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The relationship between learning and memory is incredibly close and intertwined. It is almost impossible for an individual to truly learn something without also having the memory to retain what they have learned. 

In episode 22 of the Learning with Go1 podcast, we are joined by Learning Scientist Lauren Waldman and Cognitive Neuroscientist Dr Elliott Jardin to talk about learning and memory, the operational function of our brains, and how understanding humans in the workplace can translate into more effective learning design. 

Check out some of our favourite highlights below.  

The complicated relationship between stress and memory 

When it comes to memory, there are plenty of studies that show us that stress is not a bad thing when it comes to learning memory encoding. It's the level and how much we can take however that has become a hot topic, especially as we find ourselves adjusting to this new world of work.  

So, how much stress is good, and how much stress is bad? And, is there a particular threshold that people pass where it starts to become detrimental to their ability to memorise, learn and retain information? Dr Jardin dives deeper into this below. 

The complicated relationship between stress and memory

The importance of learning about our brains 

So how does knowing about our brains help us as learning professionals - and everyday humans for that matter?  

Having a baseline understanding of our own cognitive resources allows us to not only be more aware and understanding of the limitations of those around us but enables us to help to protect them as well.  

For those who are responsible for designing learning, it gives a higher awareness of what can be done in the design itself to make it more operationally functional for the people who are on the other side of the screen or sitting at the other side of the desk, as Lauren explains below. 

The importance of learning about our brains

The value of sleep when it comes to learning 

One of the biggest preparations for your brain to learn is giving your brain adequate rest.  

Research suggests that the quantity and quality of sleep have a profound impact on learning and memory. So whether it's connecting different ideas or different types of motor learning, the importance of sleep really can't be overstated, as Dr Jardin explains below. 

The value of sleep when it comes to learning

When you learn something new, the best way to remember it is to sleep on it. 

In our daily lives, we're constantly bombarded by stimuli all around us. These are noises, colours, scents and much much more. With everything around us, there is only so much we can pay attention to at any one time. We need to be strategic about what we focus our cognitive energy on so that we can prime our brains to be in the best position for learning. This can be assisted through the practice of mindfulness. 

Mindfulness as a tool for the brain

If you haven’t already, listen to the full podcast here to learn more. 

We look forward to continuing the rest of the series with L&D professionals already scheduled to join us from Italy, Cyprus, Eqypt, Oman, Finland, The Netherlands, Australia, USA and many more. Stay tuned!  

Want to hear more? Browse the full Learning with Go1 podcast library on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify to help expand your knowledge of all things L&D. And hear how other organisations are navigating through this ever-evolving landscape. 

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Episode 22 of the Learning with Go1 podcast is now live! Joining us is Learning Scientist Lauren Waldman and Cognitive Neuroscientist Dr Elliott Jardin to discuss the importance of preparing your brain for learning.

The importance of preparing your brain for learning with Lauren Waldman and Dr Elliott Jardin 

Episode 22 of the Learning with Go1 podcast is now live! Joining us is Learning Scientist Lauren Waldman and Cognitive Neuroscientist Dr Elliott Jardin to discuss the importance of preparing your brain for learning. 

The importance of preparing your brain for learning 

We all know by now that consistent learning and development is essential for just about every industry. What may be less obvious is how to best carry out this learning to ensure participants are getting the most out of it. What are some techniques that L&D leaders in all industries can bring to their learners and how can we help learners to then apply those techniques in their everyday work?

In episode 21 of the Learning with Go1 podcast, Lars Ruud, Global Learning and Development Partner with Wilhelmsen Group, joins our host Craig Hamill to discuss effective implementation and maintenance of workplace L&D strategies. 

Throughout the podcast, they share insights into their personal experience with how L&D leaders can create a learning culture that keeps participants coming back through specific techniques. They also discuss how these techniques not only help with learning but with the implementation of that learning in participants' work outside of the training.

Check out some of our favourite highlights from the podcast below.

What are the benefits of digital training?

One of the biggest changes to workplaces all over the world in recent years has been an increase in digital communication. More than just emails, workplaces are now turning to instant messaging and video conference platforms as a major means of communication, whether it be for day to day tasks or training.

In this section of the podcast, Lars goes into detail about how conducting training digitally can help eliminate some of the inefficiencies that can often occur when attempting to gather people from all over the world for training.

The benefits of digital training

It's a no brainer that when we are excited about a task that we are more likely to be motivated to complete that task. Lars provides insight into how we can harness technology to help bring excitement and emotion to digital training and therefore provide more benefits for the participants. Craig then shares how people that work in L&D are often very passionate about what they do and if they are able to relay that passion to the workforce, "we're on to a winner".

Excitement as a motivator

How do you know when you've achieved success?

