Online Articles

By Laura Stack, MBA, CSP

Edited by Margery Weinstein Discover Financial Services describes its strategy for development as “comprehensive and across all levels of the organization.” It is driven directly from Discover’s company-wide People Goal: Increase employee development and engagement while retaining top performers.

Imagine navigating a tiny boat through a sudden, violent storm at sea—with winds roaring at nearly 100 mph and waves soaring to 80 feet—to not only survive, but triumph over formidable competitors in one of the world’s toughest ocean races. It’s a feat claimed by the crew of the AFR Midnight Rambler, overall winner of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart—the most treacherous and tragic race to date in the six-decade history of Australia’s iconic competition.

By Kristy Westfall Moyer, Training Account Manager, Signature Worldwide I recently started the process of buying a new car. I can hear all the moans out there already! No one likes this process. As a sales and service trainer, my job is to inspire and train people on how to create legendary experiences for their customers to increase loyalty and close sales. I have been teaching these concepts for so long that they now are part of my DNA.

By Bryan L. Austin, Chief Game Changer, Game On! Learning I’ve had the good fortune to spend most of my career in the corporate training space, primarily working for e-learning solution providers to corporations and government organizations around the world. One of the biggest challenges of e-learning has been that employees often don’t complete the training because they don’t find it engaging, relevant, or worth their time. Three of the most vexing questions for talent development professionals when launching training initiatives online are:

By Neil Shorney, Director, Naturally Sales Ltd. Congratulations! You’ve just found the perfect training program for your employees! It covers everything they need to know, and just the right level of detail, and the trainer is great. Sure, it was expensive, but you get what you pay for. Well, sort of... What you’re paying for is most likely three days of a trainer’s time in a classroom, a nice lunch for your team, and some course materials to take away afterward and put on the bookshelf in case they’re ever needed.

By Christopher Rice, Fraser Marlow, and Mary Ann Masarech Don’t expect an initiative to do a human’s job. Engagement is a personal equation, and managers must play a role in helping each employee solve it. Your best managers already understand this, as do many of the leaders we’ve interviewed. They’re not waiting for survey data to shape what they do. They don’t make engagement a once-a-year priority, distinct from what they do the rest of the time. They always manage their teams with an eye toward results and engagement.

By Kate Donovan, Global RPO President, ManpowerGroup

By Ora Solomon, Vice President of Sales and Operations Imagine you just had a meeting with your company’s chief learning officer. Your mission for 2013: Expand your corporate e-learning and training programs to include employees in Mexico and French-speaking Canada. And to really keep you on your toes, your CLO has given you only one month to develop and initiate your localization strategy.

By Scott MacFarlane, MSM