Strategic Partners Inc.

Open Learning For All May Not Be Far Off

SPI Team — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:00:07 +0000

Have you heard of open source web applications? Maybe, right? Red Hat is the one name we associate with open source applications. But how about open source for learning? For course sharing?

If you are familiar with the learning technology community, you may be aware of moodle. moodle is an Open Source Course Management System (CMS). It has become very popular among educators around the world as a tool for creating online dynamic websites for their students.

Now, we’d like to introduce you to NTER. NTER works with moodle. Moodle works with NTER. That’s how open source applications work — together and collaboratively — to create a course sharing site like never before.

NTER is a next generation learning site — a place where you learn from the expertise of others, from the discussions of your peers, and from the latest technologies in education and training design and delivery, like 3-D simulations, mobile applications, and peer review. Like other mainstream social media sites, NTER is free to use. This online learning site makes the latest learning tools available to anyone who has something to offer from an education perspective. If you have a lesson to share, NTER gives you the tools to build a course around that lesson. And for students, the opportunities are endless.

Participate in our upcoming webcast on Thursday, February 23, at 2PM, to learn more about how you can make NTER work for you. Click Here To Register.

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Celebrate Valentine’s Day in the Workplace

SPI Team — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:05:16 +0000

On Valentine’s Day most people express their love and appreciation for family and friends. Yet so often those individuals who we spend the majority of our time with, our coworkers and employees, go unrecognized on this “intimate” holiday. My personal belief is that Valentine’s Day also provides an opportunity to express your appreciation, support and care for the people you work with. With this in mind, I wanted to share with you a list of things that I have done and/or plan to do to show appreciation for the people that I work with.

1) Treat your employees with respect.
Ongoing business success stories can only be achieved with certain cornerstones in place. One of these critical foundations is feeling and showing respect for your employees. RESPECT is 24/7 – you appreciate, value and genuinely respect employees at all times. Even the smallest showing of disrespect negatively affects everyone’s morale, productivity and work quality.

2) Send your employees a hand-written note to show your appreciation, or pick up the phone to check in with them.
With social media today, people have forgotten the lost art of a handwritten note – send a handwritten thank you to clients and colleagues. On Valentine’s Day, I plan to send a note to all of our staff individually expressing my appreciation for all that they do for Strategic Partners.

3) Send out cards! Birthdays, thank-you, congratulations, condolences.
This added touch does a lot to lift morale and let your employees and special clients know you genuinely care about them.

4) Advocate for your employees when they can’t advocate for themselves.
Your employees that have very high expectations for themselves sometimes have a hard time saying “no.” For example, I decided to no bid an RFP that I would like for us to bid, but I think it would have made us crazy to do so.

5) Help your employee maintain work/life balance.
An employee may lose sight of their personal life due to their dedication to their job. Even though the work builds up, help keep your employees in balance with their work life vs. their personal life by trying to help them manage the number of hours they work each week.

6) Invest in people’s personal development; listen to your employees’ concerns and address them appropriately – show your employees you value their input and get their opinion.
Soon I will ask staff to identify one thing that they are looking to improve on this year that might require some investment of time and money, and I plan on responding to help support our staff’s professional development. In addition, I welcome dialogue around employees’ concerns and ask their opinion on how we might rectify the situation.

7) Send out “It’s good to be us” emails to keep people updated on what’s going on in the organization.
We provide an update on work that we’re doing with clients and publicly recognize efforts that our consultants, coaches, trainers, project managers and staff have exercised during the past month.

8) Have a positive attitude with employees. Having a positive attitude can increase employee morale.
Included in that is welcoming new employees with open arms. As a way to practice this, we’re looking at our on-boarding process and conducting two training sessions this week to help some of our new employees perform some of the critical jobs that they do on an on-going basis.

9) Provide employees with incentives when they do provide the company with extraordinary work, and when the company reaches certain goals, reward your employees.
This year as part of our annual meeting, we held an Annual Meeting Recognition Program where gifts were given to people who were recognized at the Annual Meeting, as well as to anyone who participated in moving forward with SPI’s main objectives.

10) Make sure each of your employees is doing the work that they enjoy.
Find the strengths in your employees and help guide them to their perfect job. Again, a happy employee is a productive employee!

Follow these tips and your employees will be the best that they can be for you!

Ken

Free Webcast February 23 – Next Generation Learning: NTER – An Open Source Learning Management System

SPI Team — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:52:20 +0000

Wondering how to reach more people with learning opportunities? Looking at your training budget and asking how you are going to reach more people with less? We have some ideas! During this month’s free webinar, Alex Cohen with the Department of Energy and Dawn Baron with Strategic Partners will share the potential impact of an open source learning site and how you can get involved.

In this session, we will introduce participants to an open source learning management system, NTER, designed by the Department of Energy for the purpose of course creation, course sharing, and free global education for all. Designed to seamlessly integrate with other learning management systems and all previously created courseware, this online learning portal makes education creation and education participation easily accessible for anyone who has internet access.

