How can online community help build team culture, especially for remote teams?

If you’ve read our article on being a successful remote worker, you’ll know that remote work has become increasingly common in the modern workforce, with more companies supporting and encouraging the idea of employees working from home.

As the world continues to grow smaller through technology, geography has become less important for employers. Companies have the ability to hire new talent with the right skills, knowledge and experience, regardless of location. And for individuals, remote working provides the freedom to choose where and when they work, with the opportunity for more flexible hours and a greater sense of autonomy.

We’ve also talked a lot about work culture and the importance of hiring employees that are a good cultural fit for your organization, with many clear benefits for both parties. The concept of culture often comes up when discussing remote work, with some people suggesting that co-located teams have an easier time building culture, compared to remote teams.

How can you successfully build team culture when team members are spread out across different cities and continents? The answer is in making sure you’re running an effective online community.

Create an online community for remote teams

Establishing an online community is essential for building team culture, particularly for distributed teams.

Remote workers in different geographical locations either don’t have a team culture they can be part of, or find they can’t really identify with it. When you’re working from your home office miles away from your employer, it can be difficult to feel like part of the regular office team.

As this article on building community and culture for a distributed team says, “you may be able to chat on video every single day with a remote colleague. But they still may not be a part of the company culture, which plays a major role in shaping the employee’s engagement to the organization.”

By creating an effective online community for remote workers, you can help foster connection, collaboration and culture within your distributed team.

One of the biggest challenges with remote work is ensuring smooth communication. Being isolated from their managers and colleagues, remote workers need to know that they have reliable communication channels to stay in contact with their team. This will help them feel more connected, particularly for those working in a different time zone.

Using a community platform is the most effective way to build cohesion in distributed teams. An online community allows remote workers to interact with each other in a more informal online environment than email. Team members can chat, share ideas and info, celebrate each other’s achievements and team wins – all the things that would happen in a more regular office environment that help build a cultural connection.

Choosing the right platform for your online community is important. A good Learning Management System (LMS) will provide you with greater customization than using social media, allowing you to control the look and feel of your community and how it functions. Social media channels may also impose restrictions on certain content, unlike an LMS which will give you full visibility and control.

Create engagement between remote employees

Now that you’ve provided your employees with the right tools to connect, you want to build a positive work culture through encouraging team engagement.

Friendly competition (with the emphasis on friendly) between remote workers can help build engagement and a sense of team culture. Collaboration and healthy competition are positive behaviors for work teams, generating cooperation, connection and inclusion. 

Focus remote workers and encourage them to engage with each other by reinforcing your shared vision. When people know that they’re working for managers or employers who share the same goals and values, the geographical distance really doesn’t matter. The best way to foster engagement, loyalty and culture is to connect team members through aligned organizational goals.

Communicate the team’s shared goals through your online community on a regular basis, relating them directly back to team results and deliverables. This will help each individual worker feel that they are part of a greater unit, connected by the same vision.

As Paul Spiegelman, Chief Culture Officer for Stericycle, a global public company with 25,000 employees, says, “a successful virtual culture is more than selecting the right online tools or letting employees sleep in as long as they want… create an environment that allows employees to achieve their personal visions as well as the company vision.”

With a successful online community, you can build a positive, collaborative and fun team culture for your remote workers and organization.

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Online community and building team culture

The quality of a company's employees has always been a major factor determining how successful this company will be. In order to have the best employees possible, you have to first hire them and then retain them while your competitors trying to get them to defect.

While attracting top talent has never been the easiest thing in the world, retaining has definitely become the major HR concern for most companies as of lately, especially those in highly competitive fields. The main reason for this is that the employees have been getting less and less loyal which has mostly been caused by the employers themselves, if we are being honest.

Considering that, according to HBR, almost one-third of new employees start looking for other opportunities within the first six months and that it usually takes companies eight months to receive full productivity from their new hires, it becomes painfully obvious that a great onboarding process is a must in the modern world of business.

With an easy and efficient onboarding process, companies can both improve their retention rates and get more productivity from their new hires, especially early on.

In order to achieve this, however, a company needs to know how to do this.

One of the worst things you can do for your company's onboarding process is to try and wing it, hoping that you will stumble upon the winning formula.

At best, it will take you years. At worst, you will never stumble upon it.

Your onboarding process needs to involve a clearly defined approach that can be easily implemented. A big part of this will be developing an onboarding strategy that is more comprehensive than just a day or a week.

The onboarding process should start as soon as the hire is made, continued throughout their first day and few weeks all the way to the first few months. No, onboarding does not end once they have been with you for a month.

A good onboarding strategy will also take into consideration the resources the company has at its disposal, as well as the professionals who will be able to provide insights and help to the new hire. Of course, as part of this strategy, you will also ensure that the management is being involved in the onboarding process as this can truly make a difference.

One of the best things about New Onboarding is that companies nowadays have a ton of great software that can help them onboard their new hires more easily and efficiently than ever before.

For example, whereas in the past the new hire had to wade through and sign a mountain of paperwork before they even set foot in their new workplace, today this can all be handled with some kind of digital signature software. Other software solution can dramatically cut the time needed to take care of legal and benefits stuff which used to take hours and even days.

Another great technological breakthrough has been learning management systems (LMS) which have made it possible for smaller companies to provide early training and education on par with what only the biggest corporations could afford in the past.

With a comprehensive LMS solution such as Go1, you can come up with the best possible early training system for your new hires, a system that will help them get their bearings in no time. Moreover, you can even start before their first day, sending them short introductory material on your company and their future role.

Thanks to new communication and collaboration software solutions, it is also much easier for managers and higher-ups to stay in the loop when it comes to how their new hire is performing. Furthermore, this allows new hires to ask questions and voice concerns more directly and efficiently.

If you really want to onboard your new hire easily, efficiently and successfully, the most important thing will be to make them a true part of the team as quickly as possible.

You can start off welcoming them to the team by sending them a welcome kit once they are hired. This is a great way for them to learn that you care about your new hires strong enough that you will think of them before they even set foot on the company property.

When they come in for their first day, ensure that everyone is pleasant and that they are introduced to their team and their immediate superior. If you as an owner can find the time to take them out to lunch on their first day, this might not be a bad idea.

However, you must never overdo it. Sometimes companies go out of their way to be all chummy and friendly and it comes off as strange, even passive-aggressive. Your new hire knows they are there to work and going all Michael Scott on them can produce the opposite effect in them. For instance, they should be able to do some work on their first day, which would mean hooking them up with all the equipment they need.

There is nothing worse than sitting around for 8 hours, twiddling your thumbs while your new team members are breaking their backs working. Being a member of a team means contributing. If your company uses a staff shift maker, for example, make sure their name appears there on their very first day.

This will let them know they are a true member of a team and it will go further than any pleasantries.

The crucial ingredient of every efficient onboarding process will be abundant feedback that goes both ways. Your new hire needs to hear from their immediate superior, their teammates and you as the owner. This does not mean only praises. People want to know if they are doing something wrong. This is the right time to point out their mistakes and to let them know how they can get better. They will not resent you for it. They will welcome the input.

Similarly, they also have to feel free to provide feedback of their own. They need to know that they can come to you or their immediate superiors if they are having troubles with their tasks and responsibilities. If they run into interpersonal problems, they have to feel confident about telling you about this. Encourage them to give you suggestions both about their onboarding process and the company in general.

A lot of onboarding comes down to common sense. Put yourself in the shoes of your new hire. What would you like to happen to you when you join a company such as yours? You will find that much (or even everything) of what is mentioned above will be something that you would like to experience when you get a new job.

Establish an inclusive, communicative and tech-enabled onboarding process and before you know it, your retention rates will skyrocket and you will be getting amazing results from people who have worked for you for only a few weeks.

AUTHOR: James D. Burbank has spent almost 20 years in the trade show industry and he has seen companies all over the world treat their new employees in all kinds of ways. With a couple of friends, he runs a business-oriented blog called BizzMarkBlog. 

How to onboard your new hires easily and efficiently

In today’s workforce, a high proportion of workplace learning occurs through informal learning.

In the past, many organizations carried out the majority of learning and development through formal learning channels such as training courses, workshops and seminars. These days, however, knowledge sharing is occurring more organically and through less traditional methods, as employees absorb and share information through social media and online learning communities.

With this shift in learning, employers and managers need to take note of the importance of informal learning, embracing it as an effective tool that can be used alongside their regular formal channels.

Read on to find out more about how informal learning works and what benefits it can bring to your organization.

Learning in general is an ongoing process, with the world around us providing an endless source of inspiration, knowledge and experience.

In this way, the type of learning that we refer to as ‘informal’ is very natural – it’s not something that’s planned, or scheduled. It’s something that occurs spontaneously, as you’re casually scrolling through Facebook, reading an article online, or chatting to a colleague over IM.

In these cases, you didn’t plan to become more educated on a certain subject, or sit down to explore a specific topic. Informal learning just happens as a part of everyday life.

Informal learning allows knowledge to be shared through an organization much faster than formal learning channels, which is advantageous for both employers and employees. 

With social media delivering information both constantly and instantly, employees don’t need to wait for a set training day or team meeting to be aware of company updates or organizational news. From a business perspective, these channels mean knowledge can be disseminated to all staff in an instant, making communication more effective.

As an employer, informal learning can also be a very economical option for your staff’s learning and development. While most companies spend a huge part of their L&D budget on formal learning methods, such as training courses and workshops, informal learning will cost your organization far less as it uses channels that most employees will already be using – such as social media.

Social media channels, namely Facebook and Twitter, are where most workers are turning to informally seek knowledge. In this way, social media platforms can be very effectively harnessed for informal learning.

They deliver instant, relevant and mobile-friendly information to users, making them perfect for informal learning. With social media easily available on the go, individuals can choose to digest information in a way that suits them, absorbing knowledge organically at a suitable time and in a suitable format.

Organizations can use Facebook groups to engage employees in discussions and knowledge sharing, which can be very useful for dispersed teams with remote workers. With Twitter’s instant updates and ongoing commentary, businesses can also provide fast and easy education on new services, products or company information. LinkedIn can also be used for informal learning, allowing users to connect with other professionals for knowledge sharing, relevant updates and industry news.

Blogs are a popular way for many organizations to provide employees with information, instead of the traditional training room or workshop learning environment. With the ability to enable comments on articles, blogs also encourage discussion, feedback and informal learning amongst readers.

Learning Management Systems (LMS) are another online solution that can be used very effectively for informal learning.

A recent article about the use of LMS for informal learning  encouraged employers to look for “Learning Management Systems that support social collaboration tools, such as web conferencing software and Project Management online platforms. These features allow corporate learners to work remotely with their peers and share feedback. They can also send instant messages, upload documents, and address common concerns to form a supportive online learning community. Better still, all of these interactions are facilitated and track[ed] through the LMS platform.” 

Investing in a good Learning Management System is a great way to promote online collaboration between your employees, improving levels of engagement and team work. In doing this, you’ll be facilitating informal learning for your staff, leading to increased knowledge sharing and education across your organization.

For a Learning Management System that offers flexible features to suit the needs and preferences of your learners, consider Go1 – an online staff training system where employees can complete courses anywhere, anytime.

Why you need to be talking about informal learning

Sexual harassment in the workplace is a very real issue and employers are expected to take it very seriously. Even if an employer is not directly complicit with an instance of sexual harassment within their company, they could still be held accountable. Employers must be seen to be educating employees on sexual harassment to help prevent instances from happening, they must also be seen to be taking necessary action should cases occur.

One of the difficulties of dealing with sexual harassment is that it can often be very subtle, meaning that even those with the best of intentions can miss it is even occurring at all. Others might even be complicit in some cases without being aware of it. Sexual harassment could be inherent in your workforce yet still go unnoticed if those in certain positions don't have the required training.

In an effort to tackle instances of sexual harassment in the workplace, it is now law in all states that adequate training on the matter must be provided to all employees. Tackling sexual harassment is not only about complying with the law, of course, as there are other benefits to be had from training your staff.

Go1.com offers a free training course on sexual harassment in the workplace, and here are 5 very good reasons why your business should enroll.

Many sexual harassment issues are very nuanced, meaning that a lot of people are not likely to recognize they are even happening at all. This course will help to educate your staff on more discreet aspects of sexual harassment, as well as the obvious, so that issues can be dealt with when they arise or, even better, prevented from occurring in the first place.

Just providing training can help to create an environment that is not tolerant to sexual harassment. This helps to create a fair environment where all employees feel free to try and progress which is positive not only for them but also for your business.

