Professional Development and Increasing Employee Engagement for Long Term Success

Project Overview

As companies of every shape and size adapt to an increasingly digital business environment, they need new approaches to Professional Development.  Professional Development is a process and a plan for improving and increasing one’s capabilities for career and/or personal growth through education, conferences, facilitated learning opportunities, and informal learnings/trainings. Professional Development helps build and maintain morale of staff members and is thought to attract and retain top talent.  There are a variety of approaches to Professional Development, including micro learning, course work, consultation, conference lead discussions, reflective supervision and technical assistance.  Organizations must rethink how they develop leaders and improve their workforce capabilities to maintain long term success and growth.

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For Goodwill, at the national and local level, to continue to evolve and meet the needs for future success, quality staff at all levels need to have the resources and training necessary to improve their knowledge, skills, and abilities. To assist with this, Professional Development needs to evolve to meet the needs of Goodwill Industries International (GII) and within the Goodwill membership.  As Information Technology (IT) continues to grow and become more prevalent in everyday life, it is often looked at as a means which can be used to assist with improving Professional Development while allowing autonomy and unique circumstances to be considered for GII and regional territories. 

CFO: “What if we train our employees and they leave?”

CEO: “What if we don’t (train them) and they stay?

    Source Unknown

In the competitive job-market today, organizations need to constantly strive to provide training and learning opportunities – not only to enhance their skills but also to provide opportunities for growth. The more an employee is ‘engaged’ in the workplace, the more he or she will be able to perform. Employee Professional Development offerings are important in all work environments to help employees perform and extract the best out of their work environment.

Team TRUST will review and define Professional Development and an understanding of how it is evolving for today’s workforce.  The team will also do an analysis of the need’s assessment/survey completed by varying members of the Goodwill community and provide an overview of the findings.  During much of the summer the team also contacted and reviewed different training providers to review the options, costs, and viability of services that may or may not work for long term growth.  Finally, Team TRUST will provide an overview of the overall findings and provide recommendations for GII and Goodwill territories on options to improve and provide effective Professional Development. 

Challenge Statement

Employees want opportunities to learn, grow, and advance through Professional Development.  They want to build a career and not just exist at a job. Employers who can provide these Professional Development opportunities can attract top talent and build more loyalty within their workforce.  Employees are more likely to be engaged in Professional Development through learning if they can fit learning around their own schedules. The workday can be unpredictable, and if they’re able to squeeze a lesson in during some downtime, it’s much better for productivity than everyone stopping work at once. It’s possible for development to take place without a huge investment and without leaving the office for a class or conference.  This project will focus on options related to providing modern Professional Development that can be made available to Goodwill employees at multiple levels.  This will be completed through analysis of stated training preferences, needs, and resources that can be used at Goodwill territories which vary in physical size and employee numbers. 

Project Objectives

Trends in Professional Development

Professional Development, for purposes of this research, is defined as a process and plan for improving and increasing an employee’s capabilities for career and/or personal growth through education, conferences, facilitated learning opportunities, and informal learnings/trainings. “Professional development (PD) has existed for a long time.  An incredibly long time. And yet, if you were to travel back in time…you would likely see that much has remained the same.” (Ende, 2016, par. 1-3) Why then is learning and employee development important for companies or the staff tasked with improving their abilities or learning new skills?   Fred Ende in an article for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) explains, “We know that the minute we stop stretching our thinking, we stop being the best…we can be…we have to be provided with opportunities that do not philosophically conflict with what we view as the best way for us to learn.” (Ende, 2016, par. 5) Everything in our lives continues to evolve and change. Education, which was once thought to end at graduation whether from high school, tech school, college, or beyond is now on-going.  “Learning is now viewed as a continuous process throughout the employee lifecycle, without a definitive expiration date. (Harward, Taylor, & Eggleston Schwartz, 2018, par. 4) Although there is still much that remains the same, there is better understanding of the benefits to development for individuals.  “Repetition and practice of learned skills has been shown to increase both knowledge retention and the likelihood the skills will become engrained behaviors.” (Harward et al., 2018, par. 9)