We've mentioned before that L&D is something that is essential for just about every industry; it can therefore seem difficult to measure the success of L&D in a way that's as universally applicable as possible. Lars discusses this challenge and how determining this success is often easier in industries like sales where success is measurable through statistics.

"When it comes to the salespeople success stories, we have people who have officially come out and said, hey, I tried this and I finally closed the sale. And that's something that's really very powerful in terms of helping other people see that maybe I need to do something different. Maybe I need to try something new."

If you haven’t already, listen to the full podcast here to learn more.

Want to hear more? Browse the full Learning with Go1 podcast library on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify to help expand your knowledge of all things L&D and hear how other organisations are navigating this ever-evolving landscape.  

Episode 21 of the Learning with Go1 podcast is now live! Joining us is Lars Ruud, Global L&D Partner with Wilhelmsen Group, to discuss creating and maintaining an effective learning culture.

Creating and maintaining an effective learning culture

By highlighting content gaps and areas where we want to fill out our offering, we hope to influence your roadmaps for the year ahead and position you strongly within our library!

The big headlines: Customers want language options. The more the better. As Go1 becomes increasingly global, our customers want European and Middle Eastern languages on top of English. Additionally, having courses discoverable in foreign languages through the search function is a strong preference. Though having language options through a dropdown menu function is also great.

Having multiple language options for courses drives consumption for customers with a global workforce, which are typically larger in size, and it extends your content’s reach to new markets.

The top five languages in demand from North American customers are: Spanish, Canadian French, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Japanese. For Europe, they are: French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and German.

In terms of topic areas, based on an internal survey of our Account Executives and Customer Success Managers in the US, UK, and Australia, this is what we’ve learned:

*Language Learning is in greater demand from our EMEA markets while Anti-Harassment trainings are requested more in the US.

We also see requests for courses in Coding, Smartsheets, Autocad Civil 3D, Forex, and Web Development (software applications such as Maven, TeamCity, ELM and Grafana). Finally, related to DE&I, we also have demand for Allyship and Intersectionality as topics.

Beneath the headlines: There is a strong demand for continuing education credits, as well as course certifications embedded in your SCORM files where appropriate. These credits are particularly important for medical, nursing and health sector customers. For the US, OSHA certified is also sought after.

Harassment trainings are widely requested and having these courses reflect specific business and industry settings enhances our ability to service different verticals. For instance, a sexual harassment training with video that is set in an office environment is of little interest to customers servicing construction-site based workers.

For leadership courses, there is a demand for subtopics like giving feedback, conducting a performance review, and being a first-time manager. There is also a strong demand for these courses to showcase actors in business-casual, rather than formal business attire. Business suits, for instance, do not reflect many of our prospects’ workforce, especially in the Covid-era. Retail, pharma, and healthcare are just some verticals where these content requests are coming from.

For Finance/FinTech courses: there is a need for non-banking compliance, high quality general finance, and interactive content that brings the topic to life. Many finance-related customers and prospects do not specifically need banking content but rather more generalized courses.

For 2022: We plan to build on the insights here and available to you in your dashboard. We are currently surveying partners to better understand what is important for you, and we will be making modifications in the year ahead to deepen the value you get from being in the Go1 family of content partners.

In the meantime, Happy New Year from Go1 Content Partner Success!

As we move into 2022, Go1's Content Partner Success Team share some topline insights from our enterprise prospects and customers.

2022 Insights for Content Partners!

As we move into 2022, the Content Partner Success Team wants to share some topline insights from our enterprise prospects and customers, as well as internal Go1 stakeholders. 

For many professionals, the start of a new year is the perfect time to map out career growth and development plans. We look ahead and seek out learning or re-skilling opportunities while considering how our current employer lines up with our own career plans.  

If an organization wants to retain its best employees, this is the time to align with each team member's plans for growth.  

When an organization focuses on recognizing and developing in-house talent, they have a competitive advantage. Creating solid (and personalized) leadership pathways for employees is no simple set and forget task, but rather requires collaborative and invested participants and programs.  

Deloitte recently emphasized the need to seek to apply rigorous, structured, scientific approaches to succession planning and development, aiming to identify potential leaders earlier and fast-track them into leadership positions. 

With successful leadership pathways in place, an organization attracts many positive impacts, three of which are highlighted here, Retention, Diversity, and Engagement. 

A lack of career development has consistently been a leading reason employees quit. The Work Institute reported it as the primary reason people left for a consecutive nine years up to 2019 and Deloitte’s 2020 Talent Report identified it as the main reason respondents begin searching for new employment.  

A staggering 87% of millennials also cite access to professional development as being very important to their decision to stay or go in their current jobs. Considering millennials now make up the largest generation group of employees in the U.S., whatever is crucial to them should be considered crucial to any organizations wishing to retain them.  

