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The best L&D resources of November 2020

Lavinia Mehedin?u

Co-Founder & Learning Architect @ Offbeat | Learning & Development

发布日期: 2020年12月1日

Here's a list of the best resources of November 2020. I hope you will enjoy exploring it as much as I did putting it together.

ARTICLES

1. THREE STEPS TO TURN YOUR COMPANY INTO A LEARNING POWERHOUSE

So this month I came across a pretty interesting article. It introduced me to the idea of bionic organizations - institutions that can harness both the power of machines and the power of humans.

Harnessing the power of humans is a shared task between the CEO, his board, and ourselves as a learning function. Some of the common characteristics of those who embraced this partnership and created the best corporate learning ecosystems are as follow:

A refined strategy—a clear “why” for learning within the company
A mature learning organization—a sophisticated learning culture with leadership support and a well-resourced learning function
A high-quality offering—a first-rate library of content that is delivered through diverse channels
A set of enablers to support the delivery of learning programs—a robust learning infrastructure with appropriate measurement tools and technology
Learnscape integration—a network of connections inside the company and outside the company with the wider community of corporate learning and development providers

The article is full of examples, frameworks, and questions you can apply to your work.

Source: BCG

2. 8 STEPS TO CREATING A VIRTUAL EMPLOYEE ONBOARDING PROGRAM

Some useful tips to integrate into your onboarding program if you're running it online. The ones I feel like the most important in this setting are probably nurturing opportunities for new hires to connect with one another, and emphasizing the role of the hiring manager and a designated buddy.

Companies that nail onboarding will have better engagement, retention, and talent branding. And there’s almost nothing that will turn new hires into enthusiastic company ambassadors as much as seeing your team putting in an extra effort to make them feel welcomed and valued.

3. A PROGRESSIVE WAY TO MEASURE PERFORMANCE: THE NPPS

Using NPS as a basis for a performance review? Say whaat?

Net Performance Promoter Score (NPPS) involves asking three questions:

How likely is it that you would recommend working with [name of individual, workgroup, or unit] to a friend or a colleague?
Why did you provide the rating that you provided?
What would it take to raise the score just by one point?

Some of the benefits?

Flexibility - it can be used in any circumstances and for any type of job;
Simplicity - it doesn't take much time to provide feedback;
Practicality - it helps with cross-functional and cross-level comparisons;
Holistic - one individual or unit can receive feedback from all stakeholders;

I actually dig the versatility of this tool but fear the simplicity of it. Still, would be cool to test it, since performance reviews have always been such a pain as an organizational practice.

Source: Corporate Rebels

4. A NEW MODEL FOR CORPORATE TRAINING: THE ADAPTIVE LEARNING ORGANIZATION

In one of his latest articles, Josh Bersin talks about the Adaptive Learning Organization, its 3 traits (Sensing, Decision-Making, and Innovation), and 15 practices. The research on this matter discovered that those who invest in these 15 areas are 59% more likely to be growing this year, they are 27% more cost-efficient, and they deliver significantly higher engagement, retention, and leadership scores. So maybe we should keep an eye on them.

Source: Josh Bersin

5. DON'T LEARN IN A VACUUM: WHY THINKING IS CRUCIAL TO GROWING

The basic assumption of this article is that in order to successfully learn something people need to feel, do, and think. Being the third of the series, this one focuses on think, by talking about the importance of formative feedback, social learning, and metacognition. The question I have now is how do we integrate these 3 experiences in the learning journeys we create?

We know that students learn best when receiving feedback, learning with others, and reflecting on the process of learning—rather than just doing something in a vacuum.

6. 6 COUNTERINTUITIVE RULES FOR BEING A BETTER MANAGER - ADVICE FROM LAMBDA SCHOOL, QUIP & FACEBOOK

A long piece of content that could serve you if you're a manager or as an inspiration for your management programs. Molly Graham outlines a couple of interesting rules for being a better manager. The one that stuck with me? Spend more time than you think you need to with your high performers.

As a manager, one of the hardest management skills is learning to take care of yourself first. It can feel selfish, especially if you're a giving person. But trust me when I say that unless you are your best self, there's no way you can make other people into their best selves.

7. STAFF DEVELOPMENT THAT YOUR PEOPLE ACTUALLY NEED AND WANT

This is one of the best introductory pieces I have read on development, presenting the spectrum of processes we manage as learning professionals, concepts such as psychological safety, heutagogy, employee engagement, and more.

Source: Learnerbly

8. FROM LEARNING TO PERFORMANCE ENGINEERING: DEFINING WHAT IT IS THAT L&D TEAMS ACTUALLY DO

What do you do as an L&D? It's probably a question we all had to answer at some point in time. Ross Stevenson, the author of this article recommends an answer to this question that's more appropriate to what we should be doing: I’m a performance engineer, I help remove barriers to essential knowledge, work on solving workforce performance challenges, and ultimately make sure people can get the stuff done to help them and the business thrive.

9. THE VALUE OF MEASURING EMPLOYEE SKILL DATA

One of the best articles I've read this month starts with an anecdote that's unfortunately all too familiar to most of us - when choosing between recruiting internally vs externally we prefer externally because there is more data available.

So what data sources can we access to map employee skills?

Recruitment data: Resumes, cover letters, assessments, etc.
Career history data: Roles previously held by individuals within an organisation, role titles, job descriptions, project descriptions, leadership roles, awards won, etc.
Learning & Development data: Courses undertaken and completed, development objectives, mentoring, certifications, 360-degree feedback, psychometric assessments, etc.
Performance data: Performance objectives, performance appraisals, written feedback by peers and stakeholders, etc.
External data: Professional networking sites, professional publications, patents, blogs, etc.

