn’t necessarily shake my world, but some of the data confirmed my gut feeling. First, the report is structured around: The Transformation of L&D, L&D in transition, new challenges, rethinking skill building, how L&D succeeds, the next step forward. Some interesting takeaways I got from it: (1) Demand for L&D specialists increased 94% in July – September 2021, compared with April – June 2021, (2) L&D plays a weighty role in DE&I strategy, (3) 87% of L&D pros have helped their organization become more adaptable to change, (4) compared with other active learners on LinkedIn, L&D learners spent 23% less time learning in 2021.
The last figure I found really interesting and left me with a question. Are we spending less time on e-learning because we found other, more efficient ways to learn (communities of practice, peer learning, mentorship, for example)? Or are we dedicating less of our time to learning overall?
Don’t be misled by the title of this article! It would definitely be beneficial to your CEO if you work for an organization, and you can share it for sure, but reflection doesn't discriminate. It’s as beneficial to you as it is to everybody else. In this resource, you’ll find a small neurological explanation of why reflection is useful and how to practice it.
This is probably the most deep-dived resource on learning content I’ve ever seen. It covers multiple things: (1) the different types of content and what tools offer what type, (2) the importance of tagging learning content, (3) what to look for when buying learning content, (4) the learning technology and more. Very, very useful, especially if you’re looking for some kind of learning technology these days.
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Wow, this roundup sounds super useful, especially with all the buzz about career development and hybrid workplaces! ?? At ManyMangoes, we totally get the importance of having top-notch sales pros to tackle these changes. We find all our ace sales staff through CloudTask - they've got a fab marketplace where you can check out vetted sales professionals through videos before hiring. Peep this link to see for yourself: https://cloudtask.grsm.io/top-sales-talent Plus, a heads-up, we do benefit if you use this link. Keep up the amazing work with these resources! ??
SDR @ Anvilogic ??Recovering Teacher
2 年Wow, your summaries and highlights of key points are spot on! I can’t wait to dive in to these resources. Thank you ?
Leading modern learning teams in the development of global experiential learning and leadership programs. ?? 4x Head of Learning & Development | Fractional Director of Learning | Executive Development & Career Coach ??
2 年Deborah Maddalena - not sure if you follow or read Offbeat, but this issue has a whole collection of resources on Communities of Practice - your speciality! ??
Learning and Development | Learning Experience Designer | Organisational Development
2 年Weekend binge reading ?