September / October 2013

Training magazine taps 2013 Training Top 125 winners and Top 10 Hall of Famers to provide their learning and development best practices in each issue. Here, we look at onboarding games and simulations and social learning strategies.

In this fourth installment of the Skills Gap series, we look at how technology can help bridge skill gaps, available technologies and how to choose the right ones for your organization, and how to determine the training budget for these technologies.

By Stephen Evans, Director, Training, Cardon Outreach, LLC From 1996 to 2012, employees at the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (TOCDF) in Stockton, UT, worked to destroy the nation’s largest stockpile of chemical weapons. Due to the nature of our work, we had a significant training footprint, which included a series of technical operator training; compliance or regulatory training; and dozens of courses on safety, health, environmental, and security-related topics.

By Whitney Cook, Account Manager, Inward Strategic Consulting (http://www.inwardconsulting.com) Top companies all over the worldare adopting gamification into their core business strategies in order to drive engagement for employees, customers, and partners. But there are some unexpected pitfalls. Here are the Top 5 to watch out for

By Jean Abinader, Senior Associate, Global Dynamics Inc. Egypt’s future at the center of regional Arab and European business activity based on its large domestic market and critical geographic position is in transition. Although the Muslim Brotherhood-led government is bullish on business, there is a vocal minority distrustful of Western companies with previous regime connections.

By Jason W. Womack, MEd, MA We’re about to start the fourth quarter of 2013, and I need to ask: Are the goals you set at the beginning of the year on track for success?  The other day I was on the phone with one of my mentors and he told me, "You need to build more pauses in your life."

By Neal Goodman, Ph.D., President, Global Dynamics, Inc. Is it possible to provide the learning and development that usually would take place in a classroom environment and flip it so the content is provided before the class ever meets? The value of classroom instruction is the spontaneity and serendipitous learning that cannot be replicated in an online e-learning classroom. But it is possible to use online tools for their maximum benefit and still retain the value of interpersonal interaction.

Development DimensionsInternational, Inc. (DDI) recently surveyed 181 HR executives to learn more about how they were using social media for leadership development. The survey revealed that about one-half of responding organizations are not yet using social media as part of their leadership development initiatives. And those who are utilizing tools aren’t using them in a blended manner.

By Tony O’Driscoll, Executive Director, Duke Corporate Education

By Bruce Tulgan How does anyone learn faster than the accelerating obsolescence curve nowadays? “Just in time,” of course, fueled by the latest and greatest technology: