Start by identifying the trends that are on fire right now (they might be COVID related and might not).  Next, examine your current business strategy and see how you can integrate those trends into your business today (or in the short term).  Third, realign your go-to-market strategy to incorporate the trend into your unique value proposition, messaging, positioning, product, pricing and even your target market.  

I have a client who offers an incredible line of coffee function drinks (www.smariorganics.com) which has three SKUs (KETO, Mocha, and New Orleans).  And guess which one far outsells the other two.  You got it, KETO.  Why?  Because it is on trend.  

You want the momentum from that trend to be pushing your business forward (and sales up) rather than the drag of not being on trend and holding you back.  I can tell you from experience, businesses that are on trend are so much easier to run than ones that is not.  

If you would like to learn more about being on trend, just click on the video below:  

Seth Godin is an online marketing guru is well-known for advice about branding, promotion, and positioning. Given his field of expertise, it’s no surprise that he’s made all the right moves when it comes to thought leadership. He parlayed his internet startup experience in the 1990s and early 2000s into 18 best-selling books, is a sought-after speaker at major industry events, and offers blog posts, videos, and links to interviews via his website. He’s also garnered a significant following on social media, with hundreds of thousands of followers awaiting his next pithy post.

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Gamification is when you take elements that you usually come across in games. This might be things like point scoring, competition or risk and reward. You then apply those elements to other things – in our case, digital learning.

It doesn’t mean that you need to turn your course into one big game, though. That sort of approach would often be prohibitively expensive and time consuming. Luckily, there are simpler ways to utilise gamification.

Before I get to that, there is one killer question that needs to be answered: why bother at all?

In a word – engagement.

In my view, digital learning demands engagement in order for it to be successful. Unengaged learners might complete the course in order to tick a box, but they won’t learn anything. And if they’re not going to learn anything then you’ve got to question the point of the course in the first place.

There are lots of ways to make a digital learning course engaging. Gamification is only one of them, but when it’s done well, it’s brilliant!

In order to maximise the impact of gamification in your course, here are a few bits of advice:

1. Know your audience

If you work as part of an internal Learning and Development team, then you probably already have a good handle on who your audience are. Are there any game elements that will appeal to your audience more than others? For example, I used to work for a sales company – for that audience, the addition of a league table was a simple and effective bit of gamification. The bulk of the audience thrived on competition and being on top, so the league table really played into that.

2. Give them something unexpected

A lot of health and safety training I’ve seen is pretty dry. It therefore doesn’t take much to give the learners’ something unexpected. But get it right and the course becomes much more memorable as a result.

When we created our health and safety course for OpenSesame, we added an element of jeopardy to it. The learners collect items throughout the course, and then trade those items for lives as part of the end of course quiz. Run out of lives? Then the zombies get you! Now that’s something pretty unexpected in a health and safety course.

3. Make sure it fits your course

The inclusion of gamification needs to fit in with the rest of the course. It needs to add something to the learning experience rather than just being another hoop that your learner has to jump through in order to complete the course.

The gamification might be there to increase the engagement with your course, but it should aid rather than detract from your instruction.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark Glanville is a director and co-founder of Popcorn Learning Media; a multi-award winning digital learning agency based in the UK. Mark has worked within L&D for 20 years and held several senior positions within internal L&D departments before starting Popcorn.

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Sharing your vision and inspiration for the enterprise gives potential investors, employees, and customers a personal, concrete entry point into the story of your business, which can otherwise seem abstract, especially in the startup phase. And as your expertise and insight shine through, potential supporters have a reason to feel confident about your future success.

Of course, not everyone relishes the limelight; on the contrary, most entrepreneurs start a business because they’re passionate about the product or service they intend to offer, not because they like self-promotion. 

But in the era of social media we’re accustomed to the idea that we constantly curate our lives to present a story and create different versions of that story for friends and family versus dating sites versus professional networking sites. It’s essential to bring this 21st-century skill to bear on your business and find ways to share your personal story to help get the venture off the ground. Frequent practice is key; if you form the habit of sharing your business’ story, you’ll not only find the right words, but you’ll become more comfortable with it, too. 

Establish yourself as an industry thought leader. 

If you are just starting your business, you may not feel like a leader in the field yet. But given the research and experience that has gone into creating the company, you have a wealth of knowledge to share. Industry insiders may view you as an upstart, but your target market views you as an expert, so don’t hesitate to share your knowledge.  Customers prefer to buy from well-known names in the business, so put yourself in the spotlight. 

To get started, you need to build a “platform” – that is, to boost your visibility by opening channels of communication with your audience. Among the ways to do it: 

• • A company blog. By establishing yourself as the voice of the company, you give the enterprise’s collective expertise a face and a name. A blog is also a great place to post news updates and share press mentions and other platform-building activities.
  • Social media. Not only should you broadcast posts on popular networks; be sure to follow other experts in the field, comment on their posts and contribute to discussion of current industry events. In so doing, you establish yourself as an authentic expert who’s in touch with up-to-the-minute industry happenings.
  • Reports, whitepapers, and eBooks. With original research and writing, you prove you’ve got in-depth expertise that can help your target market address needs related to your business offering.
  • Speaking engagements. Seminars or keynote speeches at industry events establish your credibility as a topic expert. 

