In this month’s episode of The BizLibrary Podcast, we sat down with Matthew Burr, an HR consultant with over 13 years of experience working in HR. Matthew shared some of his insights around interviewing, a topic that many organizations find themselves surrounded by in the midst of the current job market.

Matthew gave a few of his key insights – first, he discussed the importance of honesty in the interview process.

Using K-mart as an example, Matthew talked about the absolute need for interviewers to paint an accurate picture of the challenges and obstacles in a job, and discover first if a given candidate is up to the task of working through those challenges. 

This may turn away some candidates, but Matthew demonstrates how many of those candidates aren’t great fits, if the challenges they’re presented seem insurmountable or unappealing.

Matthew tells us “I’ve taken jobs with companies where they tell me it’s 25% travel – I was in a position where I was on the road 95% of the time.. You’re not going to retain anyone. The more open, the more transparent you are, the better you are in recruiting and retaining people – you’re also building that trust up front.” The honesty and transparency doesn’t just help you find the right candidate, it also helps you 

Next, Matthew discusses the importance of a great process – fair, warm, welcome, and efficient. Hiring processes that take too long will result in candidates finding other positions, potentially with competitors! When in doubt, get a second opinion. Matthew tells us “It’s never a bad thing to bring them back in and have another sit down and have another decision.”

Moreso, when faced with two great candidates, never burn bridges! Matthew points to a common issue employers run into: Candidate A and B are both great candidates, but you choose candidate A. Candidate A rejects your offer, and unless you’ve maintained your relationship with candidate B, you may be back to square one in your recruiting efforts!

Matthew tells us “Even a generic thanks, but no thanks, but your resume was reviewed. Those are things that any company can do very quickly, and there’s no real reason not to do those things.”

Finally, Matthew expresses the importance of asking difficult questions. His favorite tough question – “tell me about a time you failed.”
 
 He asks this to discover how employees come back from failure by learning and improving. He tells us “Everyone has made mistakes – it’s a self-reflection question, but also an emotional intelligence question.”

Hiring the right candidate is a fundamental cornerstone of a successful business. Refining your process, being open, honest and transparent, and asking the right questions will go a long way in helping you find the right talent for your organization.

Thanks for listening to this month’s episode of The BizLibrary Podcast! Want to learn more about creating a great interview process? Check out our free resource, 

Welcome back to another episode of The BizLibrary Podcast! We know it has been a while since our last episode, but that's because we have some exciting changes to come! This week, we are so excited to welcome back Thomas Shayon Harrell, a successful L&D professional, whose thought leadership has helped further the knowledge of not only his own workplace but of several other L&D professionals.

Thomas is here this week to discuss personal branding, and if you're like us, you may be wondering why L&D professionals should care about personal branding - Thomas quickly answers that with a compelling argument - he tells us that his company's initiative to produce and create social content through LinkedIn has helped them secure new partnerships with potential clients, and has attracted new employees who are excited by what they see on LinkedIn.

Naturally, we were hoping to understand Thomas' secrets - as we noted in this week's episodes, Thomas is often able to create trending posts, and so we wanted to learn his methods.

Thomas outlined six strategies, among them relevancy, and working with the algorithms. To hear more about Thomas' strategies, you'll have to listen to the whole episode!

Moving forward, we have some exciting things planned for The BizLibrary Podcast, and among them is a reworking of our release schedule. For now, we'll be releasing episodes on a monthly basis. 

Don't worry, because with 67 episodes, there's plenty of relevant and important L&D content for you to catch up on!

Thanks to all of our listeners who tune in each week. We appreciate you, and we're glad we're making something you find useful and valuable. 

Stay posted for more updates, and we'll see you in March!

The BizLibrary Podcast is back with another episode. This time, we’re discussing how L&D and HR departments can use training to make the merger and acquisition process proceed smoothly. Brand consolidation is a growing trend, and companies will continue to need to grow larger to stay relevant in a globalized marketplace.

That said, mergers and acquisitions can be a source of stress on organizations – there may be stress due to fear of layoffs, redundancies in departments, and clashing cultures. However, when managed well, a merger or acquisition can dramatically improve your market standing as companies consolidate clients, products, and markets.

It may be tempting for training programs to take a “wait and see” approach to mergers and acquisition, but this approach ignores the fact that leaders, managers, and individual contributors all need to learn specific skills to successfully navigate a merger or acquisition.

Managers need to know how to communicate information effectively, without leaking confidential information. Account managers must know how to anticipate and answer client questions, so that client retention remains high. 

All of these necessities all fall on the shoulders of L&D, and begs the question: if mergers aren’t the perfect time for learning and development programs to establish their value and be agents of change, when is?

Unfortunately, data suggests that many organizations fail to allow training programs to become true catalysts of change.

Research from the Project Management Institute shows that only 18% of organizations are effective change enablers. Using training to build a more agile company is one of the many roles that training program managers must take on to optimize the ROI of their programs.

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of The BizLibrary Podcast! When you’re done listening, be sure to download the Crisis Management ebook! It’s full of strategies and has a workbook section so you can better prepare your managers and leaders to navigate the seas of change! 

This week on The BizLibrary Podcast, Hannah and Derek discuss defining and developing job competencies.

Competency based training is an effective way to set L&D goals and define behaviors that you’d like to see changed through training. The first step of that, however, is to define these job competencies.

Hannah notes that most companies have already begun this process, by creating skill requirements on job postings. 

Analyzing these job postings and defining a ‘why’ behind each skill is vital: take a skill like communicating on the phone.