"A happy workforce is a productive workforce". It might sound cliché, but it is true, and the most successful businesses often take steps to ensure that their employees are as happy as possible. High employee morale can be key in taking your business to the next level, and sexual harassment can undermine morale significantly if not addressed.

Remember that sexual harassment affects not only the target but also those around them. If a woman is one the receiving end of sexual harassment and nothing is being done about the situation then it is understandable that other women in the vicinity are also likely to feel very uncomfortable. Not only women will be affected of course as male associates of a victim are also likely to be unhappy that a colleague is being victimized.

In enrolling to our course, you will be educating those in key positions to recognize cases of sexual harassment and on how to deal with it if it arises. In hopefully eliminating sexual harassment from your workplace, your morale will remain high and your productivity along with it.

Training courses can be very expensive, yet also mandatory by law. According to Forbes, over $70 Billion was spend on corporate training in the US in 2014. By enrolling in our free sexual harassment courses, you can meet legal requirements in having your workforce trained while potentially saving thousands of dollars at the same time. In addition to saving on the cost of paying for training courses, our free course can also help to improve productivity overall to help your bottom line, as well as helping to avoid potentially high legal costs and fines in the future.

Training staff on sexual harassment is not only about complying with the law, more importantly, it is a genuine attempt at tackling issues of sexual discrimination. Even though some courses can be very expensive, they are not always effective at teaching meaning your staff can come away from the course having gained little of lasting value.

Not only will our course potentially save you a lot of money, it will also be more effective at helping your staff to retain the information within. Quizzes are located throughout the course to test what the students have learned so far, while also helping the course material to register, ensuring it has a lasting impact further into the future.

More effective training not only represents better value for your time and money, it also helps to ensure that instances of sexual harassment are less likely to occur in the coming months and years.

Even if your business is not directly responsible for cases of sexual harassment in your workforce that does not automatically exonerate you from responsibility. Employers are expected to educate their workforce on the recognition and prevention of sexual harassment and if found guilty of not taking steps to provide necessary education, you could get a big fine coming your way.

Legal action can also lead to a damaged reputation, potentially causing you to miss out on talented new recruits in the future as well as causing your current workforce to lose confidence in you. Our free course on sexual harassment is free to enroll to, yet it can help to save you so many potentially costly situations in the future.

There are no excuses for not having your staff properly trained in sexual harassment, and none are likely to be accepted should you find yourself in court. Not only can training help to protect your business from the actions of errant individuals, it can also help you to create a happy and productive working environment for all.

Our course is free to sign up to and can potentially prevent many problems, while also bringing many positives. There is nothing to lose by signing up but you could end up regretting it of you don't.

Enroll in our free Sexual Harassment Training elearning Course here

5 reasons you should be using this free sexual harassment eLearning course

Communication is an essential part of leadership. Fail to communicate effectively and mayhem could ensue or, at least, people can lack confidence that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing. It is important to let people know when they are on the right track, as well as when something isn’t going as you want it to, because only then can people continue with confidence or redress the issue so that tasks are completed effectively.

It may sound simple, but many leaders lack the skills needed to truly get the workforce behind them and working effectively and efficiently. Below are some of the skills that make up a truly great leader.

Communication works both ways and in order for you to be able to say the right things, you first need to know the right things. Your workforce is on the frontlines of business every day completing tasks, overcoming issues and dealing with other people. If there is something that you need to know in order for you to be able to continue to lead effectively, it is likely that that information will come from the people that are closest to the action.

Hold meetings regularly, whether one on one or in teams, so that you can get feedback from your team to help you keep up with what is happening. Listen intently to the feedback you receive, negative as well as positive, so you can get a full picture of what is happening and what you need to do going forward.

Don’t dismiss people straight away as being pessimistic. Even though they may begin with something that you don’t want to hear, they could also be about to offer you a solution to the problem. It could be that the person that starts to speak with what may sound like a problem for you could be about to make your life a lot easier.

According to psychology today, empathy is a key component of a successful leader. Every task has its own set of challenges, and the people carrying out these tasks will have to overcome these challenges on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter if the challenge is something as ‘simple’ as finding items on a shelf, or as complex as creating advanced accounting spreadsheets, they are still tasks with obstacles that are very real to the person undertaking them. Sharing that you understand the challenges people face and that you share their feelings on them will help them to connect with you and have confidence that they can get behind you.
Remember also that in addition to tasks at work, people also have lives to lead outside of work and life does have a habit of making things difficult for us at times. Emergencies at home do need to be taken care of, heavy traffic is beyond our control, and so on. If somebody is repeatedly late or not performing then there might be an issue with that person, but try to remember that life does occasionally throw something at us that we simply must deal with.

A great leader will also put their ego aside and try their best to work on the same level as their workforce. Let them know that you too once did a similar job and that you are willing to get hands on yourself to help out if you need to. Doing so can also act as inspiration as it lets your workforce know that someday, they too could be in your position if they put their mind to it.

Leadership isn't about dazzling others with your intellect and knowledge. Speak to people as though you are competing in some kind of competition to see who knows the most and there's a good chance that people will just switch off and lose interest in what you are saying, and in you.

A good leader will keep everything simple to help make sure that everybody can understand what is being said. Try to use lingo and technical terms sparingly so you can be sure that your message gets to as many people as possible.

A varied workforce will be host to a plethora of ideas and opinions, and some are likely to be quite unexpected. Even if something doesn’t sound at first as though it will work, keep an open mind and consider it thoroughly because ‘different’ does not necessarily mean ‘wrong’. New ideas are what drives innovation, and great leaders embrace innovation whenever possible

People look to leaders for advice and solutions and this means knowing the job at hand in detail. When it is clear that you know what you are talking about then it is easier for others to trust that you have the correct solution. Regular meetings with your workforce will help you to understand practices and procedures inside out, while occasionally getting hands on can also help you to understand exactly what you are talking about.

If there is something that you are unsure of then don’t pretend you do and give advice anyway. If necessary, delegate some tasks to others in the short-term at least, with a view to learning the task yourself so you can deal with it yourself directly in the future.
Being True to Your Word.

Gaining the trust of your workforce is essential if you are going to be a great leader, so it is important that you are seen to be acting in accordance with what you say. Act in a manner that is contradictory to what you are saying and your workforce will quickly begin to lose confidence in you, making it so much harder for you to lead them.

It is OK to change your mind from time to time provided that you keep people updated, and that they know that the change is for genuine reasons. If you have made certain assurances to some people then you should do your best to honour those assurances the best you can even though circumstances have changed.

Leading is not just about telling other people what to do, that's the easy part. A great leader will be able to not only tell people what needs to be done but do so in a way that they are happy and confident in what they are doing. Under a great leader, a workforce will be not only happy in their role but also inspired to push on, while having the confidence to speak out where necessary. If you share the attributes stated above, you too may be a truly great leader.

Learn the communication strategies used by great leaders

For retail managers everywhere, the phrase “The customer’s always right,” is a common theme throughout the workday.

After all, without happy customers, how much of a market do you really have?

So when a store is trying to convince the shoppers of America to spend their well-earned dollars, they need be thinking about what it takes to make their customers happy.

For starters, and most importantly, customers expect to be greeted by a staff of employees that’s capable of treating them fairly and meeting their needs.

Unfortunately, however, retail customer service is rarely as flawless and helpful as shoppers think it should be. Instead, managers find their days riddled with questions and complaints, such as:

Do you know how long I’ve been waiting?

I talked to your employee and they had no idea how to help me with my problem!

Does your customer service department even know how to do their job?

These scenarios are some of the most common customer service issues that arise on a day-to-day basis…but what’s the common thread between them?

They all tend to stem from high turnover rates and poorly trained staff.

Many retail managers do not understand the ways that comprehensive training can benefit their business. Thankfully, a variety of learning management systems are available to help streamline the training process and ensure your staff is receiving the best instruction possible.

Learning management systems provide a fast-paced learning protocol that still promotes successful training and education in the workplace. The benefits from these systems have made them a preferred choice for retail locations all over the country.

To truly comprehend the advantages of these systems, however, it’s vital that you understand the negative effects of high turnover rates and how digital training can solve them.

How Does High Turnover Affect the Retail Industry?

Retail locations are fast-moving machines. Owners and managers have a multitude of behind-the-scenes components to think about on a daily basis. For everything else, they rely on their customer service department to get the job done.

An employer’s customer service staff will become the face of his/her store. This means an establishment’s success and reputation lie in the hands of this group of people and they’re expected to handle shopper interactions with ease and confidence.

In an article written by journalist Erica Nicole, she claims that companies which prioritize the customer experience generate 60% higher profits than their competitors.

When a retail location starts to be affected by high employee turnover, its chances of providing the type of service necessary for success begins to diminish.

When managers begin to lose employees, they’re left frantically searching for replacements to fill the holes in the staff schedule. Every retail location requires a certain number of people to handle their particular business, and when that number begins to fall there’s no way to efficiently meet a customer’s needs.

To get themselves out of the bind, many managers are forced to spend large amounts of money and end up hiring under-qualified, or incapable, applicants. These new hires are then rushed out onto the floor before they’ve had enough, or any, proper training.

With conditions like these, it’s almost guaranteed that customers still won’t be receiving the top-notch service they expect and deserve.

Cost and Time: Two Common Side Effects of High Turnover 

A constant cycle of employees coming and going can really leave retail owners in a lurch. Not only are customers themselves affected by the lack in high-quality employees, but also the business will begin to face the challenges of time and money needed to keep the business afloat.

Without the proper resources, high turnover can really damage a company’s success.

Did you know that retailers sometimes spend an average of $3,400 each time they have to find a new employee?

When you consider the steps involved in the process, it’s easy to see why:

While there are certainly extraneous costs such as help wanted ads, travel costs for interviewees, and training salaries, management should also consider the fact that time is money during the hiring process.

Every moment spent on the steps to find a replacement employee is time that should be going into the business itself. After all, company time is a precious commodity that should be reserved for tasks to generate profits and expand the company’s vision and reach.

The employment process affects company time in much the same ways as the cost.

Each minute in the workday should be geared towards growth, but setting aside the time for these hiring tasks consistently pulls owners and managers away from their actual work. This can eventually lead to damaging gaps in the business’ chance for success.

Other customer service employees are also affected since they are forced to pick up the slack caused from being understaffed. Rather than focus on their job alone, they end up doing the work of multiple people and being stretched much too thin.

How Can a Learning Management System Help?

Implementing a learning management system is any easy way of fine-tuning the employee training process.

Not only does it provide a selection of flexible and comprehensive course selections, but it also provides retail managers and business owners a laissez-faire way of handling new hire training.

Management will have the chance to spend more time on tasks that will benefit the business as a whole, rather than just the customer service department.

With learning management systems, however, it’s not just about new hire; you’ll be receiving a program that provides so many things, such as:

Distribution of new policies and procedures

Ability to check-in and see employee training progress whenever you’d like

Learning Management Systems Can Help Eliminate High Turnover

When your staff of employees is well trained and confident about the work they’re doing, they will be more likely to achieve longevity within the company.  Many times employees decide or are asked to leave because they’re frustrated by their own inability or management’s disappointment in their work.

Learning management systems don’t stop working after a new employee has received initial training.

Providing your customer service employees ongoing training helps offer the tools needed to keep the workplace exciting and challenging.

At the end of the day, when your employees are happy with the work they’re doing, it means more overall success for the company. You’ll not only have a seasoned staff that knows exactly how to do their jobs, but you’ll also see the benefits reflected in your bottom line.

How learning management systems can solve customer service problems in retail

Taking time off from work over the holiday season seems standard, right? Traditionally, many employees will enjoy annual leave time during the Christmas and New Year period, to recharge their batteries and spend time with family and friends. 

However, many employees are deciding against taking time off for a vacation, choosing to work through the holiday season instead. What are some of the reasons your staff members aren’t taking their annual leave?

It could be one of several reasons. Some people might feel guilty about adding to the workload of others, or think they’re too busy to take time off. In this case, winding down might not even seem worth it, due to the amount of work they know they’ll come back to. Others may be worried they might not have a job to come back to if they take a break.

Whatever the reason, it’s critical that your employees understand the importance of taking proper time off, for positive work-life balance and to avoid burning out. As an employer, by promoting the benefits of proper vacations, you’ll also be building a better work culture, with happier staff and lower staff turnover rates.

Read on for more insight into the reasons some staff members might be reluctant to take time off over the holiday season and how you can address this.

Thinking that No One Else Can Do Their Job

One of the biggest reasons people don’t take annual leave is that they think no one else can do their job for them while they’re away. They worry that without their physical presence, the organisation will grind to a halt – which unfortunately, may be true.

 If this is the case, it could be a sign that there are employees in your organisation with far too much on their plate. If a staff member feels that they can’t take a vacation because their immediate workload doesn’t allow it, you need to address this issue. Individuals with perfectionistic tendencies, in particular, can often be fearful of taking annual leave, being uncomfortable with the idea of other people taking over their work and not having the same standards, or creating more issues.

For these workers, there may also be a concern about switching off from technology during leave time. With advancements in digital technology, grey areas have sprung up around appropriate levels of communication for staff who are on leave. While in the past, employees were instantly disconnected from the work environment as soon as they left the office or job site, these days employers can easily get in touch with staff by phone, email, text message or video call.

Expecting employees to communicate during the holiday period disrupts their personal time and stops them from properly switching off and recharging. As an employer, don’t encourage or guilt staff into answering calls or replying to emails over their break. Managers need to understand the importance of switching off after hours and be educated on the risks of technology burnout for their staff.

Feeling Guilty About Putting Extra Strain on Co-Workers 

Some staff members might also feel guilty about taking time off, worrying that by doing so they’ll be putting strain on their colleagues and adding extra duties or responsibilities to their workload.

Employers should promote a collaborative work culture, emphasising a workplace environment of trust, knowledge sharing and non-siloed work units. When teams work in collaboration, they support one another to accomplish team and organisational goals.

No staff member should need to feel stressed or guilty about taking time off in this collaborative and positive work environment. They should also be able to trust their team mates to pitch in and carry the work load in their absence.

Dreading the Amount of Work That Will Pile Up

Have you ever taken a holiday, only to return to an overflowing inbox with every email marked urgent and requiring immediate attention? Not to mention the amount of calendar invites and meetings you’re expected to participate in on your first week back.

Most of us have been in this situation at some point, returning from vacation to a giant pile up of work greeting you at your desk. Unfortunately, this can sometimes make employees feel like taking time off wasn’t even worth it, as stressed feelings soon replace any relaxation gained from their holiday.

As psychologist Sarah-Jayne Whiston explains, fear of taking annual leave is “a common occurrence in workplaces. It's that sinking feeling if you leave your work, the emails and things to do list will keep mounting, so taking time off will mean you have to come back to even more work," says Sarah-Jayne.

To address this, employers and managers can make sure teams are properly covered during annual leave periods, and allow staff adequate desk time when they return to work after a break, to catch up on their emails and in trays.

Worrying They Won’t Have a Job to Come Back to


Sadly, many workers may be afraid that they might not have a job to come back to if they take time off. With Australia’s unemployment rate rising to 5.7 per cent just before the new year, the holiday period can be a time of uncertainty for many people in terms of job security.

In Australia, annual leave is a legal requirement, however some employees still worry about being replaced during their break. Contractors in the construction industry, for example, might fear that the job will simply go to someone else if they make themselves unavailable.

As an employer, you can be mindful of the stresses that the holiday season can bring and reassure individuals of the security of their jobs in the new year. That way, staff members can relax and enjoy their Christmas break, returning to work with fresh energy and motivation.

Are your employees taking their annual leave?

The end of the year is fast approaching, and for most people that means a week or two away from work. While this is a great time to relax and refresh yourself for the new year, it’s also a really good time to learn some new skills so that when you head back to work you can hit the ground running!

We’ve got a list of some great short courses that are FREE for you to take and will teach you some awesome new skills so that you can make sure that you have a great 2017.

The challenges of the 21st century demand a different style of leader. The Organizational Champion eLearning series presents an innovative approach to leadership in this millennium and helps develop you into a new breed of leader known as a Champion. Based on Mike Thompson’s book, The Organizational Champion, these modules are an invaluable resource for developing you into a dynamic leader capable of steering your organization through today’s challenges and uncertainty into the realm of profit and growth. The ‘Introduction to the Organizational Champion’ is the first in the eLearning series.

These 2 courses can teach you new skill about improving your presentations with the help of picture effects and interactive objects. In only 25 mins you can turn your regular old presentation into an eye-catching tool for information by learning some of the picture effects tools in PowerPoint. Learn a range of effects with step by step instructions so you don’t miss anything. Bring your next presentation to life with the help of interactive objects. Your presentations no longer need to look like a boring PDF with the ability to add in hyperlinks, in page toggles and much more. This 25min courses will teach you how to take your next presentation to the next level!

