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Near-Future Watch: Digital Merit Badges for Job Seekers

The New York Times has another look at the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Merit Badge Project:

The MacArthur Foundation is putting millions of dollars into a competition to spur interest in a new type of badge — one that people can display not on their clothing but on a Web site, blog or Facebook page while they are looking for a job.

The badges will not replace résumés or transcripts, but they may be a convenient supplement, putting the spotlight on skills that do not necessarily show up in traditional documents — highly specialized computer knowledge, say, or skills learned in the military, in online courses or in after-school programs at museums or libraries.

Brilliant idea. One can easily imagine that the online learning community will rally around this. Authenticity will be verified by the issuer. A crucial feature.

This will be very helpful in job searches, helping people find job positions that align closely with their official credentials.


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Cool Trend in Workplace Tech: User-generated Training

At the Enterprise Learning! Conference & Expo last month, we saw some great learning and workplace technologies at work. In this session, we will share how organizations like Cheesecake Factory, Best Buy and WalMart are taking training out of the classroom and placing into the hands of learners. Coupled with new mobile solutions, you will see real world applications of user generated training, produced quickly and easily, and the methods to mobilize it—all on a shoe string budget.

Register for this complimentary webinar here.

Join Joe DiDonato, Editor at large, Elearning! Media Group and Liza Taylor, who heads up training for Creative Channels; and David Klein, Chief Advocate for Mobile Learning; and discover:

• The top 10 learning trends of 2012
• How companies are leveraging YouTube, social platforms and mobile solutions for learning
• The impact of user generated content on learner engagement and outcomes
• A demonstration on how to leverage these tools within your organization

Can’t make it? Download Business Planning & Governance for Corporate Training.

Bonus: Register for this session and receive the E-Learning User Study 2011 at no cost (a value of $800).

We hope to see you there! Register now!

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Onboarding Best Practices Webinar

Many onboarding programs are off-target. They result in false starts, wrong match up of employees and needs, longer competency build-up and delayed contributions to actual operational performance. It spells out higher costs and lost opportunities for the organization. One apparent cause is that most onboarding programs often focus on the acquisition of knowledge and skill, while the environment for immediate learning, performance, tracking and accelerated contributions is often deferred to a later phase or as an afterthought.

Join us for this webinar, as we help you get the mission-critical onboarding off to the right start. Dr. Ray Jimenez outlines a total approach for organizations that combines learning, performance and metrics to help all employees perform faster and contribute more quickly, all at lower costs to the business.

In this webinar, you will learn:

  • How to capture your top performers’ profiles and use these as benchmarks in selecting new employees, cutting time between hiring and job performance.
  • How to design learning structures that include operational demands on Day One of the onboarding program , thereby providing a seamless and faster transition to the job;
  • How to develop a metrics system that integrates learning activities and performance data to increase the feedback and assessment loop from learning, on-the-job performance, coaching and fast-tracking.

Ray Jimenez, PhD is Chief Architect for Vignettes Learning. He was a PricewaterhouseCoppers (PWC) management consultant for learning and systems implementation. His client list covers Neiman Marcus, Darden Restaurants, Pearson, NASA, Cisco, US Department of State, and others. He is the author of 3-Minute eLearning, Scenario-Based Learning, Micro-Performance Systems, and Story Impacts. Ray is also systems architect developing software in social learning performance applications.

 

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Zeroing in on the drive to perform

What motivates people to perform well on the job? High salary? Choice benefits? Workplace pressure? Think again.

In a New York Times Op-Ed, a recent study observed worker engagement and personal job satisfaction as they relate to overall company performance. The reported findings were revealing, but not terribly surprising: More so than salary or benefits, the study found that engagement and participation in meaningful work are the principal motivators for good job performance.

Conventional wisdom suggests that pressure enhances performance; our real-time data, however, shows that workers perform better when they are happily engaged in what they do.

Our internal work lives and our personal engagement are, on the surface, difficult to gauge. Nevertheless, employers should routinely monitor and assess engagement and worker satisfaction, the prime drivers of productivity and innovation. This includes providing support, allowing workers more autonomy and—perhaps most importantly—having the ability to encourage progress in important, meaningful work.

What really drives you to perform? Or better yet, how would you weigh your personal engagement or fulfillment against salary, benefits, or time off?

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Can Twitter be used for Training & Development?

Twitter is a free social networking tool that keeps people connected with one another and with sources of information. Twitter users submit updates, called “tweets,” about what they are doing at the moment. These text-based tweets cannot exceed 140 characters. Twitter traffic is exploding and recently reached 50 million tweets per day. If you do a quick search using the tool, many brand name companies use Twitter as another way to connect and communicate with customers, partners, analysts and employees.

Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of “friends.” Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, SMS text, RSS, or through any ever-growing number of applications such as Twirl and Facebook for mobile devices.

Can Twitter be used for training & development? How? A few ways to consider:

Provide real-time nuggets of learning
Even faster and more digestible than rapid e-learning, Twitter tweets could be used to distribute real-time/just-in-time nuggets of information as needed. Consider a Twitter network of geographically dispersed sales people who can instantly and constantly share competitive information and insights AS THEY OCCUR IN THE FIELD. Articles, news items, YouTube videos…almost anything can be shared instantly (and easily using the “shorten URL” feature).

Follow-up/archive method
Twitter is a great tool for communicating and asking questions on conference calls and webcasts. Another benefit: using Twitter enables you to keep a record of the questions and comments in a format not unlike a chat or blog post.

Reinforcement & reminders related to processes, policies and procedures
Twitter can be used to reinforce new content because it allows you to send and see quick snippets of information…ideal for sending out reminders, how-to’s, examples and clarifications…all important when it comes to maintaining consistency related to new processes, policies and procedures.