“Phone skills” is a generic term, and could mean several things. For example, an account manager who helps clients strategize how to market a new product needs distinct skills: they need to know how to anticipate and answer questions, how to apologize at times, and identify and solve the unique needs of their clients.

That’s a distinctly different set of skills than what’s required for a sales cold call, who needs to be able to communicate a value quickly, gain the trust and attention of a potential buyer, and gain a commitment to set up a later meeting.

Going beyond a generic term like “phone skills” requires you to get very specific in order to accurately define the skills that will make your employees successful.

Hannah also stresses that having something in place to measure the results of your training is key to successfully accomplishing strong competency based training. The Kirkpatrick model is a great way to measure the results of your training, but having metrics that are tied to success is important as well. 

For instance, for a sales rep who is in training to improve  measuring how many meetings booked will help you identify whether or not your training is effective.

Thanks for listening to The BizLibrary Podcast! When you’re finished listening to this week’s episode, be sure to download the free related resource!

This week on The BizLibrary Podcast, we talked to Susan Daniel about how her organization, Exeter Finance, was able to create an onboarding process that immersed new hires into Exeter’s intentional culture.

Company culture can be intentional or accidental. Every company has a culture, but companies with strong cultures intentionally build a culture by using vision, values, and missions to build processes and behaviors into the workplace.

Exeter Finance has a “culture of excellence.” To test the strength of this value, Susan conducted surveys and focus groups and identified that the main values at Exeter were people, performance, and service.

By working with people across the organization, Susan and the leadership team at Exeter were able to shape their workplace and introduce new skill and behaviors into their training.

Susan not only has values in place, but she also has ways she measures how well she trains these values. To measure how well new hires work with others, she can measure how well they manage projects, collaborate, and communicate.

With a blended approach, all new hires at Exeter are given strong people management training. This lasts for 90 days, which shifts the onboarding program to leadership excellence, where each employee discovers their leadership strengths, and how they can use those skills to create excellence.

Finally, employees learn about service excellence, where they learn how to better serve clients and the community at large.

By framing onboarding around the values of a company, Exeter’s culture has become a baseline for how things get accomplished. 

Susan tells us that she recently had a conversation with the CEO, who has mentioned that this effort has helped him buy-in to the importance and value of developing employees.

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of The BizLibrary Podcast! Be sure to download our free resources, and we’ll see you next week!

This week on The BizLibrary Podcast, we welcome Hallie Tucker. Hallie is a safety supervisor and program manager at Superior Energy Services, who has developed a great program using data-driven approaches.

We talked to Hallie about how she uses data to build a stronger training program. She starts with a framework that most learning and development specialists are familiar with: the Kirkpatrick model.

The Kirkpatrick model is a framework that can be used to measure learning - it starts with measuring satisfaction - a simple question can measure this: did the learner enjoy the training? 

Next, the Kirkpatrick asks us to understand whether or not the learner actually learned from the training - we can do this by measuring how learners performed on assessments. 

Next, we want to identify whether an employee actually changed their behavior - this is the goal of our training, so identifying whether this happened is important.

Finally, we need to look at the outcome - if our training is properly aligned to business goals, then we should know whether we achieved a goal.

For instance, if our goal is to increase phone calls made by a sales rep, we can measure it by comparing the number of calls made before and after training.

This framework is ideal for measuring training because we have a full picture of the learner's journey.

Hallie began with this framework as a way to bring statistics into her program. With leadership bought in, Hallie began looking for data to apply to her training.

One of the best, and easiest ways to collect data is to simply survey employees. Hallie reminds us to look for nonverbal cues when we collect data, but that simply having conversations with employees and managers about what skills are important for success is a great way to get started.

Thanks for listening to this week's episode of The BizLibrary Podcast! When you're finished listening, be sure to download the related resource!

This week, we are excited to bring leadership expert and author Kevin Eikenberry to The BizLibrary Podcast. Kevin brings two decades of experience to the forefront as we explore the differences between the theory and application of true leadership development.

Apart from remote leadership, which makes methods like "manage by walking around" obsolete, Kevin notes that not much has changed in leadership over his time as a consultant. At this point, Kevin says, the basics are well known.

What's missing from leadership training that makes it really work in the real world, is the buy-in. Leaders know the fundamentals of leadership, but don't apply them. Until they see in real terms why they need to apply those fundamentals, they may never adopt them.

Once we've created strategies to build buy-in from our leaders, there are further challenges to be solved. One of the biggest challenges facing today's leaders is the rise of dispersed and virtual workforces. In 2019, it's not uncommon for entire departments to have never met face to face. Uniting and leading these employees to success can't always be accomplished with traditional management strategies.

This presents quite a challenge to leaders because traditional leadership strategies don't always work. To overcome this challenge, Kevin recommends training employees to use communication technology to its full potential. Webcams, chat technologies, and even email can all be used to lead effectively, but face-to-face time in the form of webcam or skype meetings is crucial. 

You can listen to Kevin's podcast, "The Remarkable Leadership Podcast," where he goes in depth with other leadership experts. He also regularly presents free, HRCI and SHRM approved webinars for BizLibrary. 

Thanks for listening to this week's episode of The BizLibrary Podcast! When you're finished listening, be sure to download this week's related resource.

We'll see you next week!  

Welcome to another episode of The BizLibrary Podcast! Today, we welcome DeeAnna Deane, from Teel Plastics, to discuss how she’s managed to build high-functioning teams in her organization.

DeeAnna is very clear that relationships are a key part of building high functioning teams. She started her initiative with the goal of making each team member seem more human to each other.

To do this, she held a training session where she highlighted negative personal aspects, then asking employees to identify these traits in themselves. 

