Making board meetings shorter, sharper and more productive
Meetings. The bane of executive life. It’s the all-too-frequent gripe of middle managers that they waste time in meetings when they should be focusing on the business. But once you’ve joined a board, meetings are your work. Often there is precious little else, other than getting ready for the next round of meetings. From years […]
Why presentation training pays off
Winning business is big business, with companies typically reserving significant budgets for the likes of advertising, websites and CRM systems. Often, though, those investments will only get a company’s foot in the door, with the final decision on a contract made by way of a pitch. You’d think, therefore, that companies would invest in their […]
Six Common Teamwork Myths put Straight
In 2011, Professor J. Richard Hackman, late Edgar Pierce Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at Harvard University, wrote an article outlining “Six Common Misperceptions about Teamwork” from his considerable research in the U.S. intelligence community. Here, we revisit his findings and explore them in a little more detail from a Belbin perspective. Myth […]
4 Tips For Training Your Virtual Assistant
Virtual assistants can be a blessing to your business and boost productivity immensely. They can free you up from tedious tasks such as data entry, bookkeeping or updating contact lists at a cost that won’t break the bank. VA’s can be hired from numerous sources such as Upwork, specialty firms or even Fiverr. Here are a […]
The case for and against: is Skype coaching valuable?
There are plenty of contentious issues in HR and the workplace, and we think it’s important to get a balanced discussion going on some of the bigger questions out there. In this series, we’ll be asking HR experts and practitioners to give us opposing viewpoints on a key issue, and we welcome your input too! If […]
Video: perfect for learning & training! Here’s why
30,287 YouTube subscribers: it might not be a lot compared to PewDiePie’s 54 million, but it’s quite the amount for a Dutch physics teacher. We know from practice that videos work great in education. But not just that: research confirms that video combines really well with learning and training. Why is video learning so effective? […]
10 reasons to use video in L&D
Everyone loves video, but does it help learning stick? Martin Baker looks at the research into its effectiveness. Our love affair with video it seems knows no bounds – YouTube statistics are jaw-dropping, with more than a billion users and hundreds of millions of hours of videos watched every day. Video is great at sharing […]
Does your business expect a ‘prescription for performance?’
Robin Hoyle is a writer, trainer and consultant. He is the author of Complete Training: from recruitment to retirement and Informal Learning in Organizations; how to create a continuous learning culture both published by Kogan Page. He will be speaking at the CIPD L&D show, at London’s Olympia on 10th May, 2017 Does it sometimes feel that as an L&D team […]
“If you feel stuck in a rut and are not developing on a daily basis, it’s up to you to drive change.”
We’re always curious to hear how our members and contributors tackle the challenges that the ever-changing world of HR throws at them. We’ve got a wealth of experience and knowledge across the site, and what better way to showcase the diversity of our community than to get them to walk us through an average day? Want to […]
Tips to Improve Your Interview Performance
Even the smartest as well as qualified job seeker needs to prepare him or her for job interviews. Why, you would question? Interviewing is nothing but a learned skill, and you must believe that there is no second chance to make a good first impression. Therefore, it would be helpful for you to study these […]
The promises and pitfalls of hand drawn graphics
Hand drawn graphics are simple images accompanied by text. The terms sketchnoting, graphic facilitation, visual thinking and visual communication all relate to hand drawn graphics. Organisations can make use of hand drawn graphics in many areas. For example, a simple one page graphic can be used to explain a complex process; graphic facilitation can be […]
The secrets of simple graphics
Because graphics are concerned with hand drawn images style and quality vary hugely amongst presenters, facilitators and others who use graphics in their work. Much like the way handwriting is a unique insight into someone’s personality, their humanity, hand drawn graphics offer us a similar observation. No two persons’ drawings are quite the same. It […]
L&D has a bad rep – and it needs to fix it
This is not ‘click bait’ (as my 11-year old twins tell me is the correct phrase for attention grabbing headlines fronting disingenuous articles of little related value) – this is reality street. Let me share thoughts and provide some evidence to substantiate this. First off, it’s nothing personal: most of the people I meet in […]
How To Destroy Training Side-Eye
I’ve worked at companies where Friday mornings were training mornings. We bustled in early with the excitement of the weekend, the complimentary cheese toasties and the likely chance to take away a piece of knowledge which would genuinely improve our work glowing before us. Yes, we had a lot to get done before the week’s […]
5 tips to help leaders develop skills to manage international teams
Every individual deserves to work for a great leader. That’s easy enough to say, but how real is it? Consider this: one in two candidates applying for a management position is lacking leadership skills, according to a survey of 200 HR directors by Robert Half UK. That’s just looking at talent outside of an organisation. […]
Overcome Communication Barriers In An Interview?
An interview is not just about the first step to get a job, but more than that. It is the best way to understand more about the employee and its characteristics. Through this medium, people will come to know whether the candidate is suitable for not just the post, but to match with other co-workers. […]
There’s only one rule for effective communication
There’s never been another point in history where so many people are reading so much and communicating so often (so, thanks Internet). Yet, for all the talking and typing that swirls both on and offline, effective communication still eludes many. Now, we all know some of the more important factors when getting your message across […]
Contextualising m-learning in the training industry
Mobile learning, or m-Learning, has been incorporated into the training industry for quite some time. Although face-to-face sessions are the traditional way of training, where trainers meet with their trainees in one location to host the meetings, m-learning has revolutionised the training industry, allowing individuals to learn on the go, accessing the content on their […]
Catchy title needed!
I need your help in coming up with a cathcy title for a new workshop for crew and pilot rostering team Details: 1-day workshop focusing on: Our company brand, Communication, Telephone Etiquette, Behaviour Styles, Stress Management and Teamwork Previous title of workshop was 'ELEVATE' with us tasked to keep the new workshop title in line with […]
Do you see onboarding as a two-way street?
It takes two to build a relationship, two to have a conversation, two to complete a sale, so doesn’t it make sense to see onboarding as a two-way activity? Quite frankly, to do otherwise is to instantly confer an authoritarian master/servant outlook on the relationship between the organisation and its people; not what you […]