Although probably one of the hardest tasks for learning professionals, having this data at hand shows strong benefits for both individuals and our organization:

Source: myhrfuture.com

10. BEST PRACTICES FOR REMOTE ONBOARDING

Increment was the inspiration behind Offbeat, the digital publication. So I couldn't be happier to have the chance of talking about them. Their November issue is covering all kinds of remote topics, one of them being onboarding best practices from the basics to establishing trust from afar, and creating buddy systems.

As you build purposeful solutions to tackle the challenges of remote onboarding, remember that the core of high-performing teams is trust, psychological safety, and collaboration. Wherever your team is working from, you can make these principles part of your team’s experience from day one.

11. DRIVING ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE THROUGH TALENT DEVELOPMENT

This Deloitte article talks about an interesting concept that replaces soft skills - enduring human capabilities. No matter the context this set of capabilities helps you stay relevant. Something we all need these days. Apart from a framework of EHCs, the article also showcases a case study of developing them in an organization.

Source: Deloitte

12. HOW DO YOU BUILD A SUCCESSFUL MENTOR-MENTEE RELATIONSHIPS?

This article actually inspired me to think about how to better prepare both mentees and mentors in our organization for their relationships. Some new tips I got out of it: (1) helping mentees in doing their research on what they want and need from a mentor and (2) creating commitment loops to help the mentee achieve relevant goals.

You need to make sure that the mentor understands the key contexts of your professional situation and where you want to be. If not, you might end up having to constantly explain yourself and not have a satisfying experience in the end.

13. THE MANY FACES OF A MANAGER

An interesting article about the many attributes of a manager, when each of them is used, how to assess each of them, and improve the ones you (or managers in your organization) need to improve: (1) The Empath, (2) The Fire Extinguisher, (3) The Hyperperson, (4) The Wise One, (5) The Safety Net. Nice inspiration for a leadership program.

Source: LifeLabs Learning & CultureAmp

REPORTS

TRENDS 2021: PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE OF LEARNING

A Training Industry report on what's next for the learning function in 2021. Some areas presented? (1) Training’s Role in Change Management, (2) The Evolution of Customer Education, (3) Soft Skills Become Core to Business Success, and (4) Evaluating Employee Performance in Remote Work.

THE STATE OF LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT IN 2021

This new Udemy report digs deeper into 6 very interesting trends: (1) Pursuit of self-mastery, (2) Remote collaboration, (3) Data literacy imperative, (4) Data science automation, (5) Hybrid tech-roles, (6) Cybersecurity urgency. The cool part of the report I definitely recommend you to read is the Take action section. Through this section, they give actionable advice on capitalizing on each of the trends they present.

CLOSING THE SKILLS GAP WHITEPAPER

The latest World Economic Forum Whitepaper is talking a lot about skills training approaches and success metrics and is deep-diving into the Kirkpatrick evaluation model by giving examples or KPIs for each stage: (1) Reaction, (2) Learning, (3) Behaviour, (4) Results.

EVENTS

HOW TO DESIGN AND IMPLEMENT AN ONBOARDING CAMPAIGN

How do you go from a one-size-fits-all approach to the onboarding experience to a personalized one, where new employees get exactly the information they need. Simon Bertoli lays down how they used a combination of automatic email campaigns, online learning, and welcome breakfasts to get employees on board.

END TO END TALENT DEVELOPMENT

Christopher Lind talked this Friday to Matthew Brown from Schoox about (1) the challenge of mapping skills, measuring them, identifying the interaction between employees, and how connecting all those dots in order to develop your talent and create a pipeline for the future can feel like a complex mess, (2) what if it didn't have to be this way, and (3) how technology can help.

DEVLEARN CONFERENCE HANDOUTS & RESOURCES

Now that DevLearn came to an end, you can find all the handouts and resources here. Some you might find interesting: L&D Lessons from Behavioral Economics: The Art of Nudging, Planning Your Learning Data Strategy, or Onboarding: Not Just an Information Dump but a Learning Experience.

PODCAST EPISODES

THE L&D DETECTIVE KIT FOR SOLVING IMPACT MYSTERIES

David James recently talked to Kevin Yates about his latest ebook, knowing what to measure, the importance of asking "What is the business goal?" in challenging other's assumptions about L&D, and building intentional, purposeful programs.

HOW BAYER IS REDEFINING THE WORKPLACE AROUND PURPOSE, INNOVATION AND CULTURE

Although not particularly focused on L&D, this episode is a must-listen for anyone interested or involved in Inclusion and Diversity, Culture, Employee Experience, and Innovation. With more than 30 years of HR experience, Melissa has been at the forefront of Bayer's response to the crises of 2020 and efforts to redefine the workplace around purpose, innovation, and culture. So it's definitely someone we can all learn from.

GETTING STARTED WITH AGILE L&D

A conversation between David James and Natal Dank, Co-Founder at PXO Culture about how we can further build agility in L&D by responding quickly to emerging needs, working closely with those expected to perform differently, and being accountable for enabling performance and results.

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ABOUT OFFBEAT

In the past couple of years, the learning industry started transforming. We are now in the middle of acquiring new technology, working agile, looking closely at measuring the L&D impact and so much more. Offbeat takes all these conversations and gives them a fresh, actionable twist so that learning professionals can learn more from what they read.

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