Each employee confessed that at times, they exhibited some of these negatives traits, be it gossip, or focusing on bad news. Next, DeeAnna highlighted important leadership qualities. Employees also quickly identified with these qualities.

The point that this training session drove home is that we all have the ability to impact our teams: negative emotions are contagious, but so are the positive ones, and because we all carry leadership qualities, we can use our positive traits to help one another out.

Management has an important role in this process: by facilitating team building exercises, managers can create a self-sustaining, high-functioning team ecosystem that is agile and can solve many problems without intervention.

This frees up valuable management time to focus on bigger problems, while individual contributors develop their leadership skills and overcome day-to-day challenges.

Finally, DeeAnna talks about positive psychology, and the scientific effects of positive thinking. She references a study that suggests that emotions are contagious, and they affect our work. More expressive people can transfer their mood, bringing energy and focus to a team.

The same is true for negative emotions, however, so a manager of a high-functioning team should be able to recognize and overcome negative energy.

When you’re done listening to this week’s episode, be sure to download our free related resource! 

And as always, thanks for listening to this week’s episode of The BizLibrary Podcast!

Succession planning can never be started too soon. When there is turnover in your leadership ranks, if you do not have someone prepared to take over important leadership duties, your organization could be headed for trouble.

Hiring from the outside is expensive. Hiring executive level leaders is expensive – a study by The Centre for American Progress demonstrates that replacing highly skills executive costs about 213% of their annual salary!

This week, we welcome back Daniel Binkholder to discuss the real strategies behind succession planning. Getting high potential employees ready for leadership roles is difficult, but one of the most important services your training program can provide.

Daniel first recommends identifying high potential employees: these are employees who not only exhibit great leadership qualities but who are willing and want to be in leadership positions.

The next step is to develop a leadership program for these individuals. One concern many training program managers share during this process is that high potential employees may decide to leave before they take on more responsibility reducing the ROI of your leadership development program.

This will happen, even in organizations with phenomenal turnover rates; if you don’t have enough high potential employees to keep a leadership development class stocked, read this free ebook!

Eventually, when the time comes, you will have employees who are prepared to take on leadership positions!

One important reason to start succession planning today is that you cannot control the future! In reality, executives may leave at any moment – for any reason. Succession planning can’t wait!

If you’d like to learn more about the importance of succession planning, be sure to download this week’s free related resource. It’s a great look into identifying core competencies and setting realistic goals.

Thanks for listening to The BizLibrary Podcast!

This week, we welcome another Havens brother - the legendary Matt Havens.

Matt's here to talk about customer service, and how customer service is a serious competitive advantage and a key to client and customer retention.

We live in a digital age, where exceptional customer service can go viral - and bad customer service can too!

To remain in favor with your customers, it's important to do a few things - be authentic, honest, and human. 

Being authentic in customer interactions is about acting with integrity. There will be times where your customer service misses the mark - perhaps a delivery will be late, or perhaps your software was down for an extended period of time.

When these moments occur, an authentic, honest conversation needs to occur. Most companies and people you do business with will be understanding. 

However, part of delivering exceptional customer service is doing everything you can to make sure that mistakes are avoided as much as possible.

By working to deliver on your promises, and hosting honest, authentic conversations when you cannot, you're doing a lot to deliver great customer service. 

We asked Matt about some of the challenges that B2B companies face when trying to win loyalty and brand love.

Matt admits that this is certainly more challenging, but business is about relationships - be personal, and understand that even when you speak to a representative of a company, they're still a person - so be human!

Customer service is crucial to your business success - if you nail customer service, you'll get repeat business, and we know that it's easier to sell to existing customers than it is to find new ones!

Customer service is about teaching respect and acting with integrity - with the right approach, and commitment, your organization can gain a serious competitive advantage!

Welcome back to another great episode of The BizLibrary Podcast! Today, we're talking about one of the most popular subjects in both HR and Learning and Development circles - employee engagement.

There's so much information out there about employee engagement, and many organizations struggle with disengaged employees.

If you're one of these organizations, fret not! Studies show that about 15% of the global workforce is disengaged, meaning that even a modest time investment into engaging employees will help pull you ahead of your competitors.

We've broken engagement down into a few models, with various levels of detail.

The first model breaks engagement up into three conditions: relationship conditions, output conditions, and organizational duties.

Studies show that employees who have strong relationships with their coworkers and their direct supervisors are more likely to be engaged.

This makes sense: an employee with no investment in the happiness of those around them will have less motivation to go above and beyond than employees who have strong relationships with the people who rely on their work.

Employees also spend most of their time at work. Giving employees meaningful work that matters is a great way to get employees engaged.

No one wants to spend their life doing work that they don't find meaningful, which is why we recommend that employers offer meaningful work, and explain the impact of each person's work.

A great way to accomplish this is to develop a 'why' statement: an emotionally compelling justification that explains quickly to everyone why your company exists.

BARK, creators of BarkBox, has a great example of this: "We exist to make dogs as happy as they make us."

A message like this, heard by the right person, can create buy-in and make an impact on their level of engagement.

We talk more in-depth about our models for employee engagement, which can help your organization diagnose the causes of your low employee engagement.

When you're finished listening to this week's episode, be sure to download our free ebook, "Real Strategies to Improve Your Employee Engagement!"

Thanks for listening to The BizLibrary Podcast!

This week, we're delighted to welcome Roberta Matuson from Matuson Consulting, an accomplished author and effective business consulting.

We had some questions for Roberta about employee retention; she gave us a formula that is simple but effective: employees want good leadership, purpose, and development.

