There are a lot of reasons not to invest in training for gig workers. For one thing, mandatory training for contract workers is illegal in the U.S., but there's a lot more to this story, so let's dig into it. Most companies in the sharing economy rely on independent contractors to provide their services — […]

Imagine you’re a major company in the B2B space. Your sales are mostly handled by your channel partners, and to support them, you maintain a robust partner program. You offer a partner portal with comprehensive documentation, an incentive program to motivate them, and marketing materials they can use in their own efforts. But are you […]

The aviation industry is facing a major personnel shortage. According to Boeing’s 2018 Pilot and Technician report, airlines will need 790,000 commercial pilots and 890,000 new cabin crew members in the next 20 years. This is a concern for several reasons, including the fact that airline positions require a lot of training. Commercial pilots, for […]

You’ve got a great idea for a gig economy business and you’re anxious to join Amazon, Uber, Lyft and a host of other companies in the sharing economy, employing independent contractors as your workforce. But wait — you also want to make sure those contractors know how to do their jobs, and represent your company well. […]

You’re a sales manager, and your sales team needs training on a specific aspect of their jobs. Your organization intends for this training to be just-in-time learning — if they need a little help, they take a learning module in your LMS, and then they return to what they were doing in the CRM, and perform […]

Customer churn. If you haven’t heard the term before, it refers to the upheaval that happens when existing customers end their relationship with your business. In other words, it’s the opposite of customer retention. No company wants a high rate of churn — it means their sales department is working hard to acquire new customers while […]

Once again, it's time to start worrying about a new generation coming into the workforce.  In fact, the worrying has already begun. A recent study showed that managers are not excited to welcome Generation Z, which has already begun to enter the workforce. They're voicing concerns familiar to anyone who has ever read a think […]

If you've ever been to the Apple store, you know that it's kind of an experience: you can buy products there; you can get your devices fixed there; and there are scheduled Today at Apple programs —  like a music lab, a photo walk, or kids' programs.  Today at Apple may seem, at first glance, […]

It's an oft-quoted saying in IT: 80 percent of customers only use 20 percent of the features in the software they've bought. This may sound like an exaggeration, but let's do an experiment: how many of your phone's features and pre-installed apps do you actually use? How many more would you be using if the […]

You train your employees and sell to your customers, right?  Well, yes, but you should be training your customers, too.  Why? We’ve written before about the benefits of continuous learning in the workplace. Like your employees, your clients crave knowledge, but unlike your employees who often have access to a learning platform, clients don’t always […]

The remote workforce is growing.  Numbers from Gallup show that 43 percent of employees work remotely at least some of the time, and according to Globalworkplaceanalytics.com, the number of employees who work remotely has grown by 140 percent since 2005, nearly 10 times the rate of the rest of the workforce. That number does not […]

Gamification in training has aged well. In the few years gamified e-learning has been around, it has grown from a buzzword into a mainstay of online training. The fact that it’s been around for a few years hasn’t dampened the corporate training market’s enthusiasm for adding points, badges, and leaderboards to learning. If anything, L&D […]

You’re right in the middle of a big project at work, something you need to get done today, but — oh no — you can feel yourself getting hungry. You can’t work like this. You need to eat. So what do you do: get a snack, or go out for a long lunch with co-workers? […]

Recently, workplace learning expert Donald Taylor released the results of his annual L&D Global Sentiment Survey. In that survey, Taylor asked 885 people from 60 countries one single question: “What will be hot in workplace L&D in 2017?” The top answer, beating out social learning, micro-learning, and augmented reality, was personalized and adaptive delivery of learning. […]

Gamified learning has been in the public eye for a while now. The term was coined in 2002 by Nick Pelling, a programmer, but most most people probably became aware of gamification around 2010, when businesses started adding gamification to things like reward systems. It quickly became a buzzword when companies began adding game elements […]

What makes a great leader? While there is no one single answer to that question, there are some things successful leaders have in common. Great leaders are secure in their role and in their ability to do their jobs. They communicate well with their teams and mentor their employees. They make sure they know what […]

In an economy filled with rapidly changing technology, continuous learning is vital for both organizations and their employees. It has to be — according to Deloitte’s 2017 Global Human Capital Trends report, the half life of a skill is five years. Employees have to keep on top of their learning to stay relevant, and employers’ traditional […]

Learning and development is in the middle of an exciting transformation. New technology, the changing nature of work, and an influx of millennials into the workplace mean companies have to move away from a training culture — in which companies serve specific training to employees — to a culture of continuous learning. The need to do […]

Artificial intelligence is a term that comes with a lot of baggage, thanks to popular culture. From Asimov to Westworld, machines that act and think like humans are a mainstay in science fiction. In reality, however, there are limits to what artificial intelligence can do: machines don’t make good decisions on their own, and they’re […]

Remember, back in school, when your teacher came up with all your classes’ class material herself? Me neither. Most of us don’t; textbook companies have been developing curricula for decades, rounding up subject matter experts to write textbooks, creating engaging lessons, and putting together graphics that your classroom teacher — or even your school district […]