Seth Godin is an online marketing guru is well-known for advice about branding, promotion, and positioning. Given his field of expertise, it’s no surprise that he’s made all the right moves when it comes to thought leadership. He parlayed his internet startup experience in the 1990s and early 2000s into 18 best-selling books, is a sought-after speaker at major industry events, and offers blog posts, videos, and links to interviews via his website. He’s also garnered a significant following on social media, with hundreds of thousands of followers awaiting his next pithy post.

The post A great business story starts with you appeared first on OpenSesame.

1.  Invest in your core principles for the sake of your employees, your product and your customers. If your company has the word “innovative” or “creative” in its vision or values statement, folks within your organization must be trained in creativity methods, with a budget that reflects those values.
   To benefit from being deliberately creative, train the leadership team first. It is crucial that the top members of the organization are thoroughly trained in creativity methods so they can teach their subordinates and coach the application of creativity skills.
2.  Stick with it. When you introduce something as unique as deliberate creativity, some members in your organization will hold back and not get involved. After a year or two, your leadership team might look at the program and say, “Well, we’re only getting minimal outcomes. Let’s change to another program.”
   That decision trains your workforce not to participate in company initiatives. It tells obstinate employees that if they don’t participate, new efforts go away because the new initiatives have failed. Training your people to be creative on demand is a long-term investment that will serve your organization long into the future. Follow through and don’t play flavor of the month.
3. Keep it simple. There are many techniques to help people be deliberately creative. However, my approach has been to use a few creativity techniques that work consistently over time.
   When you are instilling innovation practices in your organization, don’t force people through some lock-step method, or overwhelm them with creativity tools just because they are cool or fun. Your people want to solve problems more effectively, they don’t want to become creative process junkies. 

BONUS: Walk the talk. As a leader, if you believe creativity is important, then you have to be creative. Show your people that it is OK to struggle with crazy ideas and to make mistakes. That it’s OK to fail. Your people will watch your lead, they will follow it, and your organization and its output will be stronger for your willingness to lead by example.

Dr. Roger Firestien has taught more people to lead the creative process than anyone else in the world. Roger is senior faculty at the Center for Applied Imagination at SUNY Buffalo State and president of Innovation Resources, Inc. He has written six books on innovation. His latest book, Create in A Flash:  A leader’s recipe for breakthrough innovation is available through Amazon or at createinaflashbook.com

Visit RogerFirestien.com for more details.

The post Do you want your entire organization to be creative? appeared first on OpenSesame.

• • Divergent thinking. Exploring lots of possibilities. Generating ideas that are novel, new, ridiculous, foolish-sounding, weird, goofy, exciting.
  • Combinent thinking. Combine ideas across areas of knowledge. Connect ideas that seem to be unrelated to the problem you are working on to generate novel ideas.
  • Convergent thinking. Most of us are pretty good at this. Select ideas, sort ideas, test and refine ideas. Make those ridiculous, foolish-sounding, exciting ideas USEFUL.

Most of us recognize divergent thinking and convergent thinking.  But combinent thinking is the ::insert announcer voice here:: creativity super skill.   

Most breakthroughs come by connecting things that are not usually considered connected. That’s combinent thinking. Often these connections occur as if by chance. 

You are working on a tough problem, you are stymied for a solution, so you step back from the problem. You see something unrelated to your problem and you make a connection. Unfortunately, you had to wait to make that connection.

What if you could make those connections on demand?

One surefire way to get new ideas is by using Forced Connections. Forced Connections is an idea generating technique that captures the essence of creativity; the practice of combining ideas that don’t appear to be related in a new way. This method helps you get those ideas flowing when you are stuck.

How it works:

• • Consider the problem you are trying to solve.
  • Pick an object or situation from a completely unrelated area.
  • Find or “force” a connection between the problem you are working on and the seemingly unrelated object.

The result of this new connection is a new idea.

In my creativity programs, we always do a warm-up exercise before we take on the main challenge. One of my favorite warm-ups is to generate ideas for the perfect bathtub.

After a few minutes, the group starts to slow down. They have generated the typical ideas for improving a bathtub. But, now they are stuck. It is time to introduce Forced Connections.  I like to use pictures. 

First picture. “What ideas do you get for improving a bathtub from a bunch of bananas?” I get ideas like: make it non-slip, make it yellow, shape the tub to fit your body, and my favorite—have a bunch of my friends over.

Another picture: an airplane cockpit. This picture generates ideas like: temperature controls for the tub, lots of windows around the tub, seats in the tub and, of course, make the tub fly.

You don’t need pictures to have this technique work for you. All you need to do is look around. I am sitting at my desk while I am writing this. So, if I were working on a challenge and got stuck, I would ask myself—what ideas do I get from my telephone or books on my bookcase or the fan on my desk or trees in my backyard?

With Forced Connections, the ideas you get may not be the breakthrough answers you are looking for, but it energizes the idea generating process to produce more ideas to choose from.

Dr. Roger Firestien has taught more people to lead the creative process than anyone else in the world. Roger is senior faculty at the Center for Applied Imagination at SUNY Buffalo State and president of Innovation Resources, Inc. He has written six books on innovation. His latest book, Create in A Flash:  A leader’s recipe for breakthrough innovation is available through Amazon or at createinaflashbook.com

Visit RogerFirestien.com for more details.