Many people would rather die than stand in front of a microphone. It doesn’t have to be that way. This brief course will show that anyone can become a polished public speaker with practice. We’ve designed it for the person who wants to feel confident while powerfully delivering a message to any audience, large or small.

How to conduct effective business meetings

Meetings are an accepted part of office life, and can be a great way to increase productivity, brainstorm new ideas and accomplish goals. However, when not conducted effectively, meetings have the opposite effect. Employees are frustrated by what they see as a waste of their time and meeting facilitators are disheartened by their inability to accomplish goals. This course explores how to avoid discontent by conducting effective business meetings.

With these courses, you will be ready to take on 2017 and might even give your boss a surprise when you take charge of that next meeting or presentation to a big client!

What are you learning this holiday season?

At Go1 we have grown a lot over the past year, and one of our biggest additions to what we offer our users is the Go1 Course Marketplace. Stocking over 100,000 course, our course marketplace is packed with some of the best learning content from some of the best course providers across the world!

With so many courses on offer at the click of a button, it can be tough to track down that perfect training program for your team, so we are going to take a look back at what our ten most popular courses were in 2016, and maybe you'll find something that your team should be learning!

Accidents can happen at any time and regardless of how many precautions are taken. When an accident happens, how you respond could be the difference between life and death. In this four-module course, you will learn about what to do in an emergency, including initial responses to injury situations, first aid guidelines, and best practices. The course also covers the AHA’s 2010 Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Emergency Cardiovascular Care (ECC), including both full and hands-only CPR.

A short course that introduces the importance of listening and internalising what others are saying before leading.

Many people would rather die than stand in front of a microphone. It doesn’t have to be that way. This course will show that anyone can become a polished public speaker with practice. We've designed it for the person who wants to feel confident while powerfully delivering a message to any audience, large or small.

4 – Creating an Awesome Customer Experience

Social media is defining how companies interact with their clientele more and more and it is proving to be very powerful in making or breaking a company. In this course, you can learn how to harness the experience your client is receiving and turn them into a promoter of your company.

5 – Sexual Harassment Prevention for Supervisors

The pervasive, subtle, and sometimes ambiguous nature of sexual harassment, as well as its potentially devastating effects, make employee education on the topic a fundamental obligation for employers. In America, employee training is also mandated by law, both on a federal and a state level. This 2 hour course reduces risk and fulfills the requirements of California state law AB1825.

Provided by Equitation Science International, this 60 minute online course introduces how horses learn, their natural behaviour, and principles to help you train successfully. It's designed for anyone who is involved with horses, whether you ride for pleasure or sport.

7 – How Play Ukulele in One and a Half Hours

Playing a guitar-like instrument in only one and half hour. Don't worry about knowing your music theory, the chords you need to know are simple, and that's all you need.

Provided my Udemy, this Uber Analytics Test is the second test in the entire interview for General Manager, Associate General Manager, Operations and Logistics Manager and Marketing Manager positions at Uber. If you pass the recruiter screen, the next step is to do this 2 hour timed online analytics test.

9 – Process Mining: Data Science in Action

Provided my Coursera, Process mining is the missing link between model-based process analysis and data-oriented analysis techniques. Through concrete data sets and easy to use software the course provides data science knowledge that can be applied directly to analyze and improve processes in a variety of domains.

Configuration schema is a tool to replace drupal_get and drupal_set in drupal 7 and bellow. It's has a lot of features to make developer deal with configuration easier. It's also written in yml format, so anyone can understand and write their own schema for the application.

Thanks for your support throughout 2016, and happy learning! 

Over the course of 2016 we have published a lot of great articles to help you understand more about learning and training, and how you can help take your business to the next level. Today we are taking a look back at the articles that our readers enjoyed the most throughout the year.

Our top articles for 2016 cover a wide range of topics, and we hope that you've enjoyed reading them as much as we have enjoyed writing them!

1.   Structured vs unstructured learning in the workplace

It is a fact that, for all well-performing organizations, developing employees isn’t just a HR problem anymore. It is an organization-wide strategic challenge directly tied to overall organizational performance and growth. However, the subject is so hard, convoluted and filled with deep change that most people find daunting just to start thinking about how to tackle it. Continue Reading