(From the Daily Mail) A number of major firms have banned employees from accessing Twitter, after it emerged that time wasted on social networking websites was costing businesses £1.38billion each year.

A survey published today found that 57 per cent of workers use sites such as Facebook and Twitter during office hours, spending an average of 40 minutes a week posting messages and sending 'tweets'.

The social networking sites have already been banned by many large firms and some City banks.

Tags: uk, social networking, web 2.0

Categories: International | News

I recently returned from a trip to Europe, so I’d like to share with you a brief update. In September I participated in the launch event for our new international partner in the UK, The Learning Sanctuary. I also visited our international partners and members in Ireland and the Netherlands.  I appreciated the exchange of ideas with local practitioners and gained valuable insight into local learning communities and current challenges.

The next trip is scheduled for Denmark, so I hope to share more information with you upon my return.

For upcoming events, please visit the international events calendar.

http://www.astd.org/membership/international/internationalEvents.htm

Tags: international, europe, training, uk, members

Categories: International

I am pleased to share with you some additional details on the partnership launch and member event in the UK. The event will be held at the Ministry of Defence on Monday, September 21, from 10:00 am – 1:00 pm. We will be in the Henry VIII room - an underground room deep in the MOD building with lots of history. Our International Partner, The Learning Sanctuary, has lined up speakers and a sponsor, to provide you with opportunities for networking and professional development. Members and their guests are invited to attend. Space is limited, so please contact us soon if you wish to participate.

The agenda is as follows:

§  10:00 am    Welcome  - Neville Pritchard, Director, the Learning Sanctuary

§  ASTD – The Full Package - Lauren Forgacs, Director, International  Relations, ASTD

§  Challenges for the MOD L&D - Major Andrew Frost

§  ASTD – A Personal View – Lea Toppino, Head of Client Training and Business Development  MetLife

§  ASTD in the UK - Neil Lasher, President of ASTD Global Network UK

§  Synchronous Learning - David Smith, InSync Training eu Ltd

§  The Learning Sanctuary / ASTD International Partner  - Neville Pritchard

§  1:00 pm  Lunch – Sponsored by InSync Training eu Ltd

Tags: international, membership, uk, agenda, partnership

Categories: International

The Government's "lack of action" in breaking down stereotypes in schools is partly to blame for the gender pay gap, according to an official report.

Progress in narrowing the wage difference between men and women is "stalling" and ministers should do more to change the culture in the education system to encourage girls to opt for non-traditional jobs, said the Women and Work Commission.

The group, set up by Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister in 2004 to review the gender pay gap and other employment issues facing women, called on the Government to do more to promote quality flexible and part-time work.

The commission put the gender pay gap at 22.6%, which it said was worse than in 2007 when women were paid 21.9% less per hour than men.

Read the full article.

Tags: uk, gender issues, pay, workplace

Categories: News

(From telegraph.co.uk) BBC executives should be sacked if they fail to meet diversity targets, according to Pat Younge, one of the corporation's top black bosses.

The television industry is still dominated by the white middle and upper classes, he said.

Speaking at an event on diversity, Younge said that although ethnic minority communities are now better represented on screen, little had changed behind the scenes since he started in television in 1991.

"There has been a lot of pressure for change over the years from outside the industry, but there's been no internal pressure, which is what will bring about progress," he told Channel 4 newsreader Krishnan Guru-Murthy.

"At Edinburgh last year, I said that senior executives should be held to account and lose their jobs if they fail to meet diversity targets. I will have my own targets when I join BBC Vision and I must live up to what I've said – or face losing my job. "Diversity will be a big focus for me when I return to the corporation."

Younge, who started his career at LWT (London Weekend Television), singled out ITV for particular criticism at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts event, titled Diversity in the media: personal perspective, which also featured former MP Oona King.

"As far as I'm aware, ITV doesn't have one black or Asian commissioning editor and it really shows," he said.

Read the entire article.

Tags: diversity, business news, workplace, uk

Categories: News

(From Advertising Age) The British government wants its many departments to avoid having dry, by-the-numbers Twitter feeds, so it's issued a 20-page internal strategy document to help them best use the microblogging service.

With 36,215 characters and spaces, it would take roughly 259 separate tweets to spread the word about the document on Twitter.

The guide is written by Neil Williams, head of corporate digital channels at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, who introduces it thusly: "You might think a 20-page strategy a bit over the top for a tool like Twitter ... but I was surprised by just how much there is to say -- and quite how worth saying it is."

Read the entire article.

Tags: social media, workplace, technology, web 2.0, twitter, uk

Categories: News

(From Personneltoday.com) According to the CIPD Learning & Development Survey 2009, the development of management and leadership skills will play a central role in meeting business objectives over the next two years. A key enabler of effective talent development is a clear commitment from the leadership team, while the greatest barriers tend to be the time and cost associated with running talent management schemes. In the current climate, where numerous short-term priorities consume both people and financial resources how can organisations achieve this longer term commitment to talent development?

Read the full release.

Tags: uk, talent management, leadership, employee development

Categories: News

(By Dave Baily--Computing) UK IT managers devote more of their budget to innovation and green IT than their global counterparts, according to a Microsoft-commissioned survey carried out by market research firm Harris Interactive.

The research suggests that UK IT leaders allocate 41 per cent of their spend to innovation, while their German and US counterparts allocate 35 per cent and 29 per cent respectively.

On green issues, while 84 per cent of global IT professionals consider green factors to be important, these factors only had a significant influence on decisions at 44 per cent of organisations surveyed. Again, the UK led in this area, with 15 per cent of UK firms considering green issues to be a major factors, compared with nine per cent in the US, eight per cent in Germany and six per cent in Japan.

Read the full article.

Tags: uk, innovation, technology, corporate social responsibility

Categories: News

A PIONEERING training course for the mental health and wellbeing of employees has been developed throughout the region.

A group of mental health professionals and those with experience of mental health problems, led by Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Trust, have developed the Stress at Work programme to help employers educate workers about the importance of mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.

Read the full article.

Tags: training, stress, workplace, uk

Categories: News

These days when we retire we are in general much fitter than the previous generation and potentially have some 25-30 years of active life ahead of us. The change from a work environment to one where there is no structure and nobody telling us what to do is dramatic and one of the biggest changes of our lives. Whatever number of hours we worked and spent travelling to work, and whatever aspirations we have for retirement, filling 40-50 hours each week on top of previous leisure time, for the next 25 years, is a major challenge.

That's why going on a pre-retirement course can be one of the best things you can do.

An independent study run by the University of Greenwich found that amongst people approaching retirement and in retirement, those who had been on a pre-retirement course were 19% more satisfied with life than those who had not been on a course. Dr. Oliver Robinson commented "this was a highly 'statistically significant' finding, therefore it was hugely unlikely the difference found between course attenders and non-attenders was due to chance. This data could suggest that a pre-retirement course is one deciding factor in whether retirement is experienced positively or not."

Read the entire release.

Tags: uk, retirement, training, change

Categories: News