The post Creativity is a skill and it can be developed appeared first on OpenSesame.

Reason #1:  Most teams don’t follow the directions.  

Think about this analogy. The following are directions for riding a bicycle.

1. 1. Grab the handlebars of the bicycle with both hands.
   2. Place your right leg over the top of the bicycle.
   3. Straddle the seat on the bicycle while keeping your left foot on the ground for stability.
   4. Push up on your left foot while pushing down on the right pedal with your right foot.
   5. Repeat.  

Do you really think you could learn to ride a bicycle by reading those directions?

That’s what many people think they can do with their team when it comes to being creative. Just read the brainstorming directions – voila! All of a sudden, the team produces a torrent of creative ideas. That’s just ridiculous!

In case you need a reminder of the brainstorming directions, here they are. 

1. 1. Defer judgment
   2. Strive for quantity
   3. Seek wild and unusual ideas
   4. Build on other ideas

Most of the time teams don’t follow the directions.  Many brainstorming sessions are mislabeled and are actually discussions or even worse, venting sessions. Following these simple, proven guidelines will help your team create breakthrough ideas.

But it takes more than just following the directions.  Just like improving any skill, brainstorming takes practice.

Reason #2: Most teams don’t practice 

Great football teams’ practice. Great symphony orchestras practice. Fire departments practice. They practice so that when they must perform at peak effectiveness under stressful conditions, they can execute extremely well.

When was the last time you “practiced” getting creative?  Try this. Before a brainstorming session, practice getting creative by warming up. Here’s how.

First, get a facilitator to manage the process. Review the guidelines for brainstorming ideas listed above. Present the problem to be solved as a creative question beginning with the words, “How to…?” 

Then, the group generates ideas following the brainstorming guidelines. As ideas surface, the facilitator records them on a flip chart, or the participants write ideas on sticky notes and hand them off to the facilitator, who places them on the flip chart.

During a warm-up session, give the group a time limit and a quota for the number of ideas generated. I recommend a quota of 25 ideas and a time limit of five minutes.

Most warm-up exercises are admittedly silly. They’re designed that way on purpose. Many of the ideas suggested will be absurd or impractical. That’s intentional. It is absolutely imperative that you do a short warm-up exercise BEFORE attempting to generate ideas on the “serious” problem. 

There is no judging when you are generating ideas so don’t let the silly factor deter you.

The purpose of a warm-up activity is to: 1. Briefly train the group in the brainstorming method; 2. “Sanction” the time for speculation.  The warm-up sends the message that the expected behavior of the group is to speculate and not judge. 3. Create a judgment free zone.

A few of my favorite warm-up questions: 

• • What might be all the ways to improve a refrigerator?
  • How to get a hippopotamus out of a bathtub?
  • What might you do with 50,000 bowling balls that are flat on one side?

Use one of those, or make up your own! The key is to make it simple, and make it fun.

If you navigate around these two brainstorming pitfalls, you will significantly increase the effectiveness of your brainstorming sessions.  Not only will you generate more innovative ideas in a short period of time, your team will have fun doing it.

Dr. Roger Firestien has taught more people to lead the creative process than anyone else in the world. Roger is senior faculty at the Center for Applied Imagination at SUNY Buffalo State and president of Innovation Resources, Inc. He has written six books on innovation. His latest book, Create in A Flash:  A leader’s recipe for breakthrough innovation is available through Amazon or at createinaflashbook.com. Visit RogerFirestien.com for more details.

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What’s new with the Course Details Page:

Simplified purchasing options

• • Clicking the new Buy Now button starts an easy-to-navigate purchasing process.

Improved course preview.

• • Click the large thumbnail image to watch a demo of the course. 

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• • Check out the information about the course publisher now directly on the Course Detail page, such as publisher description, core competencies and quick access to all of the publisher’s courses available on OpenSesame.

Additional course details

• • Access more course details, if relevant, such as available subtitle languages and applicable regions. Seat time, accreditation information and a link to the System Requirements document can be found here as well.

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• • Quickly see user ratings of the course on the right side of the page.

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• • Quickly access the Curated List that features this course to find other courses related to the topic curated by our Curation team.
    

Course recommendations

• • View and access related courses recommended by OpenSesame.

For more information about how you can evaluate which courses are best for your training program, contact your Customer Success Manager or our Support team.

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Einstein replied, “I would spend the first 55 minutes identifying the problem and the last five minutes solving it. For the formulation of a problem is often far more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill.”

Most people believe that creativity is coming up with a great idea. Not so. The key to creativity is solving the right problem. See, the source of a problem is usually different than it seems. And the fact is, it does absolutely no good to generate ideas for solving the wrong issue. 

We have been taught that the initial impression or definition of a problem is the real problem. We have good reason for this — schools already set up the problems for us. 2+2=4. What is the capital of Poland? Warsaw. But to increase your likelihood of creating a breakthrough idea, it’s crucial to challenge your impression of what you think is the problem.  To do this you’ll generate questions; questions that challenge your initial definition of the problem. Because the language you use to describe a problem is going to dictate the kinds of solutions you generate. 