Learning cannot simply be broken down in to a “one size fits all” program that all employees are expected to follow.  “Each job role will require a personalized combination of experience to ensure success.  This blend could include coaching, job shadowing, role-play, game-based learning, classroom training, or e-learning, to name a few” (Harward et al., 2018 par. 11) Positions, job descriptions, and other factors involved with professional and quasi-professional careers continue to evolve and so too must the way everyone on a team learns.  “As our roles become more complex and the way we work more dynamic, L&D (leadership and development) needs to provide access to training ‘anytime, anywhere, on any device.’” (Coe, 2018, par. 4) 

Professional Development in its basic training format can no longer remain a source of information presented to the student in the form of lecture, reading assignments, or other previously utilized one-dimensional formats.  Kiersten DeBrower in her article for the Association for Talent Development notes that “while lengthy training sessions can create dissatisfaction among employees, bite-sized training resources meet the demands of shorted attention spans and allow learners to complete valuable developmental activities in a short time.” (DeBrower, n.d., par. 5) The modern learner wants to be challenged, rewarded, and to excel in small successes.  This presents a challenge for most teaching operations that want learning to be successful and worthwhile though not seen as “gaming” which often describe modern training methods.  “What they (business owners) don’t realize is that gamification is simply a process of building a progressive reward system into training that imitates modern video games.” (Bishop, 2018, par. 7) Cameron Bishop, in an article for Forbes, further states that simple factors such as the awarding of points, badges, and keeping track of leaders in the learning realm can serve as motivational tools until their own internal motivation kicks in.  (Bishop, 2018, par. 7)

In order to understand how to best support GII and the regional territories, it is important to understand what the perceived needs currently are and where the members believe the resources would be most effective.  In order to do that, Team TRUST conducted a survey of various segments of the membership with 185 unique team members responding to the survey/need’s assessment. 

Information gained from the survey was tracked, categorized, and interpreted for use in determining what the membership stated was important and the role Professional Development had in their strategic planning, if any, where they believed resources were most worthwhile, and how best to proceed.

One of the first and most interesting responses from the survey dealt with whether Professional Development for employees was built in to the respondent’s strategic plan.  Of the 185 responses 43 individuals or 23.24% indicated their plan did not include this component. (Survey, Attachment 1X) While it is unknown if they respondents were all from different territories or if they simply lacked knowledge related to the plan, the percent is significant.  Knowing that almost one out of four Goodwill member organizations that responded to the survey do not have professional development as part of their strategic plan is important to the discussion of understanding the starting point for any comprehension the role technology could play in supporting the development of our current, and future, team members.

The team also needed to understand where member organizations were (or would) allocate their training budgets; specifically, the team wanted to know which of the categories of employees, based on the proportion of limited training budgets, would member organizations allocate the most funding to their professional development. The categories were: Entry level staff; Entry level management; Assistant Sales Manager; Sales Manager; and Executive. Of the 185 survey respondents, 61% answered this question (113) with 47 respondents, or almost 42%, indicating Entry-level management would benefit from an investment in Professional Development. Sales Managers (19.47%), entry-level staff (19.47%), and Executive leadership (16.81%) all ranked similarly. (Survey, Attachment 2X) This looked at what respondents chose as their first choice of where to spend their investment. Overall, the numbers stayed very similar when looking at the overall ranking of one through five, with entry-level management being the number one response. It is not known how this compares to where respondents may be spending their training budget today and/or the methods utilized for professional development.