This isn’t a case of ‘promote anyone who is considering leaving’, but rather a longer-term involvement in each employee’s career progression plans, then mapped against clear leadership pathways.  

Much of this will often fall on direct managers, and their ability to hold regular conversations around career and learning goals. These conversations are then best supported by larger learning and development, mentoring and internal recruitment structures.  

Developing a diverse leadership cohort in-house has widespread positive organizational impacts, from engagement and innovation to employee feelings of belonging and inclusion.  

Unfortunately, many barriers remain in place to encouraging leadership equity within an organization. Namely, a lack of mentors and role models, stereotyping and preconceptions of roles and abilities and exclusion from informal networks of communication have all been identified as significant barriers to career advancement for women and people of color.  

Even within companies with diversity plans in place, there is often bias and stigma affecting career progression. 88% of surveyed diversity and inclusion managers see bias in their organization’s career development and promotions.  

This identifies a need for structured and empathetic pathways that support career progression for current staff of diverse or traditionally marginalized backgrounds. This goes hand in hand with any external recruitment's diversity plans, and together help address the attraction, retention and development of a more diverse workforce and leadership panel. 

The American Psychological Association notes that the identification and development of diverse talent is a critical intervention to the chance that women and people of color will find work environments inclusive, fair and be willing to stay and progress.  

In 2017, Gallup research found that only 33% of American workers were engaged at work, with another 52% just showing up and 17% describing themselves as actively disengaged. Scary numbers to say the least.  

Boosting your employee's engagement will always be a complex and ongoing process, as was discussed in a recent webinar where Go1’s David Hastings was joined by Lauren Waldman, Chief Learning Scientist, and Alex Bailey, CEO of Bailey & French. You can catch up on the recorded version of this insightful webinar here.  

Two of the greatest impacts on employee engagement, as identified by Quantum Workplace research, are: 

The leaders of the organization value people as their most important resource 

The organization makes investments to make employees more successful 

When employees see their future selves prioritized at work, they show up more authentically and engaged. Your investment in each employee’s career says a lot about your culture, fostering trust and increased innovation within teams. 

Wharton similarly state that employees want to be invested in. Providing formal growth opportunities shows that you value your people. 

So, as many of your employees consider their future career progression, ensure your organization has suitable leadership pathway structures in place. You will retain and develop more engaged, diverse and innovative employees and will stabilize future organizational growth with established leaders.  

For more insights into training and developing your workforce, be sure to subscribe to the Go1 newsletter. Or you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs. 

You may also like to read, L&D's role in addressing the Great Resignation.  

What happens when organizations choose to focus on developing leaders in-house.

Finding organizational magic in leadership pathways

2021 has been a year like no other. Not just for the Learning with Go1 Podcast, but for the entire world. We have seen and experienced so much this year in the world of L&D, so how can you recap a year like 2021? 

Well, if we take a look back at the catalogue of podcast episodes released in 2021, you may notice many similar themes running through them. From hybrid learning to upskilling & reskilling to closing the skills gap, there are many commonalities between our various guests who have shared their perspectives on how the L&D industry has evolved over the last 18 months. 

If you're ready to take a trip down memory lane and explore some of the best bits from the Learning with Go1 archive, keep on reading below!

What is hybrid learning and what's its impact on L&D? 

In this episode of the series, Craig was joined by the founders of Quantum Rise Talent Group, Erica Farmer and Hayley Bird, to talk about how hybrid learning can drive digital transformation. 

As businesses look to adopt new approaches to workplace learning with varying degrees of flexibility, hybrid learning allows L&D teams to rise above and reshape their learning experiences, as Erica explains below.  

How can hybrid learning drive digital transformation?

The skills gap is increasing faster than we are educating people  

As the flow of work changes, learning will change with it. David Blake, former CEO & Cofounder, now Executive Chairman of Degreed joined us to discuss whether universities need to do more to support the lifelong career of their students.  
 

The need for lifelong learning

In this episode, Global Head of Learning Design & Technologies Josh Novelle, joined us to discuss the experience and challenges of launching digital learning for the first time.  

L&D calls for people who challenge the status quo, who can dig deep to get to the root of a problem and understand it to its core. This requires a skill that is not often thought about but is essential when it comes to building a successful L&D strategy - and that is, curiosity. 

Listen as Josh explains the growing role of curiosity in L&D below.   

Developing a practice of curiosity

What skills do L&D teams need to succeed? 

With the evolution of technology, organisations are starting to diverge in the way they operate. The skills that were once needed may not be as relevant anymore, and we’re seeing a shift of focus onto developing future ready skills so that L&D teams can stay up-to-date.  

In Episode 12, Head of Learning & Development at Vitality, Seb Tindall discussed the skills L&D teams need to deliver high performing L&D programmes in 2021 and beyond. 
 