Too often, employers rely on gimmicky benefits that are aimed to retain employees: they may offer air hockey tables or free food, but not focus on the important things that employees truly want to get out of a job.

Good leadership, Roberta explains, means that employees have space to be autonomous. We have too many micromanagers, Roberta says, and that means that talented employees become quickly frustrated by poor management.

Developing managers and ensuring that new managers are prepared for their roles is an important step that companies need to take if they want to improve their employee retention.

Employees also want a sense of purpose: no one wants to dedicate their career doing something they find meaningless. A sense of purpose that comes from a job is a powerful way to win loyalty and encourage higher employee retention.

While this might be easier said than done, an important first step is to define a mission that justifies why your company exists.

BARK, the company behind the popular BarkBoxes, says their mission is to “make dogs feel as happy as they make us.”

This type of emotionally-impacting mission statement delivers purpose to dog lovers,

Finally, the third ingredient in the retention mix is talent development. Roberta offers a few key strategies that employers can take to quickly show employees that you care about their development: one of these is to form a company book club, where employees can read and discuss relevant business books.

Of course, we’d never miss a chance to promote our award-winning content library that is available on any device and effectively teaches new, important skills to employees at all levels!
 
 Thanks for listening to this week’s episode! Click here if you’d like to hear more from The BizLibrary Podcast, and be sure to download this week’s related resource!

Learning retention can be a scary and nebulous concept, especially when studies show that we forget as much as 40% of what we learn within 48 hours!

When we look at training budgets, and how rapidly they're rising across the nation, it becomes even scarier that almost half our budget goes to waste just days after a training event takes place.

To placate that fear, we invited Mark Nilles, a versed learning science researcher and learning theory expert to discuss the importance of ensuring learning retention, tools we cna use to ensure that learning is retained, and finally, how we overcome the forgetting curve for good!

Mark talked to us about data that shows that re-engaging learners after a learning event through quizes, open-ended questions, and other strategies that push knowledge back into a learner's brain is a great way to increase learning retention.

While the forgetting curve is scary, overcoming it is relatively simple, when we change the way we think about training - it's a process, not an event!

When you're done listening, be sure to download this week's related resource! Thanks for listening to The BizLibrary Podcast! We'll see you next time!

The number one predictor of our happiness is the quality of our relationships. Because most people spend most of their waking time at work, it would follow that our relationships with coworkers are key to human happiness.

Often, at work, friction occurs: perhaps an employee wants to ask for a raise, or perhaps criticism intended to be constructive comes across as malicious. There is no shortage of situations in the workplace where difficult conversations must occur.

Stella joins us this week to discuss mastering these difficult conversations to achieve positive results.

First, we ask Stella about non-confrontational approaches from individuals who lack the confidence to master difficult conversations. 

Stella has a few words of advice: a difficult conversation is not a confrontation¸ it’s simply a conversation. Speaking your truth is not inherently a confrontation.

Thus, it’s not what we say, but how we say it. Because our emotions are contagious, on an unconscious level, people you interact with respond less with the words you say, but rather the energy with which you say them.

Another key for mastering difficult conversations is to show up as the person you want to be: often, we focus on what we need to say, and how to frame our feedback or questions. To achieve this, envision what you are like when you are at your most active and engaged.

We then ask Stella how leaders can apply this knowledge into their responsibilities.

Stella references studies that show that emotional contagions are more powerful for leaders. It’s a leaders job to show up each day with positive emotions conducive to work and communication.

Once the priming work has been done, Stella advises employees to take a “non-violent” approach, meaning start with the facts – an observation without interpretation.

That means that a statement like “Sam is always showing up late,” should become “Sam showed up 20 minutes late on Tuesday and Thursday.”

Instead of saying to Sam “What’s going on, you’re late all the time?” starting with the facts means saying to Sam, “Hey, I noticed that you were late on Tuesday and Thursday.”

Next, Stella says to express your feelings about an event, and a specific request. 

This changes a conversation from “Sam, you’re always showing up late, can you be on time?” to “Hey Sam, I noticed you showed up 20 minutes late on Tuesday and Thursday. I’m a bit of a control freaks, so it freaks me out when you’re not here! If you’re going to be more than 5 minutes late, could you just send me a text so that I know what’s going on?”

Stella’s final advice is to use a “pass the butter tone.” 

This week, we're joined by Tom Braning, BizLibrary's Channel Sales Manager, to discuss the process of choosing the right LMS.

With over 14 years in the learning technology business, Tom has gained a strong insight into the industry, and how learning technology can help companies overcome genuine business challenges.

Tom identifies a few challenges that an LMS could be used to solve - for instance, a geographically dispersed workforce, or a need for advanced analytics.

Tom also points out that an LMS is not always the best way to deliver training. For smaller organizations, where employees are often in the same room, a powerful online tool might not necessarily be the best way to deliver training.

For organizations that have identified an LMS as a solution to some of their challenges, Tom has a few words of advice.

First, make sure that your requests for proposals are comprehensive and make sense for your organization. Too often, RFPs are overly complicated and don't focus on the features that companies actually need to overcome their challenges.

Focused, solution-oriented RFPs will yield better results for most organizations.

Tom also mentions a few tips for companies searching for a new LMS. First, he advises shoppers to be sure to ask important questions that matter to their training programs. 

Make sure to experience everything a platform has to offer. If there is a specific feature that you believe you need, ask if it is offered, and see how it works.

Second, Tom advises folks in the market for new learning technology to take their time and consider the pros and cons of each solution that they are considering. Purchasing an LMS should be a multi-week process.

