CorpU Weekly Digest: Learning Excellence (2012-Jan-23)

Topics: Learning Excellence

Here are this week's headlines in learning excellence: 

• (1) The three things to focus on when developing mobile learning solutions ;
• (2) Fred J. Palensky, chief technology officer at one of the world's most innovative companies, explains how to foster the ongoing cross-pollination of ideas ;
• (3) The dismal worldwide economy is affecting compensation decisions, although there are some "hot spots," such as Brazil, Singapore, China and South Africa ;
• (4) 2012 Workplace Trends Report: Integration, Flexibility and Wellness Top Drivers of Employee Engagement ;
• (5) Talent Gap Looms for Large Enterprises ;
• The Business of Learning: New Major Products, Mergers, Acquisitions, and Partnerships
• Books
• Webinars
• Conferences

 Learning Excellence and Innovation

The three things to focus on when developing mobile learning solutions
According to recent research, the use of mobile devices for learning in the US has increased from 9% in 2007 to over 20% in 2010. Mobile learning must be more than taking what was a web-based learning course or an instructor-led course and porting the content to deliver on a mobile device. Mobile learning experience design is far from an established practice, but there are a few lessons learned that have helped change behavior and positively impact the business. Three lessons learned are: 1) Design the course so that you make the most of the constraints of the specific device (screen size, gesture capability, video playback, audio capability, etc); 2) mobile learning needs to have outcomes that can be applied on-the-job immediately; and 3) job aids and other sorts of checklist-style "how to" material delivered via a mobile device on demand has been the most effective approach to cut across different devices (smartphones, slate-style tablets, feature phones) in order to assure just-in-time, on-demand performance support. Read the eLearning blog post "3 Ways to Make Mobile Learning Stick"

Fred J. Palensky, chief technology officer at one of the world's most innovative companies, explains how to foster the ongoing cross-pollination of ideas.
As part of Booz & Company's annual study of the innovation strategies of the companies that spend the most on R&D, the firm conducted a survey that asked senior innovation executives to vote for the world's most innovative company. The third most frequently cited innovation leader was 3M, right behind Apple and Google. That came as no surprise, given 3M's track record of developing smart, successful new products. 3M's ability to keep churning out new innovations is very much dependent on the company's long-standing commitment to open innovation, both internal and external. Fred J. Palensky, 3M's chief technology officer, explains the ways his company creates and develops ideas through open innovation, and explained why its highly collaborative culture and innovation leadership are essential to the process. Read "3M's Open Innovation"

The dismal worldwide economy is affecting compensation decisions, although there are some "hot spots," such as Brazil, Singapore, China and South Africa
Employers continue to focus on pay-for-performance and workforce segmentation in their reward and compensation strategies. Employers around the world are focused on attracting, retaining and motivating key talent, but, according to experts, the complexities of varied cultures and global economies means many employers are struggling with the details. According to compensation specialist Catherine Hartmann, a principal based in Mercer's Los Angeles office, the toughest challenge for global employers is deciding whether to focus more on base pay or to weight compensation more heavily toward incentives. Because compensation and rewards structures have an impact on assuring organizational learning outcomes, this article is definitely worth the time to read. Read the HR Executive article "Global Compensation Considerations" 

2012 Workplace Trends Report: Integration, Flexibility and Wellness Top Drivers of Employee Engagement
Sodexo's 2012 Workplace Trends Report offers a unique perspective on the workplace that combines insight from clients, academia, principal research, and leading facilities management and human resource trade organizations. The research predicts continued focus on well-being and the ability to deliver a unique value proposition to business communities that focuses on not only integrated, effective and efficient use of space, but also the performance of human capital. Employees are looking to organizations for tools and resources to help them simplify their lives, stay healthy and balanced, and bring their "whole self" to work as these continue to be top drivers of engagement. Employee engagement, productivity, brand image and loyalty continue to be relevant measures of success. Read the full report "2012 Workplace Trends". 

