I have heard from a few folks already about the plans they have to celebrate Employee Learning Week in their companies, organizations, and ASTD chapters. It is so exciting to see folks getting psyched about promoting the value of learning! Remember there are lots of tools on the Employee Learning Week website - including downloadable logos, public service announcements to send to your local radio stations, and press release templates to announce your activities to your local press. You'll find everything at www.employeelearningweek.org. Remeber to send me an email, letting me know what you've done to celebrate ELW and we will send you a Champion of Learning certificate to recognize your efforts! You can email me at kfyfe@astd.org.

Tags: employee learning week, chapters, champion of learning, astd, elw

Categories: ASTD in the News | Chapters | Government | International | Membership

When it comes to the workplace, Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y populations may be more similar than previously thought, according to a Conference Board of Canada study released Monday.

The study, entitled "Winning the Generation Wars: Making the Most of Generational Differences and Similarities in the Workplace," suggests ways to beat negative and inaccurate stereotypes that can dominate the office environment and hinder team performance.

"This research shows each generation includes workers with similar personality types, workplace motivations, and social behaviours. Workers from all three generations want respect, flexibility, fairness, and the opportunity to do interesting and rewarding work," Tim Krywulak, senior research associate on the study, said.

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Tags: canada, workplace, generations, baby boomers, generation x, generation y, diversity

Categories: International | News | Research

Australia could face a shortfall of 1.4 million workers by 2025, according to a new report.

The Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VECCI) is presenting its "Workplace Futures Report" to a summit in Melbourne today.

VECCI says the nation's ageing population will impact on skills and older Australians need to be encouraged into the work force.

Spokesman Andrew Rimington says older workers need more flexible options.

"We have seen, for instance, the level of work force participation rate of the aged 55 to 59 age group over the last year increase to a record level during a time of economic downturn," he said.

"The increase of older workers in the work force does create consideration of issues around job re-design and flexible practice, shorter working hours perhaps, part time arrangements."

The VECCI report says Victorian employers could face a shortfall of about 440,000.

The report says Victoria's population will reach to 6.7 million in 15 years, but work force growth will decline, because of the ageing population.

View the article source.

Tags: australia, generations, older workers, retirement, retention

Categories: International | News | Research

The 24-year-old software verification employee of South Korean-invested Kraze Vina is taking a business administration course through the TOPICA electronic learning (E-learning) program at Hanoi Open University.

What makes the two-year course so interesting is that Ha’s teachers, several of whom are businesspeople, often use real-life situations to get their point across.

“Real examples help us understand the lessons quicker, and we can watch the same lectures as many times as we want,” she told Thanh Nien Weekly.

Like Ha, many students and employees are taking the course to learn things that universities don’t teach.

Some 1,900 students and 105 entrepreneurs have registered for the “1,000 Businesspeople Share Their Experience with Youth via E-learning” study program co-organized by TOPICA, the Vietnam Youth Association and the Vietnam Young Entrepreneurs Association.

Over the next two years, the program is expected to train 30,000 students and 1,000 businesspeople.

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Tags: e-learning, business news, vietnam, asia

Categories: International | News

ASTD President and CEO Tony Bingham, and long-time workplace educator and business writer Marcia Conner, are collaborating on a new book to be released in Spring 2010 that examines the use of social media for learning. The book will present stories and case studies of companies using social media effectively. Bingham is inviting members to collaborate on this project by sending their stories and ideas for case studies.

YOU CAN HELP! Is your organization using social software for learning? Are they thinking about it? What questions would you like answered in this book? Email your ideas or background about your organization’s use of social media in learning to press@astd.org and help Tony and Marcia make this a book as powerful as possible. Be sure to include your contact information so the writers can get in touch with you for more details.

Tags: international, book, social media

Categories: International

Women have come a long way in the workplace, helped by legislation and the recognition by many companies that diversity and gender is something they should "get." But diversity's move into the mainstream corporate world has its disadvantages. It can make more subtle discrimination harder to spot and tougher to deal with.

And news about gender often tells a different story to the happy corporate spin about progress for women at work.

News outlets reported on Monday for example that two guardians of Britain's historic Tower of London have been suspended after the first woman warden or "Beefeater" in the Tower's 524-year history accused them of harassment. "If you talk today to people in the workplace they construct the workplace as gender neutral," said Elisabeth Kelan, author of a new book, "Performing Gender at Work."

"They assume that gender no longer matters in 2009 because the issue has long been solved."

Kelan calls this phenomenon "gender fatigue," which she says will make it more challenging to tackle the discrimination that still happens in the workplace but in more subtle ways.

"Gender fatigue actually refers to the phenomenon that people lack the energy to construct the workplace again and again as gender neutral despite the fact that discrimination continues to exist."

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Tags: london, gender issues, workplace, diversity

Categories: International | News

(From AllAfrica.com) Accra — Mining giant AngloGold Ashanti has admitted first time since its operation in Ghana that it had not been good listeners with respect to its business culture, traditions and way of doing business in the country.

"We have previously made the mistake of underestimating local skills, while not looking to support our high level skills with the appropriate global operating and technical skills.

The net impact is we have too many expatriate working in areas where local Ghanaians should have the requisite skills and we are short where we see very specific global technical skill requirements," said Group Chief Executive of AngloGold, Mark Cutifani.

Cutifani was delivering the first in the series of annual AngloGold Ashanti Lectures on Business in Africa at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon.

In an interview with The Chronicle, Cutifani noted that it was imperative for governments and its local partners to consider as a priority area, an investment in local needs and allocate capital to help support the infrastructural development in those areas of investments.

"When governments look to partnering us in investments we must first understand what the local needs are, and allocate capital to help support the infrastructural development within those areas and also do more for the development of new industries that can live beyond mining."

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Tags: ghana, africa, skills, development, public sector

Categories: International | News

(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

(From thegovmonitor.com) The Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, today announced that all apprenticeships and vocational education training packages will be reviewed to ensure that they include relevant green skills by March next year, and that all courses will be revised to include the new green skills by the end of 2010.

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Tags: training, business news, australia, green, green training

Categories: International | News

PETALING JAYA, Oct 7 (Bernama) -- Australia's Victoria state government is willing to assist and exchange experiences with Malaysia in the area of skills and vocational training.

State minister for regional and rural development, skills and workforce participation Jacinta Allan said, among the areas could be in teacher training, co-curiculum development and quality and regulations.

"There is the opportunity to share ideas, materials and learning," she told Bernama after delivering a lecture, 'Woman in High Office', at the Monash University, Sunway Campus here on Wednesday.

She arrived in Malaysia yesterday for a two-day working visit where she held discussions with officials of the higher education ministry and ministry of rural and regional development.

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Tags: training, business news, australia, malaysia

Categories: International | News