When you're finished listening to this week's episode, be sure to check out our related resource, The Focused HR Tech Buyer's Guide. 

Thanks for listening to The BizLibrary Podcast!

Welcome back to The BizLibrary Podcast! This week, we are joined by Dr. Amy DuVernet to discuss a massive study she conducted with Training Industry.

Dr. DuVernet's researcher examined learning preferences, and the role that learning preference plays in the effectiveness of our training efforts. You can find her full report here.

We first ask Dr. DuVernet about her finds, and what she found most surprising.
She reports that about 50% of the workforce prefer classroom and instructor-led training over other learning modalities. 

That surprised us, and so we asked whether there is a relationship between generations and learning preferences.

Next, we asked Dr. DuVernet about how whether learning preferences change between topics. Her studies revealed that there is a difference when it comes to learning things like compliance vs. leadership development.

Much like last week's episode, Dr. DuVernet's research suggests that executive leaders prefer to receive training and development via one-on-one coaching.

According to Dr. DuVernet's research, there is no such relationship! That means that the stereotype that millennials prefer video learning while Gex-X and Baby Boomers prefer ILT isn't always accurate!

That said, elearning and video instructor-led training are one of the "Big 4."
Dr. DuVernet discovered that learning effectiveness was much higher when a learner was taught via their prefered learning style;

Unsurprisingly, then, Dr. DuVernet recommends using multiple modalities to deliver learning. That way, you are more likely to offer learners one of their prefered modalities, increasing the overall effectiveness of your efforts.

BizLibrary has long advocated for a blended approach when it comes to training, and Amy's research seems to validate this stance.

When you're done listening to this week's episode of The BizLibrary Podcast, be sure to check out our free related resource, "The Complete Guide to Microlearning." 

Thanks for listening to this week's episode of The BizLibrary Podcast!

This week, we welcome Erin Correa from Correa & Associates, a Talent and Development partnership group that helps companies through consulting, coaching, and instructional design.

This week, we talked about executive development. This can be a tricky situation for many in L&D; Erin noted that often times, in the c-suite, the word 'development' has a negative connotation, used as a euphemism for poor performance.

That doesn't have to be the case, and with a proper strategy, executive development can be a catalyst for change within an organization. Afterall, leadership is often charged with setting the mission and giving a business direction. Unless that direction and the strategy behind it is well thought out, rock solid and unilateral, there will be struggles and failures. Giving leadership meaningful opportunity to develop will benefit the entire organization.

For an organization trying to start supporting an executive team, sometimes the best place to start is with an external consultant. This gives HR and L&D be the strategy behind development, while allowing a consultant to be a 'face' behind development, creating credibility and ultimately buy-in.

Senior leadership also has constricted time, which means that training professionals must be cognizant of their time. Coaching is a good way to start development, but solving a major problem through training and development. This will achieve a certain level of buy in.

Finally, we discuss 'coaching up.' Often, middle management is best equipped to provide meaningful feedback. It's up to senior leadership to find ways to give permission to give feedback. On the reverse, management should realize that when it comes to a business's goals and directives, everyone should be on the same page. Being transparent with intention lends credibility to feedback.

Thanks for listening! We hope you enjoyed this week's episode of The BizLibrary Podcast! When you're done listening, be sure to take a look at our free ebook, "Developing Your Leaders' Emotinoal Intelligence to Improve Organizational Performance"

See you next week!

Talent acquisition is a serious challenge facing most companies today. Traditional recruiting outlets like LinkedIn and Google Jobs are overfished, crowded, and historic unemployment rates only make it more difficult to find your next generation of workplace talent.

This week, we are joined by an accomplished recruiter named Adam Hilliard, who talks to us about how talent acquisition can be improved in the modern age.

Adam mentions first that industry and job role conferences are completely under utilized in today’s talent marketplace. By approaching talent at these conferences, recruiters gain a chance to access face to face interactions with potential employees, talk about the benefits of their workplace, and build relationships.

Benefits are an important part of modern recruiting, but it’s not all about pay, Adam tells us. While pay is important, there are other benefits modern companies should consider, especially catered lunch. This benefit allows work to continue on sight, shortens lunch breaks, and increases productivity while attracting and retaining talent.

Adam also talks about some of the pitfalls companies make that work against them in their recruiting efforts. The first is seeking excessive qualifications. Adam uses software development as an example. 

The traditional benchmark for what ‘expertise’ a developer has with a given language is how many years they’ve spent using it. Thus, our the qualifications we list often look something like this:

8 years of Experience in C++

This isn’t a great benchmark, Adam tells us, because we shouldn’t care about how long someone has used a skill, but how well they can use a skill. Thus aptitude tests, which are widely available, become a much better way to open up your candidate pool while making sure you’re not eliminating potential talent due to poor communication.

Finally, Adam warns us about hiring for ‘culture fit.’ Often this is used as a proxy by hiring managers to say “I didn’t like the person.” Instead, define what a good culture fit looks like, and measure it in an interview. If you want a competitive person in a given role, ask questions that measure how competitive they are. This will provide a much better idea of how someone will interact with a culture, it lowers the chances of discrimination, and it increases the odds that you find the right fit.

When you’re done listening, be sure to download this week’s related resource, “HR for Small Business: What You Need to Know.”

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of The BizLibrary Podcast!

Happy Valentine's Day to all the great listeners of The BizLibrary Podcast! This week, we welcomed back Libby Mullen, the talented L&D manager here at BizLibrary.

Things got emotional as we discussed Emotional Intelligence. You may be surprised to learn that emotional intelligence is one of the top predictors of success.