Next, the team felt it was important to gain an understanding of the importance of the various Professional Development activities utilized currently. The survey asked respondents to rank the following activities in order of importance to them: Courses or workshops; webinars; self-paced online learning; conferences/seminars; mentoring; individual research; and networking events. Of the 125 respondents (67.6%) that answered this question, it was very clear that courses or workshops and mentoring were the most important activities in Professional Development. 50 respondents each ranked this as their number 1 choice. However, courses or workshops and conferences/seminars were the highest ranked as number 2. Interestingly, only 8 respondents (6.4%) felt self-paced online learning was the most helpful. Self-paced online learning stayed was consistently ranked approximately 15% most helpful in from 2 through 6. There is opportunity to explore this further to determine why this was ranked this way transitioning to the next question that was asked. (Survey Attachment 3X)

The team needed to know what opportunities were provided by the responding organizations to gain more insight into the previous question. Therefore, respondents were asked to identify which of the seven opportunities were provided by their member organizations by checking all that applied. Again, 125 respondents (67.6%) answered this question – presuming it was the same 125 from the previous question. (Survey, Attachment 4X) Courses or workshops were provided by the most agencies (109 or 87.2%) followed by conferences/seminars (96 or 76.8%). Webinars was the third most popular opportunity being available and/or utilized in 94 agencies (75.2%); When thinking of self-paced online learning, and the use of technology in Professional Development, it was a bit surprising to learn that this opportunity was tied with mentoring in 68 agencies (54.4%). Of significance with this result is that it was tied for the second lowest availability of training opportunities. The team did allow respondents to share “other” opportunities available within their organization. These opportunities included the following responses:

• E-Learning/short e-learning videos

• Individual coaching/assessments

• Book Clubs

• Job shadowing

• Tuition reimbursement

• Community Board service

The respondents were then asked the same question; but, were asked to identify which opportunities should be provided by Goodwill Industries International (GII). The team received 125 responses to the question (67.6%). Conferences/seminars (93.6%) and webinars (92%) were the top responses to this question. Of notable interest here was only 78 respondents (62.4%) felt GII should be providing this type of training opportunity. This is only about a 10% increase from the members that make this type of training opportunity available in their organization. It is not clear if the organizations that make this training opportunity available also feel if GII should be providing this opportunity.

With this background information, the team needed to understand specifically about technology and Professional Development. The first question asked was to determine how interested a member organization would be in a technology-based tool used to enhance Professional Development for employees. Of the 125 responses received (67.6%), almost 85% were extremely interested or very interested (47.2% and 37.6% respectively). No respondents were “not at all interested”. This question appears to confirm the membership understands the significant role technology can play in developing staff more effectively and efficiently.

The survey then asked respondents to share with the team their thoughts on how technology (or a technological solution) could be used to improve Professional Development in their workplace. Again 67.6% responded to this question. The most common themes were:

• Ability to train staff in a more cost-effective and consistent manner
• Technology allows for relevant and up-to-date training/information
• Ease of access
• Self-discovery process versus proctored training
• Flexibility in scheduling the training
• Mobility
• Great accountability of training
• Reduces overall company costs associated with training thereby allowing for more training
• Multiple functions: training tool, compliance management

This information solidified what the team learned in the previous question: a technology solution is a win-win for the organization and employees! The benefits are very clear.

The team then wanted to find out more about the barriers or gaps encountered with a technological option to Professional Development, i.e what was holding people back? Survey respondents could select as many of the presented options that applied. Choices included: no budget; no IT resources; not in the strategic plan; no leadership support; no technological system; none of the above; or other. Of the 125 responses to this question, 35 respondents (28%) indicated they do not have a technology system. Most likely tied to this was 26.4% (33) indicating the lack the IT resources for a technological option to Professional Development. However, the most glaring, albeit not surprising, was 47.2% (59 responses) indicated their organization lacked the budget for such a solution. This creates an opportunity to finding a cost-effective, i.e. affordable, solution. 19.2% identified a technology option as not being in their budget while 16.8% felt there was a lack of leadership support within their organization. It should be noted that 20% of responses felt “none of the above” applied. It is not clear to the team if this means those organizations have a solution in place that is performing well for them, and they are not experiencing any barriers or gaps in their implementation.

