(From Anchorage Daily News) "If you want to become a hero in your workplace, you need to give more than you're getting and willingly travel beyond your job description. This means swimming against the tide of entitlement present in many of your co-workers. According to attorney turned HR consultant Andy Brown, 'employees in the 1980s and '90s have accustomed themselves to getting more and giving less. If we want to fix our damaged economy, we need to reverse this.'"

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Tags: productivity, workplace, development

Categories: News

Winston-Salem, NC (PRWEB) November 16, 2009 -– According to a recent Aberdeen Group study sponsored in part by SilkRoad technology, inc., the leading provider of talent management solutions, organizations targeting learning and development for managers improve performance, customer retention, and revenue, with 51 percent of the top organizations linking learning and development initiatives directly to changes in profitability and revenue.

The report outlines the key learning and development topics used by top performing companies, discusses the most widely used types of learning technologies, and addresses key learning measurement and management strategies.

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Tags: learning investment, roi

Categories: News

PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Staffing levels in IT will remain the same in 2010 as they are now according to a recent survey conducted by Hay Group, the global management consulting firm. Sixty-nine percent of CIOs said their staffing levels will be unchanged in 2010, indicating a ‘bottoming out’ of staff reductions in IT. “Combined with the fact that IT operating budgets are stabilizing means we appear to be coming to the end of a very rough period for IT leadership” said Vincent Milich, Hay Group’s Director of IT Effectiveness.

The web-based survey was conducted in October 2009 with 41 CIOs and IT Executives which addressed business and human resource planning issues for 2010.

When asked what their greatest skills/knowledge gaps are in their organization, fully half of the CIOs cited ‘knowledge of the business’ followed by a third citing ‘technical skill.’ This is quite a turnaround from recent Hay Group surveys that cited project management and people management skills as the top two skill gaps.

“This signifies an ongoing and significant shift in the profession,” according to Milich. “As IT continues to get closer to the business, and packages and vendor solutions require less in-house support, the unique contribution that the IT professional needs to make will be based on their understanding of their industry and organization, and how IT can add value to their business.”

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Tags: it training, talent management, business news

Categories: News

(From CNN Money) "Talent Management in Healthcare," a recent study by Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS), reveals that although healthcare organizations are still struggling with the lack of qualified candidates in the talent market, the primary focus has been on developing and retaining talent. Performance management, engagement, and succession planning are the top strategic emphases for these organizations. Analysis showed that automation of talent management elements, specifically recruitment and learning management, leads the list of enablers that differentiate top performers from the rest of the sample. Utilizing assessments and defining competency profiles are earning organizations substantial gains in employee performance, retention and customer / patient satisfaction.

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Tags: talent management, business news, engagement, succession planning, healthcare

Categories: News

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

If an employee tweets on Twitter or updates his or her Facebook status at work, should an employer cringe and put up a firewall — or congratulate the person for engaging in acts of social media?

Surprisingly, in Silicon Valley it’s increasingly the latter. But for many organizations the pathway is still unclear, as businesses navigate through the emerging world of going social.

Some companies, such as Safeway Corp., allow only a small number of employees to access social media tools at work. The company has run a successful Facebook site where it offers immediate coupons and discounts for fans.

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Tags: workplace, behavior, productivity, web 2.0, social media

Categories: News

Melbourne, FL (PRWEB) November 10, 2009 -- Social networking in the workplace is a major dilemma for today's businesses. The question is: "Does it help or hurt the organization?"

Although the general issue is always the same, the specific challenges vary. They range from productivity losses, to legal risks, to bandwidth drains and security problems. And even more specifically, these challenges are associated with various types of sites that employees often visit for personal reasons. A few years ago, pornography sites presented the greatest challenge, while today social networking sites seem to be 'number one' with Facebook being the most popular.

A survey conducted by Nucleus Research showed that 77 percent of workers who have a Facebook account use it during work hours. Of those who use Facebook at work, 87% said they could not define a clear business reason for accessing the site, and some reported using it as much as two hours per day.

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Tags: workplace, behavior, productivity, web 2.0, social media

Categories: News

Chad Creager trained 45-year-old Marc Moorvitch how to safely use a Tennant auto scrubber for cleaning floors.

"He's a fast learner," said the manager of employment services at Opportunity Partners, a Minnetonka-based nonprofit organization that helps people with disabilities live, learn and work as independently as possible.

In the past, Moorvitch's training with the industrial machine wouldn't have gained him a formal job certification.

But in a collaboration between Opportunity Partners and Dunwoody College of Technology, participants like Moorvitch will be trained using Dunwoody curricula and gain certification for jobs at the same time, while ensuring that their skills training meets the specific needs of employers and industry standards.

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Tags: skills, skills gap, economy, careers, jobs, minnesota

Categories: News

A San Francisco supervisor is at odds with SolarCity over the installer's promise to create a job training program in a low-income neighborhood, a conflict that highlights the city's struggle to create "green" jobs and protect local businesses.

Supervisor Chris Daly is pressing SolarCity to fulfill the pledge it made in April 2008 when it was persuading San Francisco political leaders to pass what became the city-funded GoSolarSF program, which the city touted as the largest municipal solar program in the country (see San Francisco Solar Incentive Becomes Official).

In a committee meeting last week, Daly asked SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive why he hasn't created a job training program in the Bayview-Hunters Point area. Daly, who didn't vote for the GoSolarSF program, said he wanted to keep SolarCity accountable given that its promise influenced the final vote.

"The training academy was dangled in front of us as an incentive to vote for the pilot solar incentive program," Daly said at the meeting (see Nov. 5 video recording). "I'm trying to figure out how to deliver promises that were made." 

Rive said the company had to put the plan to create a job training program on hold because of the financial market collapse last fall, which prompted SolarCity to freeze hiring and suspend other business plans.

Since business has improved this year, SolarCity has re-launched its effort to provide job training, Rive said. Given the feedback it has received from the community, SolarCity is working on supporting an existing job program rather than creating its own, Rive added.

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Tags: california, job training, green jobs, government funding

Categories: News

(Leslie Grossman, The Huffington Post) -- I'm in ecstasy. My New York Yankees won the World Series. And they clinched it 9 minutes before my birthday. I got the best birthday gift money can't buy. My happiness caused me to reflect about why I love the Yankees so much. The answer popped into my head - because of their leadership. Okay, I am a leadership fanatic, maybe not as much as a Yankee fanatic, but, I am obsessed with always looking at why and how people lead. Small businesses and corporations alike might consider looking at the success of the Yankees and ask the same questions.

So here's my assessment on why I believe the NY Yankee team, management, and yes, even, the ownership, show the following leadership abilities:

1. Passion - The New York Yankees have a passion for the game of baseball and for their own teammates. You can see it on their faces, in their enthusiasm and in the fun they have on the field. Their leader Joe Girardi shared a clear vision by choosing the #27 and wearing it boldly on his back for all to see the clear common goal - win the Yankees' 27th World Series. And so they achieved the goal set by the manager within 2 years of his taking on the job as manager.

Read the full article for the remaining leadership abilities.

Tags: leadership, employee development, communication

Categories: News