That's because the strength of our relationships has a lot to do with how we perform. When we are able to leverage relationships to extend and improve results, some portion of our successes are owed to emotional intelligence.

At the core of emotional intelligence, Libby explains, is self-awareness. Most people have some idea of who they are, but rarely do our ideas of ourselves match up with others perceptions of us.

Self-awareness, then, helps us understand how we are perceived by others. By understanding this, we are able to better understand how and when to communicate with others.

A great way to fill the gaps in your self-awareness is to take a few self-assessments. The BizLibrary Collection has a few assessments, and our Emotional Intelligence Workbook is a great place to start. 

Libby isn't the only person who understands the value of emotional intelligence, and soft skills in general. 

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner revealed to CNBC a study that concluded that communication and interpersonal skills are the number one skill gap that US employees face. 

That means that no matter what industry you work in, or what level of employee you are responsible for training, developing emotional intelligence is a powerful way to improve the performance of your organization, increase employee retention and build a more agile workplace.

When you're finished listening to this week's interview, be sure to download our related resource. It's a great look at how soft skills training can impact sales growth in an organization.

Thanks for listening to The BizLibrary Podcast! 

This week, we welcome Jim Gilkey, the Director of Membership Development at trueU, to discuss changing a company culture.

Jim started by defining a company culture: "the shared beliefs or attitudes that drive the behaviors within an organization."

The caveat to this concept is that culture can very easily become accidental, meaning a culture that arises without the input or influence from your company's leadership.
 
To create or change a culture, Jim recommends by starting with conversation: what are people talking about? What's on the minds of your employees? What challenges are they facing, and how do they overcome them?

The answer to these questions can tell you a lot about your current company culture. The processes and concerns are the pulse of your organization, and are at the center of your culture.

Once you've established what your culture is, it's worthwhile to understand how you can better influence it.

Jim mentions a client of trueU called Morales Group, a company that values service to others. To demonstrate this value, Morales Group offered lego bricks to employees who demonstrated and embodied their core values.

When enough bricks were collected, they were built into a model of a house, and a full-scale version of the house was then built in poverty-stricken areas of Mexico. 

Jim tells us that having leadership emphasize your core values is absolutely crucial. For instance, if your company values learning, it's important for leaders to show this: for instance, offer a company-wide initiative that tells employees that it's important that they read a particular book.

This kind of emphasis on company culture can yield great results, and that's a great way to get leadership on board.


When you're finished listening to this week's episode about company culture, be sure to listen to our free, on-demand webinar called "Change Your Culture, Change Your Results."

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When Thomas Harrell appeared on The BizLibrary Podcast, to discuss the future of L&D, he mentioned that using technology, and technical literacy is the most important skill that program managers should learn to prepare themselves for the future.

This week, we welcome Lloyd Brown to talk about great technology program managers can leverage to increase the effectiveness of their training programs.

Unsurprisingly, to keep a pulse on technology trends, Lloyd recommends actively seeking new learning about technology. Truly a learning and development advocate!

Lloyd then recommends identifying problems that impede employee development – for instance, Lloyd recognized that many employees at Monarch Beverage weren’t at desks, but rather “in the field.” To overcome this, Lloyd combined mobile functionality social media as a medium to deliver learning.

A great way to start using more technology, Lloyd says, is to master existing technology. Lloyd set a goal of learning all of the capabilities of a program he used frequently – powerpoint. He quickly realized that powerpoint had functionality that he wasn’t using. 

Taking this approach to all of your technology – even everyday programs like Outlook – could yield great results for your learning program. 

This approach works well for several functions in your business – remote leadership becomes increasingly easier when your leaders understand how to maximize the capabilities of various communication technologies.

To keep a pulse on upcoming trends in training, Lloyd recommends attending tradeshows, conferences, and networking with other training professionals to understand what works for them.

Finally, make sure that you understand the capabilities of your learning management system. Most modern systems are packed with great features that are designed to increase learner utilization, retention, and engagement.

Make sure you have a comprehensive understanding of those features. Often, a strong LMS on its own can overcome a variety of obstacles to training success.

When you’re finished listening, be sure to check out our related resources, The Focused HR Tech Buyer’s Guide! 

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In this week's episode of The BizLibrary Podcast, we sit down with Victoria Cason to discuss goal setting in L&D.

Setting good goals almost always preceeds success. Victoria made a goal in the fall of 2017 to win an ALIGN award, and through actionable steps, Victoria's program won an award for Program of the Year.

To bolster her case for this award, Victoria was able to prove serious ROI on her training efforts, saving on travel costs, turnover costs, and increasing productivity.

Here are a few of Victoria's takeaways.

First, find something that motivates your, whether it's competition, intrinsic, or something else.

Second, create benchmarks and timelines within your goals that help you know if you're on track to achieve goals, and finally, collaborate! It's almost impossible to make a seriously meaningful change without help, and asking for help could be essential in making your goals a reality.

We found the second takeaway to be especially true. As self-help author Napoleon Hill once wrote, "a goal is a dream with a deadline."

Adding deadlines to goals gives you a timeframe and something to seriously work toward.

Additionally, adding other benchmarks gives you time to adjust your plan if you find yourself seriously behind.

A final note -- write goals down. A study of Harvard business school graduates separated graduates into three groups - those with no stated goals, those with written goals but no concrete plans, but not written goals, and those with written goals and concrete plans.

• 84% of the entire class had set no goals at all
• 13% of the class had set written goals but had no concrete plans
• 3% of the class had both written goals and concrete plans

Ten years later, the class was revisited, and it  was discovered that the 13% that wrote their goals down were making twice as much as the 84% of their classmates with no concrete plans, and now written goals.