Are your team's L&D skills still relevant?

The future of skills and learning technology 

Only 1% of L&D believe learning will go back to what it was before the pandemic. 

Considering this, Fosway's David Perring came on to discuss how L&D can choose the right digital learning solutions and get more involved in directing the talent development of their organisation, as well as measuring learning success with increased data points. 

Measuring the success of L&D

We’d like to give a huge thanks to our amazing guests this year for helping us make this podcast happen. And to our listeners for your support and overwhelmingly positive encouragement and feedback. We will be back next year to continue the conversation about how other organisations are navigating through this ever-evolving landscape of L&D.

Want to hear more? Browse the full Learning with Go1 podcast library on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify to help expand your knowledge of all things L&D. While you’re there, don’t forget to subscribe!  

2021 has been a year like no other. If you're ready to take a trip down memory lane and explore some of the best bits from the Learning with Go1 podcast, keep on reading...

Learning with Go1 Podcast - taking a look back at 2021  

Professional development is not only beneficial to your employees, it also has many advantages for your business overall. By boosting the professional skills of your people, you help them achieve their career goals and enable them to provide a better service to your customers and clients.

There are many factors that go into being a good employer, and one particularly important aspect is professional development. But what is professional development, and how can you ensure you’re allowing your employees to learn, grow, and achieve job satisfaction?

Professional development can take several forms, but all have the same purpose: to offer employees training and development to upskill them, increase their confidence, and keep on top of ever changing technology and business landscapes.

With the right professional development training, it will help your people to:

Progress through your business and achieve their goals

Balancing learning with day-to-day duties

It can sometimes be difficult to find a balance between professional development and ensuring employees can continue with their daily tasks and duties. Finding times that suit multiple employees can be almost impossible to arrange - especially as people spend more time working in a remote or hybrid environment.

However, there are solutions to this which means employees can receive the training and development they want while ensuring they don’t fall behind in their duties. We’ll discuss these options below, along with types of professional development and how encouraging it benefits your business.

Why is professional development important?

The importance of professional development shouldn’t be underestimated. From an employees point of view, those who are career driven and have set goals will want to make sure their employer is helping them to achieve them. Allowing employees the ability to grow and improve their professional skills will be rewarding not only for them, but for your company as well.

We’ve explored why professional development is important from an employee, but it can also be an invaluable tool for your business for a multitude of reasons.

So, why is professional development important? If you encourage professional growth, it will benefit your business in a number of ways.

A business that encourages training and development is one that’s going to appeal to professional, career-driven people. Nobody is going to produce their best work knowing that their career is stagnant - so by training your employees you’re putting them in the best position possible to reach their goals.

As a result, not only will you improve employee retention, but also entice some of the best and brightest talents your industry has to offer. Recruitment is expensive and comes with a certain degree of risk - so it benefits employers to upskill their existing, trustworthy teams and attract the right people.

If employees feel that their employer values them then they’re far more likely to have boosted motivation and feel fulfilled in their roles. And when an employee is motivated, they’re going to produce better results for your customers and, ultimately, you.

Build confidence and encourage collaboration

When teams have confidence in each other, they’re far more likely to collaborate. Only when they collaborate and have trust in one another will teams produce their best work.

When employees are provided with the right training and development, they’ll be given all the skills and knowledge they need to do their job well. As they learn new skills, procedures, and ways of working, when these are put into practice they’ll have higher levels of efficiency. That means better results in a shorter amount of time.

With their new skills, your employees will even be in a better position to offer suggestions and improvements to your business as a whole.

By encouraging professional development you increase the credibility of your business in two ways:

You’ll be known as a strong employer within your industry, and that you care about your employees, and

Being able to showcase to your clients that your people are highly trained will improve their trust in your business

These points will help you to attract both new clients and the best talent to fill new roles.

Improve the succession planning process 

By training multiple members of your team on skills that are crucial to the business, it enables your business to run smoothly as team members leave or retire. Upskilling current employees is far more cost-effective than recruiting, especially management and senior-level staff.

Due to workloads and the difficulties involved with organizing for office-based, remote, and hybrid employees, e-learning is becoming the preferred method for developing employees’ skills. There are two main types of development and learning:

Synchronous learning means each student is taught together, in a tutor-led online or physical environment. It requires students to come together to learn as a group at set dates, times, and locations.

Asynchronous learning is self-directed, with all the material provided to the student who can learn as and when they have the capacity.

Our post on the benefits of self-directed learning goes into detail about asynchronous learning, as well as the importance of self-leadership in adult learning.

Asynchronous learning is an increasingly common option for many businesses, as it allows employees to learn consistently, even if they’re unable to do so at the same time. It’s also cost-effective and reduces pressure by being self-directed.