Are you using Twitter in the workplace? Is it a viable tool for learning and development? Post your ideas and comments below.

BTW, follow eCornell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ecornell_online.

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‘Harnessing America’s Wasted Talent’

In his new book, Harnessing America’s Wasted Talent: A New Ecology of Learning (Jossey-Bass), Peter Smith argues that the country needs to reach deeper into its population than it historically has to produce a sufficient number of educated and skilled workers, and that the thousands of current colleges cannot do that job. Following are excerpts of an interview conducted via email by Insider Higher Ed.

Q. Define the “personal learning” that you think is undervalued/under-recognized by the current higher education system.

A. Students are rarely asked, in depth, what they want from their college education and are almost never engaged in an ongoing conversation about it with someone who can affect their higher education experience. Until institutions personally connect the learner with the curriculum and the college experience, the learner is vulnerable. And the ‘at risk’ learner is always more vulnerable.

Additionally, the older one becomes the more experience one has to compare with what they are being taught. So, to fail to integrate someone’s experience into the curriculum both trivializes and frustrates them. That’s why starting with the assessment of prior learning is such an educationally important thing to do.

Q. What are the developments (you call them “game changers”) that make you believe the time is right to create an alternate path to a postsecondary education for these students?

A. You see evidence every day. When AARP solicits proposals for a learning platform for its members, the balance has shifted. When the Peer-to-Peer University moves into its second “term,” the balance has shifted. When StraighterLine is recognized for its courseware alone, the balance has shifted. When the global OpencourseWare Consortium gets three million hits a month, the balance has shifted.

In the book, I devoted a chapter to the “End of Scarcity” and its impact on higher education. It is difficult to overestimate the significance of this trend. Colleges are built and organized around scarcity – the expertise of faculty is in short supply, classrooms and labs are limited because they are expensive, and the authority to offer a course of study is limited. Additionally, reputation is built around who you exclude as much as it is who you include and who succeeds. In fact, the whole concept of meritocracy is built on the notion of scarcity because there is not enough room “at the top” for everyone.

Read the entire article.

 

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Cornell Launches New Online Graduate Certificate in HR Management

ILR School’s new e-learning program provides nine Cornell credit hours.

eCornell and Cornell’s ILR School are pleased to announce the launch of the Graduate Certificate in Human Resources Management. This new online certificate program is the first of its kind by the ILR School offering nine graduate credits towards a Cornell Master of Industrial and Labor Relations or Master of Professional Studies from ILR.

The new program is designed for human resources professionals seeking to develop executive-level HR and management skills. The program can be completed entirely online in as little as nine months. The curriculum can be customized to allow students to tailor their course options to meet individual learning objectives and offer unprecedented access to ILR faculty through an innovative combination of:

  • Interactive online HR courses.
  • An immersive leadership experience.
  • Live and recorded webcasts with expert ILR faculty.
  • A Portfolio project in which students apply the coursework directly back into the workplace.

The Graduate Certificate in Human Resources Management includes courses written by ILR Dean Harry C. Katz; Samuel B. Bacharach, McKelvey-Grant Professor; Christopher J.  Collins, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Advanced Human Resources Studies; Patrick M. Wright; William J. Conaty, GE Professor of Strategic HR; and Ronald L. Seeber, Professor and Associate Dean, ILR School and Cornell University Vice Provost for Land Grant Affairs.

Learn more about the Graduate Certificate in Human Resources Management.

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Valuing Human Capital

By now the incident involving the crash landing of USAirways flight 1549 is well documented.  There is no doubt that Captain Chesley Sullenberger  is a genuine American hero for his skills and even-tempered approach in landing his aircraft on the Hudson River and ensuring that all his passengers and crew were safely evacuated from the aircraft.  Indeed, he has trained and prepared for this event his entire life.

What you made not of heard is that on Friday, the day following the crash landing, USAirways stock price was up 13%, on a day when the overall market was up less than 1%.   Historically, airlines see significant drops in their stock value when they experience an incident as fears of lawsuits, reductions in passengers, and loss of goodwill impact the market’s perception of the company’s value.

I see the stock’s rise on Friday as the market’s valuation of the human capital at USAirways.  Those of us in the learning and human capital development industry have long argued that a company’s greatest asset is its people, but that it is perhaps the most underestimated asset by traditional company valuation tools.

On Friday, the market was not just assessing the heroism of the captain, but the training, skills, competencies, and judgment of the captain and his crew.  From this experience, the market was drawing a broader conclusion about the value of USAirways’ human capital.

In many organizations, the moment of truth for its human capital may not be life and death moments, but it does not dilute the value that is created when a company invests in developing its people.   In this economic environment where the financial assets of most companies has evaporated before our eyes, human capital remains as an enduring, dynamic, and productive asset in which investments can be made. By choosing to train, develop, and engage the people in your organization, you are choosing to prepare your people to react, respond, and lead when your company most needs them, and in doing so, you are creating value for your shareholders in the process.

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The Value of a Human Resources Certificate in the Marketplace

As an enrollment counselor for eCornell, I am asked daily by HR professionals looking to augment their on the job skills, " Will this Certificate help my Career? "  I think the best way to answer this question is to have you read a testimonial from a student enrolled in the Human Resources Studies Certificate.

“Currently, I am participating in an on-line course study in Human Resources through eCornell with the goal of transitioning from Accounting to Human Resources due to my company's closure.  I firmly believe that as a result of my 5+ years of experience with Incentive Compensation in conjunction with enrolling at eCornell, is why I was contacted by a recruiter from a major financial services company with an offer for a position within Human Resources.”

This student had her resume posted on Monster.com with no hits.  Once she enrolled in the Cornell University HR Studies Certificate program she started being contacted by potential employers.