Training is a success if the trainees achieve the expected levels of performance. It generates a positive return on investment when the value of the performance gains exceeds the cost of achieving them. Training is a failure when the performance goals are not met, regardless of how much employees liked the training or think they learned. Newly acquired knowledge and skills must be applied to the work of the individual and firm for training to have value. 

Consumers Energy provides electric and natural gas service to 6.7 million customers in Michigans Lower Peninsula. The foundation of the companys compliance begins with employee adherence to safety rules.Consumers Energy offers many safety refresher courses every year, covering topics such as proper use of safety equipment, hearing conservation, and handling hazardous waste.

There's no longer any doubt: Diversity is good for business. Studies consistently show that diverse companies outperform and out-innovate the competition because diversity makes teams smarter.

Despite exponential growth in big data and data analysis technology, talent development executives and organizations still struggle with determining the best process and timing for measuring talent development initiatives. In a data-driven world where CEOs focus on return on investment to justify expenditures, demonstrating the value of talent development investments gives learning leaders pause.

Their leadership development program (LDP), established in 2008, is a yearlong experience that helps future leaders around the world (the company maintains offices in more than 40 countries and employs more than 10,000 employees) develop the leadership and business skills needed to succeed. Because business needs and leadership gaps change from year to year, a program that was current one year may seem out of date the next.

In my last post about feedback, I discussed how research shows that feedback can improve learning. Hattie and Timperley (2007) explain that feedback helps learning most when it deals with three specific learning problems: Now that we know the kind of feedback that most improves learning, lets discuss what research tells us we should include in feedback.

Lately there has been much talk in the talent development industry about the business of learning, getting aligned with the business, and business metrics. However, many organizations still struggle in this area, and to a large degree, we as an industry are still just talking. It's high time that we turn that talk into action. To instill confidence that the learning organization...

Its not just choosing the right learning and development initiatives that matters its what leaders do before, during, and after the training session that makes the biggest difference. Over the past several years, weve seen a positive trend in companies choosing to invest in learning and development opportunities because there is more competition for top talent.

One-size-fits-all training, executive-only coaching, and legacy corporate learning systems were once considered the norm, but most organizations and employees found them insufficient. Learning is becoming increasingly prioritized, as shown in Deloittes Global Human Capital Trends Report 2016 which showed that more than eight in 10 executives (84 percent) rated learning as important or very important.

How to assess the organizational impact of a coaching program.

The year 2007 represents a watershed moment for Louisville-based Signature HealthCARE, a leading provider of long-term nursing care. Yet despite establishing that culture early on, it became clear to Steier and other executives at Signature that they still faced challenges.

Prove that your learning solutions contribute to business results.

Launching evaluation programs that help inform improvements in the effectiveness of learning programs and the success of the business as a whole often proves to be a daunting challenge for organizations.

Organizations face increasingly volatile and complex markets. To compete, they need a business strategy that counteracts negative forces and guides individual lines of business toward positive outcomes. The strategy needs to present leaders with guidelines on how to make decisions and allocate resources to accomplish key objectives, as well as define the actions people in the business should take (or not take) and...

The Talent Development Executive Confidence Index (TDXCI), formerly the Learning Executive Confidence Index (LXCI), is a quarterly assessment of talent development executives' short-term expectations for the health of the talent development function in organizations. The questions in the Q1 2016 survey asked about the status of talent development. Talent development executives are less optimistic about...

Tamar Elkeles presented her session Secrets to Building an Award-Winning Learning Organization, on May 22, 2016, at ATD 2016. In this segment, she discusses developing a leadership pipeline and communicating impact.

The Association for Talent Development (ATD) surveyed 199 talent development professionals with knowledge of their organizations learning evaluation efforts. Of those, only 44 percent think their evaluation efforts are helping them reach organizational learning goals.

After registering a very high 68.0 for both the second and third quarters of 2015, the Learning Executive Confidence Index (LXCI) for the fourth quarter of 2015 dropped nearly four points to 64.3, suggesting that learning leaders' short-term expectations for the health of the learning function are down.

Leading-edge talent development executives want not only an understanding of what's working (and what isn't) in talent development; they want fact-based guidance on how to target limited resources on the most promising initiatives for driving business results. This is now possible. Here are the key lessons we've learned about how to apply analytics to improve your learning evaluation strategy, and more importantly, to improve your return on learning investments.

As a talent-led company, Accenture must look to the future of talent development. Rahul Varma leads that charge. "The role of learning at Accenture has always been critical," says Varma. "We are a talent-led organization and we often say that learning is in our DNA. Learning is a part of what we offer to the world." Varma should know. He's been with the company for 20 years in some key HR leadership roles. Talent development touches every aspect of an employee's path through the company...