Let’s say you are doing a Google search. What is the most important thing to do? Ask a good question. But for the purposes of identifying the real problem, you’ll need a creative question. 

A creative question puts forth what you want to create. Not what you want to avoid. For example, “We don’t have enough money.” Good or bad question? Answer: Bad question. In fact, it’s a statement. When you hear that statement, your brain says, “OK, we don’t have any money.” Decision made. Move on.

Let’s try a different approach. “How might we raise the money for this project?” OR “How might we reduce the cost of this project?”Good and creative questions. 

Questions framed in this way provoke your mind to search for solutions. They tell your brain. “Let’s go find some answers. And because we are using the word ‘might,’ these can be any answers. We haven’t made any decisions yet. Look for options.”

The problem we see is the problem we solve. Invest the time identifying the true problem. Generate ideas only after you have clearly identified the best problem.

The time you spend identifying the “real” problem prevents you from generating ideas that are off target and action plans that have no traction.

Dr. Roger Firestien has taught more people to lead the creative process than anyone else in the world. Roger is senior faculty at the Center for Applied Imagination at SUNY Buffalo State and president of Innovation Resources, Inc. He has written six books on innovation. His latest book, Create in A Flash:  A leader’s recipe for breakthrough innovation is available through Amazon or at createinaflashbook.com

Visit RogerFirestien.com for more details.

The post Creativity isn’t coming up with a great idea, it is solving the right problem appeared first on OpenSesame.

Building a blended learning strategy needs to start with the strong foundation of a good learning technology. 50% of L&D professionals say poor user experience is the largest barrier to satisfaction with their learning technology and 88% of businesses cite poor user experience as the number one reason for switching their learning technology solution. When selecting the right learning technology solution there are three main things to consider from the perspective of an admin:

• • Integration with learning management system
  • Metrics/learning analytics available
  • Finding the right courses and curating learning

Once you have the foundation of your learning technology built, it’s time to blend it with other learning strategies so that it is as effective as possible. According to the Brandon Hall Group 2019 Learning strategy survey, an effective blended learning program consists of three types of learning, broken down into roughly these percentages. 

• • 42% Formal- Courses, instructor led, classroom learning 
  • 35% Informal- peer to peer, job shadowing, observation 
  • 23% Experiential- trial and error, learning by doing

Building a blended learning strategy can help you deliver the best possible experience to your learners and your organization.  Learn more and watch the webinar here. 

With courses offered in multiple languages, and available on multiple devices we help companies like yours develop the world’s most developed and admired global workforces. For more information on how OpenSesame can save you time and money by curating the right courses for your organization, contact us at info@opensesame.com today.

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While we are planning for facilities management, social distancing, and providing PPE, employers should also plan for a variety of learning and development initiatives that can ease the transition. For some “returning to work” means simply going back to the office, while for others this means actually coming back to work after being out of work for some period of time.

As with any Learning & Development initiative, understanding your audience and their needs is key. Employees will likely fall into two categories: 

1. those that are excited to get back to work (returning from remote work or furlough) and
2. those that are not (for a variety of reasons)

Your management likely has new things to consider and be trained on, such as new processes and procedures related to health and safety, changing business priorities, and a schedule to safely return employees to work. 

Returning to work provides an opportunity for L&D to help our employees feel supported, cared for, and that their health and safety are a priority, while empathizing with a variety of experiences that people are having through this pandemic. Here are the five areas that should be considered for returning to work: 

1. REQUIRED TRAINING / COMPLIANCE:

• • Were there any required training or deadlines that were missed due to furloughs? Compliance deadlines? 
  • Are there any new requirements, knowledge, or information that you haven’t historically trained on? (e.g. social distancing requirements, PPE training, OSHA safety training) 

2. RETURN TO WORK

• • What training do you want your employees to complete PRIOR to returning to work, will this be required? 
    • COVID safety refresher, hand washing, social distancing, etc.
  • CDC return to work guidelines
  • SHRM guidelines and checklists

3. BUSINESS STRATEGY

• • Have business goals, focus or strategies changed? Do teams need to be trained on new goals? We’ve all seen examples of companies completely changing their product or focus to help during this time. Think of alcohol brands that shifted to producing hand sanitizer, or apparel companies now producing PPE. 
  • What impact has this had on your L&D plans for 2020, including professional development plans, leadership development, or other budgetary impacts? 
    • What was formerly trained in person, large group training, and/or requiring travel? This will likely never be coming back. L&D can, and should, take this opportunity to plan how to improve and modernize their training and development programs to help better train and retain employees. 
    • Where can we implement a blended learning approach, and where can Instructor-Led Training be completely replaced by elearning? 
  • For our leaders and management – what do they need to know? 
    • Has there been any shift in leadership style during this time of crisis? 
    • Flexibility for employees, what considerations should be made for new schedules, new shifts, etc.? 

4. ROLE SPECIFIC

• • Have there been any changes to any of your previous roles? 
    • Many roles have been eliminated or taken on more responsibilities to respond to this new reality. This likely means that employees will have skill/knowledge gaps that we will need to identify and fill. What training is required to ensure these employees are productive? 

5. WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? 

• • With so many changes occurring in companies, it is very likely that L&D has identified new opportunities/knowledge gaps that need to be addressed and planned for. 
  • Gather feedback from your employees, they will be able to provide you with the best information regarding where training will be most beneficial. 
  • Who are your new subject matter experts, or champions that you identified? Who are the employees you can lean on to help drive your program forward? 

It’s possible that for many companies, L&D initiatives have been paused during the pandemic. If that is the case, there are endless opportunities to get ahead on other L&D projects, such as building toolkits, communication plans, 2021 training curriculum year, or getting a solid handle on reporting and metrics for your program. 

At the end of the day, remember we are all dealing with this situation in different ways. Be empathetic with your employees and identify the areas where we can help them succeed and thrive as we continue to grow and learn from this situation. We mentioned “normal” might never quite mean the same thing it did before. This is your chance to redefine that normal for your employees and learners, show them you’re here to help them succeed. 

As organizations around the world prepare for their workforce to return to the workplace, elearning can provide a critical and efficient path to train and prepare employees for the changes they will face.  From staying healthy at work, best practices for safe business travel, to collaborative working with virtual teams, your workforce can return to the workplace more prepared and knowledgeable. These courses are made available free of charge through 15 June 2020.  Please use them to help your employees return to the workplace more prepared and knowledgeable.

The post 5 L&D considerations for returning to the workplace appeared first on OpenSesame.

However, ethics training is important in order to prevent all of us from taking steroids and bribing judges and fixing elections and basically making the world impossible to live in.  But that doesn’t mean it has to be boring.  So here are three simple questions to help you decide if that gift you just got is really a gift or a bribe.  Happiness, engage!

Is the gift standard for your industry?  

Vendors will often take potential clients out to dinner, companies will often fly prospective employees to on-site interviews, and nobody thinks twice about that.  If the thing you’re being offered is normal for your industry, there’s a good chance it’s OK.  After all, if everybody else jumped off the bridge, you probably would too!

Is the ‘Gift’ absurdly exotic?  

The problem with the above question is that some ‘standard’ gifts are so expensive that it’s virtually impossible to trust the person giving it to you.  Pretty much all of us can be bought, which is why Fear Factor was such a popular show.  So remember, kids – if anyone offers to bioengineer a Tyrannosaurus Rex of your very own, don’t get in the car. 

Is the ‘gift’ attached to an expectation of particular behavior or actions on your part?  

And here’s the real question.  The others are pretty obvious; a free dinner is normal, and a free speedboat is probably suspect – which is unfortunate, by the way, because I could totally use a new speedboat to replace the speedboat I don’t currently own.  But gifts that are attached to an expectation that you perform a certain action are almost certainly unethical.  The question I wanted to put here was, “Does the gift feel like a bribe?”  But then I thought that I wouldn’t feel bribed if I were driving my new speedboat, so I came up with a better one. 

I hope that wasn’t too horribly painful.  And basically all this boils down to is:  if you’re going to accept a bribe, make sure it’s big enough that you can live comfortably on it after you get caught and fired.  So if you’re expecting me to accept a free trip to Vegas for the weekend to streamline the process of getting your latest experimental medication approved, you can just keep on walking.  If, however, you’re bringing me a suitcase filled with $247 million in non-sequential bills, I’ll probably at least hear you out.

And then say no, of course.  Prison is not as much fun as it looks on TV – and a lot harder to break out of, too.

The post 3 Easy Ways to Distinguish Between a Gift and a Bribe appeared first on OpenSesame.

When choosing discrimination and harassment training for your organization, consider these four questions: 

1. Is it relevant to your workplace and industry?

Training that is tailored to your organization and workforce adds authenticity and relevance, which can keep employees engaged in learning, instead of checking their phones. Industry-specific video scenarios, images, examples and terminology, along with a message from your CEO demonstrates that your organization is serious about preventing discrimination and harassment. And in the #MeToo era, compliance training should focus on behaviors and the consequences of actions and inactions. 

2. Does it clearly explain discrimination and harassment?

Prevention begins with awareness. Employees and managers need to know how to recognize the different types of harassment, which can be much more nuanced than touching and grabbing. There are many forms of discrimination and the list is growing. Besides federal protections against discrimination — based on religion, race, color, age, sex, pregnancy, disability, etc — there are state and municipal laws that provide additional protections. 

3. Does it teach bystander intervention?

Bystander intervention training is one of the most effective ways to stop inappropriate workplace behavior before it rises to the level of illegal harassment and discrimination. Teaching employees techniques to safely disrupt potentially harmful situations is a way for individuals to show support for targets of misconduct, and be proactive in helping to prevent future incidents.

4. Does it meet or exceed the evolving state training requirements?

Currently, New York, New York City, California, Illinois, Connecticut, Maine and Delaware require employers to provide sexual harassment prevention training to their employees and managers. As more states and municipalities enact sexual harassment prevention laws, organizations need to feel confident that their training is up to date on evolving requirements and guidelines. 

Senior leadership that actively supports a modern, interactive compliance training program focusing on raising awareness and changing behaviors can empower employees. Your team will gain the knowledge and skills to recognize, report, prevent discrimination and harassment, and help foster a culture of respect and inclusion.