This question also elicited very interesting information, by those that marked other, that cannot be overlooked. This included:

• Poor technological skillsets of users – they struggle to use it, so avoid it and/or do not get full advantage from system
• Time availability of staff – spread too thin
• Large numbers of remote workers that need to be reached with limited connectivity
• Lack of consistent network/infrastructure availability
• Lack of personal interest by staff for professional development
• IT staffing/project workload
• Technological solutions lack relationship building/personalization and are not the best way to learn
• Online training is boring, and does not apply to Goodwill’s unique model
• Cost to implement
• Not as effective unless coupled with hands-on training and development

A number of these responses were repeated throughout the responses. It is important to recognize several organizations have budget, time, staffing issues surrounding implementation of a technology solution to Professional Development.

Finally, the team needed to know what technology-based tools/systems were being used by member organizations to enhance Professional Development. The responses include:

• Brainshark – several respondents are using this
• Cornerstone
• GCF LearnFree
• Goodwill U
• WebHR
• Grovo
• Open Future Learning
• Webinars
• Skillsoft
• Yammer
• Paycom

Several respondents indicated they were using homegrown systems, SharePoint solutions, agency specific vendor partner trainings, or nothing at all. Brainshark has been deployed for use in about 38 of the survey respondent’s organizations (30%), while Goodwill U is in use in 5 organizations. Almost all of those that responded are using and/or have used some form of technology for Professional Development.

Project Objectives

a)     Objective 1: To define and understand the Professional Development gaps of the Goodwill network.

i)        Define Professional Development

ii)      Understand the history and evolution of Professional Development

b)     Objective 2: Determine a technological based solution that can be implemented to support and fill the gaps identified by the network.

i)        Research and conduct a Needs Assessment in the Goodwill network

ii)      Evaluate cultural and systemic approaches to Professional Development

c)     Objective 3: To recommend innovative, cost effective technology-based options to make Professional Development more accessible to the entire Goodwill network.

i)        Expected results: Improved access to Professional Development resources for Goodwill’s of varying sizes that can be adjusted based on need and limited budgetary resources.

ii)      Expected benefits: For Goodwill, at the national and local level, to continue to evolve and meet the needs for success, quality staff at all levels need to have the resources and training necessary to improve their knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Methodology/Strategy

TRUST Team III of Goodwill’s Senior Leadership Program (SLP) Cohort XXII utilized resources from both inside GII and the many Goodwill members as well as professional journals, previously published work, and other industry recognized documentation to support and identify options to address our core challenge and objectives.  The team developed a timeline for events and activities to aid in completing all of the necessary work in a timely fashion and to meet the predetermined deadlines established by the Senior Leadership Program (SLP.  Although the dates did allow for additional time around the summer holidays, vacations, and other regular work duties, the timeline did need to be adjusted to allow more time for the needs assessment to be fully developed.  Included in this effort was the development of survey questions that were sufficiently detailed to define the challenges and the information sought.  The initial needs assessment originally had more than 15 questions which were reviewed and either eliminated or combined after an in-depth process for maximum effectiveness.  It was also determined imperative the overall survey be relatively simple and straightforward with no more than ten questions.  During testing all ten questions could be reasonably answered in five to seven minutes. Once completed the needs assessment was sent to list serves including Executive Development Program (EDP), Information Technology (IT), Human Resources (HR), Chief Operating Officers (COO), Workforce Development and Training.  All current Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) were sent the survey directly via email in belief it might catch their attention and not end up in a SPAM folder or simply deleted.

For purposes of clarity and understanding, a definition of Professional Development was discussed and developed by the team that established a foundation for the questions and was included with the survey. 

While the survey was being conducted and the results reviewed and analyzed, team members also researched trends in professional development that utilize resources currently available and that may be scaled up and down for multiple sized Goodwill territories.  As Information Technology (IT) continues to grow and become more prevalent in everyday life, the research also focused on how IT can be used to assist with improving professional development throughout GII and regional territories while allowing autonomy and unique circumstances to be considered. 

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Once the initial responses were reviewed and categorized, team members completed follow-up discussions with a sample component of those who provided their contact information.  The secondary contact was also only completed with those respondents who had indicated they were willing to discuss the information further through either email or phone calls.  This additional follow-up helped to clarify responses that were deemed either confusing or too broad for accurate and meaningful interpretation. 