More importantly, though, the 3% of the class that had a plan and written goals were making ten times more than the other 97%!

While money is not the end-all benchmark of success, it's clear that writing goals, and developing a concrete plan are fundamental to the success of a goal.

When you're finished listening, be sure to check out this week's related resource! It's a great, free ebook on developing relevant goals for L&D.

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On this week’s episode of The BizLibrary Podcast, we welcome Cara Austin to discuss launching a new program. Cara Austin an L&D professional working for ClubFit in New York City, New York.

Cara tells us immediately that her program was planned and phased out in advance. Her first phase was heavy on communication.

First, she met with managers, asked questions about desired outcomes, and then presented a realistic preview of what the program would look like.

Cara emphasized that part of the planning process was considering how training would impact the learners. For instance, in October, when intense budgeting was happening, Cara planned more light-hearted content, like short, microlearning email etiquette content.

For her launch, Cara focused on her organization’s values. Leadership indicated that superior customer service was a priority for the team, so Cara’s first priority was customer service training.

To measure the success of the customer service training, Cara used an already existing customer satisfaction survey, with the goal of never falling below 8/10 on customer-reported customer service. To date, the program has been successful on that metric.

In phase 2, Cara created effective marketing tools to increase engagement in ClubFit’s new training program. In addition to email marketing and signage, Cara created additional marketing tools like lanyards and t-shirts, which she says helped create additional interest in the nascent program.

Finally, Cara looked to increase completion rates and elective training. In this, she aimed to show executives how management uses her training program to the benefit of the company.

As a parting thought, Cara says that program managers should understand that things will go wrong, and despite great planning, trying to achieve everything at once can be too much. Instead, temper your expectations and plan your successes in phases.

When you’re finished listening to this week’s episode, be sure to download the related resource below! Thanks for listening to The BizLibrary Podcast!

This week, we welcome back Katie Miller, who appeared in early episodes to discuss the job search process from a candidate's perspective. Katie presented at ALIGN, our client conference, where she discussed overcoming skill gaps.

Skill gaps are the difference between the skills you need your employees to master, and their actual level of mastery. If the discrepancy becomes too large, employees may become unable to achieve their job functions.

There are two ways to overcome the skill gaps that exist in any given organization - hire employees from outside who possess the skills you need, or train skills in your existing workforce to a level that fits your organizational needs. 

Hiring from outside presents a risk - first, there is time and money spent identifying viable candidates, and ensuring that their skills match the skills you are seeking. Second, even preliminary tests can be faulty, meaning that the candidate you take on may not have the level of mastery in any given skill.

Training your existing workforce has its own challenges, but saves both time and money.

Effectively training your employees requires a strong strategy, and one of the first steps is to conduct a skills gap analysis. 

In the episode, we used a podcast host as an example. Our podcast host must have strong interview skills. We categorized this skill two ways: first, we measured on a scale of one to five how important this skill is to the success of the host. We decided that interview skills are a key attribute and gave it the importance of five out of five. 

Next, we analyzed the actual interviewing skill of our fictional host. We gave the host a 3/5 - meaning that more mastery is needed.

Deciding what skills you need, and determining what levels currently exist can go a long way in helping you prioritize how you train individuals in your workforce!

Thanks for listening to The BizLibrary Podcast! When you're finished listening, be sure to download our free related resource!

We'll see you next week!

In this episode of The BizLibrary Podcast, we welcome Dr. Jaclyn Brandhorst, a business professor at the University of Central Missouri.

Dr. Brandhorst is joining us to discuss crisis communication and its role in modern organizations. We first discuss what it means to be “in crisis” – often we equate the word crisis to a serious issue, but crises are fairly common in business – a crisis can be a change in government regulations or rumors of layoffs – but they can be more obvious, like an impending merger or acquisition.

Dr. Brandhorst talks to us in-depth about the four Rs of crisis management – relationships, reputations, responsibility, and response.

First, she discusses how being proactive and building strong relationships can help mitigate the effects of crises – it’s easier to explain why a shipment was late to a customer with whom you’ve had a long-standing, well-established relationship with than to a brand-new client.

Next, we discuss the role of reputation in crisis management – being known for acting with integrity will give your organization a certain amount of goodwill to leverage during times of crisis.

It’s also important for companies to take responsibility for and acknowledge the consequences of crises caused by their actions. Taking these factors into context will help inform what response you create to your crisis.

It’s also important to identify key stakeholders during crises – those who are most affected during times of change and uncertainty. Dr. Brandhorst says that employees are often overlooked, but act as brand ambassadors, so keeping communication open and honest with employees will play a huge part in how you are able to mitigate the effects of your crisis.

Thanks for checking out this week’s episode of The BizLibrary Podcast! When you’re done listening, be sure to check out the free related resource, and as always, we’ll see you next week!

Thanks for checking out this special episode of The BizLibrary Podcast! This week, we’re hosting our Founder and CEO’s ALIGN 2018 President’s address.

Align is our annual client conference, where talented training program managers from around the country to network, learn new strategies to improve their business through training, and learn about the future of BizLibrary’s award-winning learning solutions.

If you haven’t registered for ALIGN 2019, there’s still time! We hope to see you there.

Dean talked to us about times of change and uncertainty, and how technology has transformed the workplace - it has eliminated some jobs while creating new, tech-based jobs, that the labor market is largely unprepared to fill.

Dean tells us that because of this, there isn't a jobs problem in today's marketplace, but rather a skills problem. To overcome this, employers must be intentional and proactive about upskilling their workforce.