Andrew Rawson is the Chief Learning Officer and Co-founder at Traliant. He has more than 25 years of experience in strategy, operations, and marketing. Prior to founding Traliant, Andrew served as the Global Head of Compliance Learning (eLearning) at Thomson Reuters, an information, technology, and services company with more than 60,000 employees. He has held senior management positions in the manufacturing, commercial construction, and software industries.

In addition to being a seasoned professional with a background of diverse organizational experiences, Andrew is a classic lifelong learner. His love of learning inspires him to deliver the most engaging and effective courses possible to the learners that Traliant serves.

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Communication (actually, over communication!) is key when you can no longer just pop over to your coworker’s desk to ask a quick question, or chat in the hallway about a recent meeting follow up. Here are some quick tips and tricks to keep channels open while still respecting your coworkers time. 

Pay attention to calendars and away messages

When you’re in the office you can tell when someone is working and doesn’t want to be disturbed: headphones in, head down, maybe in a designated quiet area or work space in the office? Working from home makes that a little less clear so it is important to pay attention to your coworker’s calendar if they’re set to “away” on your instant messaging system, or have blocked time on the calendar to not be disturbed. 

Mute yourself on large conference calls 

A little background noise on a call with three or four people doesn’t cause much of an interruption, but  in larger groups it can be a major distraction and waste time. Be sure to keep yourself on mute unless you’re the one talking so that the person leading the meeting can have everyone’s undivided attention.

Keep your phone on hand

Your internet connection at home may not be reliable, so make sure to keep your phone close by so that you can call in to any important meetings if your internet is running slow or malfunctioning. Most video conferencing systems have a dial in number to quickly rejoin the meeting if your internet drops. When one person in a meeting can’t speak or be heard, it wastes time and energy for others on the call. 

Avoid multitasking during video conferencing

Think because you aren’t physically in the room together that your coworkers can’t tell that you are multitasking during a virtual meeting? Guess what, they can. Close other browsers or distractions that may tempt you during a virtual meeting out of respect to the meeting organizer and to help stay productive. 

Keep meetings productive and on time

Earlier we mentioned the importance of over communicating and this is especially true for virtual meetings when everyone is working from home. Always have a visible agenda and description so others know why they were invited to a meeting and try to keep meetings starting and ending on time. Since there is less follow up happening to meetings in person, it is good for the meeting organizer to do a recap at the end of the meeting or via email about appropriate next steps and set a follow up meeting if necessary. Over communicating and being clear on next steps is more of a challenge when working virtually than the reminders we get just by physically seeing one another at work. 

If you’re looking for training on how to help your workforce stay productive, manage remote teams and collaborate working from home, we’ve curated a list of courses for organizations. These courses are made available as a public service, free of charge through 15 June 2020. Please use them to help your employees, customers, partners, and families reduce their exposure and spread of the virus. Immediate education and containment are key to saving lives. Sign up for these free courses at go.opensesame.com/free-offer.

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As the world grapples with the impact of coronavirus, we believe elearning can provide a critical and efficient path to rapidly educate employees about preventing the spread of coronavirus as well as how to work and manage remotely. We curated a list of courses about coronavirus preparedness and remote working for training your employees. These courses were first made available as a public service on 14 March, free of charge through 15 June 2020. 

In response to the overwhelming response we have received from organizations all over the world, we are expanding our free offer to include additional topics. Refer to the list below for an overview of the changes and additions that have been made:

20 March 2020: We have added more content on the following topics:

• • Managing remote teams
  • Remote communications
  • Anxiety & mental health
  • Ergonomics

27 March 2020: We have added more content on the following topics:

• • Social Distancing
  • Proper Handwashing Procedure
  • Remote Working 101
  • Coronavirus Preparedness (in French)

13 April 2020: We have added courses to support employees on furlough, so that your workforce can hone their skills, complete training, and return to work more prepared and knowledgeable.

• • Courses for customer-facing service workers (sales, customer service, and more)
  • Courses for office staff
  • Courses for operations personnel (warehouse, factory, and more)

7 May 2020: We’ve curated a list of courses to help your team prepare to return to the workplace, including the following topics.

• • Disinfecting the Workplace for COVID-19
  • Workplace Hygiene
  • Coronavirus Precautions and Prevention: Travel Safely

All of our course publishers are committed to providing the most up-to-date information on the coronavirus in accordance with the CDC and the WHO. Courses are being updated frequently, and learners will receive these updates automatically, ensuring that they have access to the most current information available.

To register for the free courses offer, visit go.opensesame.com/free-offer.  

If you have any questions about this offer or how to access the courses once you have signed up, contact support@opensesame.com.

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If your company has sent employees to to work remotely, you already know this is an adjustment. If you manage a team, you’ll see that the usual day-to-day interactions in the break room, at the coffee machine, or passing in the hallway are gone, and that you and your coworkers may be feeling a bit disconnected. Fortunately, there are many strategies to keep morale high and reinforce team cohesiveness with a distributed workforce. It just takes a bit of planning. Here are a few tips to help managers strengthen their remote teams.

Use video chat

While you can check-in via email, send an instant message or attend a meeting on the phone, nothing beats the ability to see your co-workers face-to-face in a video chat. Seeing facial expressions, hand gestures and, even your co-workers’ home office and cats or family members helps humanize conversations and avoid misunderstandings that can occur in a text message or over the phone.