Members of the team also reached out to technology-based companies that provide training services and resources.  The goals for this included determining what options each had available for including though not limited to delivery, tracking, reporting, accessibility, and cost.    The responses from companies and the options are included in the information included in the research plan/findings section. 

Research Plan/Findings

What is Micro Learning – Microlearning is a learner-centric approach to training designed for the new global workplace, which the mobile revolution has created. Microlearning experiences are highly efficient, capable of delivering complex learning outcomes within the three-to-ten-minute duration of a micro-moment, dozens of which open and close repeatedly during every employee’s workday. It is characterized by mobile delivery of a cohesive variety of learning activities, made from versatile microlearning content formats. When designed as self-reinforcing programs, microlearning imparts rich training experiences that can meet the expectations of a new generation of sophisticated media consumers.

Today’s more complex jobs require your employees to retain a daunting volume of working knowledge. It changes so fast that it’s no longer possible to teach it in periodic classroom courses. And e-learning courses, which have long development cycles, go out of date almost immediately upon release. Even if we could conjure learning programs by waving a wand, employees wouldn’t have time to take them. In 2014, Deloitte found that the average employee already answered 110 emails per day but couldn’t spare more than 24 minutes per week for training.

Microlearning transforms how leadership analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate training. It gives learners a potent, concentrated experience in a simple, timely, and cost-effective manner. Microlearning slides seamlessly into the micro-moments that appear unpredictably every day. It suits younger employees, especially the incoming Generation Z, with their practicality, their willingness to work hard, and their almost magical ability to absorb, process, and communicate information in sophisticated forms, using only their smartphones. Microlearning isn’t only more effective: it makes everyone’s life easier.

The team reviewed and compared several companies for areas including functionality, customization, reporting system and gamification to see if they could meet these deliverables.  Among the companies reviewed the following highlight the 

Absorb – Absorb LMS is one of the top choices of industry leaders and disruptors for LMS. Absorb is used to train internal employees, external customers and partners, or both! Scalable pricing and technology whether you have 100 or 100,000+ users. Absorb has a responsive learner interface that works on any device and includes full e-commerce capabilities.

Team trust completed a research with Absorb and that it was easy to navigate through the system and most of the features we were looking for were there. Absorb allows the administrator to set course curriculum for new employees to be onboarded. Absorb has a social learning feature that allows employees to communicate and collaborate with each other in a threaded commenting section and then rate the courses they’ve taken. The cost of the platform would depend on the number of users and a larger discount given to organizations with five thousand plus users.

Asentia – Founded in 1998, Asentia goes beyond eLearning with an LMS that naturally automates all aspects of a successful blended learning program. Asentia is designed to seamlessly blend the most advanced eLearning technology with time-tested conventional training methods, all within a rich learning ecosystem that fosters collaboration and communication.

Team Trust was not able to receive a demonstration for Asentia, but based on the information from the website, the platform is user friendly. Asentia offers not only eLearning, but also instructor-led-training, on-the-job training, and web conferencing events, in the same system. It integrates well with other platforms such as Asentia API

SalesForce, SharePoint, OpenSesame, ej4, GoToMeeting & GoToTraining, WebEx,PayPal,Authorize.Net, Payroll/HR Systems and Active Directory. The website states it could be taiolerde to meet any organizations training needs. We would recommend this platform if it offered gamification and microlearning component.

Blue Ocean Brain – Blue Ocean Brain is a web-based training application that provides soft skills training through microlearning.  The company was founded in 2010 or 1987 by a group of advisors from Ernst & Young and Deloitte who noticed people weren’t taking the time to learn and invest in their careers (Blue Ocean).  Team Trust researched this company to find the best solution for e-learning.  Blue Ocean Brain’s content is the microlearning approach.  The software will display on a tablet as a kiosk tool for all Goodwill organizations to access or it can be used for sole sourced to individual Goodwill organization.  It is specific to the employee’s journey and leadership. There is a Push content that allows the employer to share videos rapidly within the organization to an employee or an entire department.  If a video is not posted, the employer can upload an external video to the tablet and share the content as well.  Blue Ocean Brain will provide the content to new videos or incorporate the employer’s structured content.  The Push Out is an email generated by the Supervisor or an automated email to remind employees of upcoming learning lessons.  The system is not setup to remind an employee when certifications are expiring or when they have 90 days to complete a lesson.