Another change rapidly impacting the workforce is demographic changes. Younger employees are entering the workforce quickly, with millennials now making up a majority of the workforce.

lately, members of Generation Z have been bringing their skills and challenges to the workplace as well. Using training to address issues that arise due to multigenerational workforces will continue to have a tremendous impact on your organization's employee 

This week, we welcomed Dr. Nina G, a keynote speaker, author, comedian, and disability advocate who talked to us about how companies can be more accommodating to employees with disabilities.

Nina discusses how sometimes training can be hard to accommodate for - if an individual has dyslexia, writing notes or reading from slides may be impractical.

At the same time, some video content may be impractical for an individual who is deaf, who relies on gestures and strong facial communication to understand a message.

To become a more welcoming environment for individuals with disabilities, Dr. Nina G has one, emphatic recommendation: hire more disabled people. Research shows that the more accustomed we are to working with people with disabilities, the better at it we become.

Building a workplace that accommodates all people is like building a workplace that engages people. It may take some learning and effort, but will eventually improve the results your business is able to produce.

If you'd like to learn more about Universal Design in Learning, you can get in touch with Dr. Nina G at her website!

Thanks for listening to The BizLibrary Podcast! If you'd like to learn more, be sure to download our free related resources!

We'll see you next week!

This week, we had the pleasure of speaking with Lisa Yankowitz, the workplace educator. Lisa's years of experience in issues ranging from employment law to soft skills training have given her a unique perspective and understanding of workplace issues.

Using that experience, Lisa started a company called Ntrinsx, a platform that gives employers perspective into the motivations and values of their individual employees.

Ntrinsx works by delivering assessment based results that gives employers insight into what their employees value. People with heavy blue results value relationships and self-expression. Motivating these people involves showing them how their performance affects others. 

People with high orange results value freedom and fun. Giving these employees flexibility to accomplish a job will help them feel valued, respected, and motivated.

People with high green results value competency. They are analytical, rational, observant, and calm. 

Finally, people with high gold results are consistent, reliable, stable, and value responsibility. Giving them deadlines and meaningful work, and rules to work within will give them guidelines and help them do better work!

Lisa talks about the need to individualize your approach to understanding your employees. By finding their unique motivations, you can better understand how to deliver meaningful feedback and improve the performance of your team!

When you're finished listening to this week's episode, be sure to listen to Lisa's SHRM and HRCI-approved webinar. It's a great look at building better teams. The other related resource will help you understand the employment journey from your employee's perspective!

Thanks for listening! We'll see you next week.

This week, we are joined by Brian Westfall to discuss data collected by Capterra that suggests <a href="https://blog.capterra.com/developing-managers/">businesses need to do better at developing their managers.</a>

Over 40% of managers responding to Capterra's survey said they received fewer than two hours of managerial training in the past year. Shockingly, for first-time managers, those numbers are even worse!

Often, management training is conducted with a one-size-fits-all approach. Brian urges businesses to instead identify management skill gaps and build a customized management training program to upskill individuals.

Most managers reported that they wanted more training in these areas:

• Interviewing and hiring, at 31%
• Conflict resolution at 27%
• Coaching and mentoring, at 26%
• Team-building at 26%
• Crisis Management at 24%

These skills are often the biggest changes from individual contributor to manager. Managers need to learn how to ask the right questions in interviews, help teams work well together, deliver meaningful feedback, and handle crises! If you know your management training could use improvement, but don't know where to start, these skills are a great place to begin!

A large content library like BizLibrary's is helpful to managers: they have access to training around every topic, and can watch training over these topics delivered in a variety of styles.

Good managers are an important asset to an organization. Research suggests that they can improve productivity in a department by as much as 50%!

On the other hand, poor managers can increase turnover by as much as 60%. Managers can make or break a department, and that has a major impact on your organization's bottom line.

Thanks for listening to The BizLibrary Podcast! When you're finished listening to this week's episode, be sure to download the free ebook, The New Manager Playbook. This interactive ebook will help prepare your new managers for success! We'll see you next week!

This week on The BizLibrary Podcast, we welcome Atif Siddiqi, the CEO and founder of Branch, an app that allows hourly employees to budget, and access their earnings, and offer a way for employees to earn more money by picking up shifts within the platform. 

Branch has done a lot of research into what causes turnover in hourly employees, and he shared a lot of insight with us during our interview.

Atif mentioned that apart from pay, retail and hourly employees need stability if you want them to stay. That means offering consistent scheduling and offering an easy way to gain or give up shifts.

Additionally, Atif tells us that offering distinct career paths and opportunities for development is important for retaining hourly employees. This can be a challenge in busy locations where time and staffing are in short supply.

There are many ways to overcome this, but a mixture of microlearning and mobile delivery allows employees to quickly access training from their devices, and quickly learn new skills that will prepare them for future roles.

Retail employees often face major challenges with multi-generational workforces. It is not uncommon for locations to have employees who are as young as 16 and some who are working post-retirement to stay busy.

Helping employees understand the values and motivations of various generations through training is a great way to solve issues that may arise due to generational conflicts.

Ultimately, by offering stability in scheduling, competitive pay and flexibility through technology, you can improve your turnover rates. Atif tells us that on average, Branch has helped clients lower turnover by 13%!

Employee turnover is a costly business challenge that affects almost every organization. If you’re in retail and looking to reduce expenses, building a plan to reduce turnover is a great way to increase your organization’s profitability!
 
 Thanks for listening to The BizLibrary Podcast! When you’re done listening, be sure to download this week’s related resource to help you knockout employee turnover!