Create a routine

In the office, social interactions happen without planning. You can stop at a co-worker’s desk as you get coffee or join a group in the lunchroom for a meal. Working remotely requires more intentionality about creating daily touchpoints for you and your team. Here’s a simple schedule of daily check-ins to make sure you stay connected:

• Monday: Schedule a half-hour weekly kick-off meeting where each person shares something from their weekend, presents their goal for the week, and notes any “roadblocks” they may need help with. 
• Team meeting: If you’ve already been running weekly team meetings, keep them up. With less spontaneous moments to share information, the team meeting is important to make sure everyone’s on the same page. 
• Friday: Wrap up with a half-hour review session. Team members share their week. Did they meet their goal for the week? Sharing successes and failures within your team builds trust and promotes growth and continual improvement. 
• Daily standups: For the 2 other days of the week, keep the communication going with a 10 minute standup. In this quick check-in, go around the virtual room and ask each person what they accomplished the day before and what they’re working on today.
• One-on-ones: If you don’t yet do weekly one-on-one meetings with each of your direct reports, now is the time to start. These meetings provide support for your direct and build trust. 

Make space for spontaneous team conversations

Team messaging apps like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Google Hangouts Chat are part of many company cultures, even for teams that work in the same office. But for remote teams, providing a way to quickly share information, make a joke, show pictures of your dog or just say hi is crucial to keeping a team excited and connected. Just keep it professional and appropriate. 

Respect time 

Lots of communication is important for a distributed team to stay connected. But, it is also necessary  for team members to go into “heads-down” mode to get work done. The key is to communicate this clearly. For example, a note to teammates “Hey team, I’ve got to wrap up this report by noon, so I’m turning off Slack and email until then. If it’s urgent, text my phone.”

Without the natural interactions that happen throughout the day in an office, managing a remote team can be challenging. However, by putting together a schedule, providing lots of opportunities for interaction, and making sure you and your team get to see each other daily, you can keep your team strong, connected and productive. 

We’ve curated a list of courses for organizations to help employees excel working from home and also staying safe and productive. These courses are made available as a public service, free of charge through 15 May 2020. Please use them to help your employees, customers, partners, and families reduce their exposure and spread of the virus. Immediate education and containment are key to saving lives.

Sign up for these free courses at go.opensesame.com/free-offer.

The post Managing your remote team appeared first on OpenSesame.

What are the implications of remote first work for both companies and their employees? 

For companies:

1. Communication is key.  An employee can’t walk over to their colleague or manager and ask a question. A manager can’t verbally assign a task to an employee. Seize the opportunity and invest in instant messaging software for your employees such as Slack. 
2. Time management reigns supreme. With more remote workers, you’ll notice how many meetings could have been emails and how many emails should have been meetings. 
3. Work anywhere, anytime. A remote, even if only partial, workforce presents an unique opportunity for organizations to recruit the best talent. You won’t be limited to the talent pool in your city. Hiring remote employees allows hiring managers to find talent anywhere in the country, or even the world. 
4. Training has forever changed. With the coronavirus pandemic, you’ll probably run into the situation where a new hire starts, but most of the company is working from home due to social distancing. What is your new hire supposed to do? Maybe this is the time of the year when your company rolls out an organization-wide training, but not everyone is available to train or be trained. Now what? Most companies are already shifting towards online training or elearning to accomplish training anywhere anytime, but if you haven’t, this is the perfect time to start. 

For employees who are new to working from home:

1. Take a break. Every hour or so, be sure to step away from the computer for 5-10 minutes. Make a cup of coffee, pet the dog, check your mail and stretch your legs. You’ll discover that grandma was right, going on a walk is good for you. 
2. Don’t be embarrassed by background activity. Of course, make the necessary adjustments to your work environment to limit distractions, but if news anchors’ children can run in the background on live television, your customer will forgive you if your kids do the same during a conference call.  
3. Remember to clock out, even if you’re not an hourly employee. There is going to be a point, usually in week two of working from home, that you’ll lose track of time. Morning, noon, and evening becomes one. Choose a time in the day that you’ll turn off the computer and put your phone, at least email and instant-messaging, in do not disturb mode. It can be easy to lose track of time and work longer hours than usual, causing faster burn out. 

OpenSesame’s mission is to help companies develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces. As the world grapples with the impact of coronavirus, we believe elearning can provide a critical and efficient path to rapidly educate employees about preventing the spread of coronavirus as well as how to work and manage remotely. 

We’ve curated a list of courses for organizations to help employees excel working from home and also staying safe during these uneasy times. These courses are made available as a public service, free of charge through 15 May 2020. Please use them to help your employees, customers, partners, and families reduce their exposure and spread of the virus. Immediate education and containment are key to saving lives.

Sign up for these free courses at go.opensesame.com/free-offer.

The post A new workforce reality: “remote first” work appeared first on OpenSesame.

Supervisors are also the ones in an organization uniquely positioned to address warning signs before they escalate, and report warning signs of a potential threat.

Creating a workplace that actively addresses and works to prevent bullying not only creates a positive company culture, but also helps to reduce turnover. In fact 65% of workers who witnessed or experienced bullying in their workplace quit or lost their job because of bullying. 