Contents include Articles, Videos, Gamification, On Demand, and a Leadership Board.

Articles are at your convenience with an array of topics.  Employer and/or employee can assign topics to his or her homepage.  A search key allows the Users to look up any topic.  Some topics have a Question and Answer at the end of the article to test the employee’s skill.  At the end of each topic, there are other featured topics related to your content that easily one click away.

Videos are 2 to 5 minutes in length and can be assigned by the Employer or employee.  This allows the employee to watch videos in quick successions which will not interfere with their daily work schedule.  Videos are accessible by mobile phones.

Gamification allows the Employer to create a game as a lesson for the employee so the employee can learn how to assess a situation.  There are no right or wrong answers, however, the lesson will direct the employee to the appropriate answer.

On Demand allows the User to search directly for content they are interested in learning about.  The system recognizes the User and recommends lessons based on past content.

Leadership Board is an employee Recognition Program that highlights your engaged associates.

It generates real time data on the employee’s lessons by dividing the data in four groups. Group 1 is 24 Hours Leaders; Group 2 is Fast Movers in the last 7 days; Group 3 is Leaders of the Current Month; and Group 4 is All-Time Top Ten.  Each engaged employee is listed with points assigned next to their name.  The points can used as bragging rights, competition, leaders, or used to determine bonuses (refer to PP Sample 1).

Brainer – Founded in 1987, The Brainier LMS creates individualized learning experiences that employees can access anywhere, at any time, and on any device. A capable and functional learning management system for any organization size or configuration. Customers prefer our intuitive UX, finding it much more engaging. It’s through our cost-effective solutions and superior technology that we empower learners, support training & development management, and ultimately exceed overall business objectives. The team researched this product and because it offers training on any device any time and any place. Brainier has a simple drop and drag for content and the content can be from three different sources, imported from a third party, import your existing courses or Brainier will create content for you. brainier integrates well with various user platforms such as UltiPro, J.J. Keller, and SkillSoft. Pricing for organization with about 3,000 employees is ranged at $120,000 to $153,000 per year.

Docebo – Founded in 2005 in Canada Docebo is an artificial intelligence powered Learning Platform and has clients in over 80 countries worldwide and is available in over 40 languages. They have an AI learning platform for enterprise companies around the world. Docebo combines formal, social and experiential learning with skills management to maximize learner performance.

Litmos – Founded in 1996 SAP Litmos is a cloud-based continuous learning platform that unifies learning management, with extended enterprise, prepackaged content, and a content management system. It is designed with learner experience in mind, that allows content to be accessed on any device.

SkillPill – SkillPill was founded in 2007 with a digital learning platform. They began by delivering short and concise training courses which was called “Skill Pills” to mobile. They are one of the top in the production and distribution of micro-learning content, having deployed learning to 120 countries across the globe, serving more than 1 million learners in a range of languages.

I have a demo scheduled Friday September 20^th will have more information then.

Surge9- Surge9 was founded in 2015 by a team of technology entrepreneurs with extensive corporate training experience. Their passion for learning, encapsulated in their motto: The World Can Learn Differently, incubated during years of exploration and experience in creating dozens of mobile apps for diverse enterprise clients in many industries. They are based in Toronto, London and Bangkok, and has developed a secure, scalable, mobile solutions for Fortune 500 companies in the finance, insurance, health, retail, information technology, entertainment and non-profit industry sectors.

Demo scheduled for September 25^th.

