TM - August 2008 - (Page 37)

Group, training in these soft skills is expected to increase in the coming years. Novations Group President and COO Mike Hyter said, “We’re most struck by the emerging emphasis on encouraging creativity and a higher level of intellectual development. Organizations appear to be seeking to build capacity in terms of promoting employee innovation and talent.” The survey of 3,100 senior human resources executives showed 45 percent of companies reported more focus on creative skills and intellectual development in their training and development efforts. A Brave New Paradigm for Learning To meet employees’ learning needs in this brave new world, a brave new paradigm is emerging. In the clas- of a rapidly growing workforce. Equally important, from an administrative standpoint, solutions must be cost-effective to launch, maintain and modify. Training must be standardized to allow for assessment of progress and effectiveness yet customizable to meet individual goals. Fortunately, the same technology that contributed to this challenge in the ﬁrst place can help address it. For many companies, e-learning is the answer. From a global perspective, it may be the only way to tackle an issue of such size and scope. No one-size-ﬁts-all solution could hope to address the diverse needs of today’s multicultural workforce. Online assessment can be an efﬁcient way to determine the scope of an organization’s business English communication challenges, as well as to identify individual needs and priorities. Aggregate assessment results provide an overall view of organizational need, and individual results can be used to develop an employee’s speciﬁc learning path. Online, self-directed learning keeps content relevant and motivation high; audio, photos, animation, voice recording, illustrations, text and other media can be integrated to create a rich, interactive user experience that engages learners in creative ways. E-learning also is more scalable and affordable than traditional training methods, and unlike the classroom, it offers 24x7 accessibility. Further, the ﬂexibility afforded by a personalized, online approach addresses the learners’ needs at all levels of competency, whether they are novice learners needing structured training, experienced learners requiring knowledge and performance support resources or advanced learners beneﬁting most from access to collaboration tools. Learning in today’s global business environment is not “once and done” but rather a dynamic, evolving process. An online solution can offer the skills development and ongoing performance support for the changing demands of the 21st-century workforce. Business today is conducted on a global scale, and to be productive and successful, employees must work together across borders and cultures. Forward-thinking talent managers will take full advantage of today’s technologies to address the language and culture barriers in their organizations, to facilitate the collaborative sharing of ideas and knowledge, and to enable self-directed learning. Ultimately, the most successful companies in the new knowledge economy will be those that recognize the primary importance of a workforce that can communicate efﬁciently and effectively throughout the enterprise and around the world. Deepak Desai is CEO of GlobalEnglish, an on-demand learning support provider. He can be reached at editor@talentmgt.com. August 2008 sic training model, the instructor drives the learning process. Classes are offered outside the learner’s work environment, and everyone receives the same training, delivered at the same pace as part of a ﬁxed curriculum. Times are changing, however. To be effective in today’s real-time, on-demand, multinational world, learning must take place in the workplace as needs arise, rather than in discrete, disconnected segments. Learners need quick access to on-the-job support, reference tools and feedback mechanisms so they can get help where and when they need it and track their improvement. Solutions must be instantaneously implementable and scalable to meet the demands talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com 37 http://www.talentmgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of TM - August 2008

TM - August 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Human Performance Leading Edge Foundations Global Background Screening Does Global Assessment Work? Global Total Renumeration: Creat One Organization Border Insecurity: Immigration Reform and Talent Management The Global Workforce: Communication Across Cultures Around the World in How Many Days? Insight: Exelon: Performance Under Pressure Special Report: Perspectives on Managing People Application: Reinventing Sales Rewards at Motorola Dashboard: Mideast Meets West Dashboard: Mergers and Acquisitions 2008 - Don’t Leave Employees Behind Editorial Resources Advertisers' Index Full Potential

TM - August 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.