Threats in the workplace include: 

• Domestic disputes
• Coworker disputes/harassment
• Criminal acts
• Bullying and harassment
• Active shooter situations

Four Steps to Cultivate a Safer Workplace

• Step 1: Know your employees By conducting background checks and references during hiring can prevent a potentially volatile person from joining your organization in the first place. Proper screening is crucial as your company could be found liable for negligence in the hiring process. In addition, if a violent incident should occur you may be obligated to notify future employers of that employee’s background as failing to disclose that information can be considered negligent referral.

• Step 2: Create clear policies Create an environment of respect by establishing a policy that covers everyone in your workplace, from employees to contractors, vendors, and even visitors. This policy should be supported by top level management and be clear about unacceptable behaviors as well as the possible consequences for them. It should also outline procedures for reporting offenses.

• Step 3: Enforce your policies Enforce your policy and enforce it consistently. All reports of bullying, harassment, violence and threats must be taken seriously.

• Step 4: Complete a threat assessment Determine where your company could better protect itself against workplace violence. Teach your employees how to identify warning signs, how to report concerning behavior, and how to deescalate a situation. Deescalation is an especially important skill for managers and supervisors.

You can watch the full webinar “Preventing Bullying and Workplace Violence Through Supervisor and Workplace Training” here. 

With courses offered in multiple languages, and available on multiple devices we help companies like yours develop the world’s most developed and admired global workforces. For more information on how OpenSesame can save you time and money by curating the right courses for your organization, contact us at info@opensesame.com today.

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Finding the embedded catalog in your LMS

How customers accesses the embedded course catalog differs for each of our LMS partners. As of August 2017, the OpenSesame embedded catalog is available in 12 different LMS including SuccessFactors, Saba, Oracle, BlueVolt, Bridge, Docebo, Totara, SkyPrep, CyberTrain, Accord, Axis, and eFront.  We encourage you to contact your LMS representative to find exactly how to access OpenSesame from directly within your LMS, or contact us to learn more.

Browse

There are a few ways to browse the OpenSesame embedded course catalog. Clicking “Search Courses” will take you to our category browsing page where you can select a subject area you’re interested in or search our course content.

As you browse and search the OpenSesame catalog, we suggest that you add items of interest to OpenSesame Lists that you can later spend time reviewing and refining.  When you’re ready, navigate to your list to click through to each course page, review courses in more detail, and select which items you would like to purchase.

Purchase

You can purchase OpenSesame Plus from within the integration or add individual course licenses to your cart from the OpenSesame course pages.  Purchase within OpenSesame using a credit card or fill out our form to sign up to be invoiced

Syncing courses

Once courses have been purchased, you can start building your sync cart to push courses to appear into your LMS.

If you just made a standard license purchase or a site license purchase, the course or course bundle will be automatically added to your sync cart after you complete your purchase.

If you’ve purchased OpenSesame Plus, we highly recommend only syncing the courses from Plus that you expect to assign to your users through the following process:

1. Navigate to OpenSesame search results.

2. Filter search results to OpenSesame Plus content, if it isn’t already filtered for you.

3. Browse and develop your training plan.

4. Add courses to your Sync Cart after you’ve finalized your list by clicking the “Add to Sync Cart” button on each course page.

Get in touch!

Have any questions or comments about LMS integrations or want to learn more? Contact us at support@opensesame.com or call 503.808.1268.

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If you’re one of the 9.6 million currently furthering your education, then non-working hours are likely dedicated to schoolwork, studying and exams. This is why more working professionals prefer mobile elearning as their learning method of choice. Mobile elearning allows you to learn in the few moments of downtime you have wherever you are, whether that happens between meetings, on your commute to work, or during an afternoon break. The added productivity to your day along with the ease of accessing mobile courses are some of the reasons why mobile elearning is rising drastically in demand from businesses like yours.

To find the mobile course offerings from OpenSesame, go to the Courses tab from the OpenSesame homepage and select Browse All Courses (see below).

On the left side of the next screen, select Mobile Ready as one of your search filters. This will narrow the courses to show only the mobile-ready courses that are available. You can continue filtering by subject, price, author and more from there.

We know it’s important totest the compatibility of a mobile course on your device before purchasing. Contact our support team to set up a demo account so you can test any courses you are interested in.

Here are our recommendations to guarantee a successful mobile elearning experience:

• View courses in landscape mode (instead of portrait) is easier on the eyes.

• If using an Apple product such as an iPhone, use an up-to-date version of your Safari or Chrome browser.

• If using an Android mobile device, view courses in on the most up-to-date version of Chrome.

Have any questions or comments about accessing and using mobile elearning courses through OpenSesame, or want to learn more? Contact support@opensesame.com or call (503)808-1268.

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If you purchased a course online with OpenSesame, you can start viewing your course immediately afterward. You can also return to the website to watch the course at a later date or pause halfway through to resume later. Let’s walk through how easy it is to access your course again after you have purchased it.

First, make sure you are logged into your OpenSesame account. After logging in, you will see “Hello ‘Your Name’” in the top right-hand corner of the window (see below). Using the drop-down menu that appears by hovering over your name, navigate to the ‘My Courses’ dashboard to find courses you have purchased.

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