V. Deliverable (Refer to the Capstone Project Guidelines for more details)

• Define professional development in the context of Goodwill-done
• What are the most important content needs? e.g. Does our workforce need to work on communication or time management skills?
• Does the platform support measured knowledge transfer; i.e. quizzes?
• Is there a robust backend reporting system?
• What are the most important delivery needs?
• Compare several company’s platforms and offerings-working on
• Discuss the importance around offering just courses vs assigned curriculums
• Discuss the frequency of freshness of content
• Discuss the importance of gamification; e.g. gamification-working on
• Discuss how the company addresses learning reinforcement and follow-up

Provide an implementation strategy including embedding this into a culture statement

Conclusions & Recommendations

There are several conclusions, although none that are surprising, that can be drawn from the work and analysis completed for this project. 

First, Professional Development is important to the long-term success of any agency, organization, or company including GII and the regional territories.  How that training and development is delivered needs modernization along with all aspects of day to day business.  Terms such as “gamification” and “micro-learning” are becoming more and more common in modern Professional Development and will be part of the successful training programs for years to come.

Second, companies including many of the Goodwill territories, need to make Professional Development a priority. Strategic plans need to include a Professional Development component for all individual Goodwill territories.  If a Goodwill territory already includes Professional Development in their plan, the importance of it needs to be clearly communicated to staff at all levels to ensure their individual and collective buy-in.  It is also imperative in helping get everyone fully invested in taking and completing the training for their company’s long-term goals.  Quality training and up-skilling is seldom free, quick, or easy.  Resources need to be committed to Professional Development even if it means partnerships with other Goodwill territories or GII in order to find better cost saving options that include utilizing economies of scale.

Third, there are alternatives available to transition GII and Goodwill territories from singular training options which currently often include classroom sessions, mentoring, webinars, or conferences.  Relatively quick, easily accessible, and tested training options are necessary to update and retain today’s tech-savvy workforce which needs constant reinforcement and praise.  Companies must make the necessary resources available to staff at multiple levels at times that are both convenient for their individual learning needs.  This learning must also be compliant with labor laws and production demands in order to be successful.  Technology based solutions offer those resources via the formats to meet employee and company needs while tracking success and progress.   

Fourth,

Train people well enough so they can leave,

treat them well enough, so they don’t want to

    Sir Richard Branson (2014)

Finally, 

Works Cited (Draft)

• Absorb LMS (n.d.) Retrieved from   https://www.absorblms.com
• Asentia LMS Retrieved from   https://www.asentialms.com
• Brainier LMS (n.d.) Retrieved from   https://www.brainier.com
• Docebo LMS (n.d.) Retrieved from   https://www.docebo.com/lms
• Litmos https://www.litmos.com/
• SkillPill https://skillpill.com/
• Surge9 https://surge9.com/about/

• Bishop, Cameron (2018). Seven Learning and Development Trends To Adopt in 2019. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2018/09/24/seven-learning-and-development-trends-to-adopt-in-2019/#65347100104b
• Blue Ocean Brain. (n.d.) Retrieved from  https://blueoceanbrain.com/about/
• Branson, Sir Richard (2014) Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/richardbranson/status/449220072176107520?lang=en
• Coe, Jim (2018). 5 Impactful L&D Trends to Watch in 2019. Retrieved from https://www.unboxedtechnology.com/2019-training-trends/
• DeBrower, Kiersten. (n.d.) The Top 5 Trends in Learning and Development Retrieved from https://www.td.org/professional-partner-content/the-top-5-trends-in-learning-and-development 
• Ende, Fred (2016). The Journey to Lifelong Learning Begins with Professional Development. Retrieved from http://inservice.ascd.org/the-journey-to-lifelong-learning-begins-with-professional-development/
• Harward, Doug, Ken Taylor & Michelle Eggleston Schwartz (2018).  Trends 2019: Adapting the Training Function to the Complexity of Today’s Business Environment. Retrieved from https://trainingindustry.com/magazine/nov-dec-2018/trends-2019-adapting-the-training-function-to-the-complexity-of-todays-business-environment/