Talent Gap Looms for Large Enterprises
CIOs and other top organizational executives foresee a global talent shortage looming for the next several years, according to recent research from Deloitte. The consulting firm released the results of its survey in a new report, "Talent Edge 2020: Redrafting Talent Strategies for the Uneven Recovery." When it comes to adequately appointing leaders and staffing key operations, the report says fallout from the talent shortage could be significant. In addition, retaining younger workers has emerged as a key issue for many organizations. Ultimately, companies that invest aggressively in talent management and development programs will reap rewards, the report concludes. The data points here can be very helpful to make a business case for expanding key organizational skill-building initiatives. Based on the feedback from more than 375 senior executives and talent manager at large companies worldwide took part in the research, some of these data points include:

• 30% of executives rank the development of leaders and succession planning as today's top talent-focused priority - the highest of any category
• 29% of execs say leadership development and succession planning will remain the top talent priority for the next three years
• Just 17% of those surveyed believe their talent programs are "world-class across the board."
• More than four out of five executives say significant improvements need to be made in their talent programs
• 56% of American execs surveyed say the main talent gaps relate to executive leadership and operations positions
• 47% of survey respondents are highly concerned about losing Millennial employees to other firms - compared to just 32% for Baby Boomers
• Top strategy areas of focus for organizations: Improving top and bottom-line performance (as cited by 38% of survey respondents) Expanding into global new markets (33%) Cutting managing costs (32%)
• Top talent-management priorities: Performance management (as cited by 73% of survey participants) Talent assessment (72%) High-potential employee deployment (71%)

Read a summary of Deloitte's research report "Talent Edge 2020: Redrafting Talent Strategies for the Uneven Recovery".

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 The Business of Learning: New Major Products, Mergers, Acquisitions, and Partnerships

SAP acquired Datango, a Germany based company that provides comprehensive developer collaboration and workflow, automated localization into more than 40 languages and "just-in-time" end user delivery of content in the form of "application navigation". This acquisition will allow SAP to add multilingual online help and training materials to enterprise software applications. The move will broaden SAP's software training portfolio and could help its customers cut support costs through improved user training. Read more about the acquisition and its potential to extend SAP's move to the cloud.

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 Books To Read

In book Human Resource Management in a Global Context: A Critical Approach, Robin Kramar (Professor of Human Resource Management at the Faculty of Business, Australian Catholic University, Australia) and Jawad Syed (Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations at Kent Business School, University of Kent, UK) covers the basic principles of HRM, while exposing students to real world issues facing managers on a daily basis. The authors supply a good amoint of international examples and case studies. This book is a global, contemporary, and critical view of practices in human resource management. Buy now 

Collaborative learning has become an increasingly important part of education, but the research supporting it is distributed across a wide variety of fields including social, cognitive, developmental, and educational psychology, instructional design, the learning sciences, educational technology, socio-cultural studies, and computer-supported collaborative learning. The International Handbook of Collaborative Learning provides a comprehensive review of the widely scattered research on collaborative learning. The goal of this book is to integrate theory and research across these diverse fields of study and, thereby, to forward our understanding of collaborative learning and its instructional applications. The book will be structured into the following 4 sections: 1) Theoretical Foundations 2) Research Methodologies 3) Instructional Approaches and Issues and 4) Technology. Buy now

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 Webinars 

Superintendents' Strategy Summit Recap: Unleashing your Greatest Asset: Human Capital
Date: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM ET
Presenters: The District Management Council Register now

Developing Your Leadership Potential
Date: Wednesday, February 1, 2012, 7:30-8:45 PM ET
Presenters: American Camp Association Register now

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 Conferences

Enterprise Resource Planning
Date: January 30, 2012 to February 4, 2012
Location: India Register now 

Employee Engagement Conference - 4th Annual                                                
Date: February 1-2, 2012
Location: Barcelona, Spain Register now

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