Some of the benefits of an open source learning management system follow:

Create courses using state-of-the-art authoring tools including 3D simulation creation
Share courses across agencies and with other NTER participating bodies
Build a transcript of courses that is owned by the student and portable for future job and educational opportunities
Understand the social and ecommerce features of NTER

In this webinar, you will:

Gain an understanding of the potential impact of an “open source” learning management system.
Discover ways to share courses between organizations, with colleges and universities, and with corporate learning programs.
Learn how to supplement their current educational activities with the benefits of NTER.

The Details

Date: Thursday, February 23, 2012

Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 AM EDT

Cost: Free

Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now:

Click here to register

Join us for this month’s free webinar on Thursday, February 23, 2012, from 2:00 – 3:00 ET to discuss how open learning can benefit you, your organization and how we access education in the next generation.

Introducing the Next Generation of Learning

SPI Team — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:00:13 +0000

The National Training & Education Resource (NTER) enables learners, instructors, course authors, and the training and learning functions from government, education, and corporate to participate in an entirely new education community. An easy-to-access, web-based learning site, NTER invites you to create, add, distribute, and view educational content to help our collective population grow and thrive without the technology barriers and overwhelming costs of other learning systems and training programs.

Are you ready for a learning experience like never before? You can start exploring NTER by clicking here.

The NTER site is in active development. What does that mean? This BETA version of NTER is preliminary and may change without notice. It may have defects, contain inaccuracies, and may not work the way a final version of the software will.

Take a look at what’s on the site now & check back often for new material and features

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Complimentary eBook: 8 Success Factors for Successful Mentoring

SPI Team — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:41:08 +0000

Learn how to optimize your Mentoring program!

A comprehensive study in 2006 by Gartner, a Connecticut-based research firm of over 1,000 workers over a 5 year period, revealed the following benefits of mentoring:

25% of employees who enrolled in a mentoring program had a salary-grade change, while only 5% of workers who did not participate in a mentoring program had a change
Mentors were promoted 6 times more often than those not in a mentoring program
Mentees were promoted 5 times more often than those not in a mentoring program
Retention rates also were higher for both mentees (72%) and mentors (69%) than for employees who did not participate in a mentoring program

It is apparent that an effective Mentoring program has the potential to catapult your organization to the next level. In this complimentary 10 page eBook Mentoring expert Mindy Zasloff presents “8 Success Factors for Successful Mentoring” including:

How to shift your organization’s culture through Mentoring
What role Mentoring has on management practices
The role leadership must play in Mentoring
Much More…

Strategic Thinking

SPI Team — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:07:21 +0000

Strategic Thinking

February 15 – 16, 2012

Atlanta, GA

More than ever, today’s leaders need the ability to execute tactically, as well as work and think strategically. To do this, you must be able to look outside your own area of responsibility for new ideas, discern the true value of the data you collect, and craft solutions with the potential to deliver real strategic value. Discover your capabilities as a strategic thinker, gain an understanding of the key components of strategic thinking, and apply practical tools during an instructional case study.

Who Should Attend

Leaders and managers who want to think strategically about their work and its value to the organization

Benefits & Outcomes

Learn practical approaches for identifying key strategic issues and opportunities Exercise discipline and build strategic thinking into your work regimen Sort through ambiguity and information clutter so that you can focus on what matters strategically Acquire the perspective and tools to create an environment in which you, your colleagues and key players can think and work more strategically

Price: $1,395.00

Type: Workshop

Length: 2 day(s)

For more information or to register, call Gail at 301-299-0607 or email her at gmcgaha@spisolutions.com

Strategic Partners, Inc.

www.spisolutions.com

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Organizational Analysis and Design

SPI Team — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:56:36 +0000

Organizational Analysis and Design

February 9 – 10, 2012

Chicago, IL

The design of an organization can impact everything, from proper work flow to ultimate success at the bottom line. Participants in this program will learn the dynamics, processes, and challenges inherent in analyzing and designing an organization to achieve business results. Explore a systematic approach for guiding an organizational design effort—from problem identification, to design recommendations and planning the transformation.

Who Should Attend

OD professionals and anyone with a background in OD methodology

Benefits & Outcomes

Identify problems, key roles, and phases in the organizational analysis and design (OAD) process Leverage the two critical domains of OAD work—analyzing the current business model and facilitating design enhancements Ensure your analysis, design and transformation efforts follow a systemic approach aligned with the organization’s mission and values

Total CPEs: 16

Price: $1,395.00

Type: Workshop

Length: 2 day(s) Related Courses:

For more information or to register, call Gail at 301-299-0607 or email her at gmcgaha@spisolutions.com

Strategic Partners, Inc.

www.spisolutions.com

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Leading Organizational Transition: Train-the-Trainer Program

SPI Team — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:31:29 +0000

Leading Organizational Transition: Train-the-Trainer Program

February 7 – 9, 2012

San Francisco

Offered in exclusive partnership with William Bridges & Associates

Even with a solid change strategy in place, plans are abandoned, implementation is delayed or employee resistance is unexpectedly high. Proper management of the human side of change is the critical missing link in change initiatives.

In exclusive partnership with William Bridges & Associates, Linkage offers the highly-acclaimed Three-Phase Transition Model to address the human side of change. William Bridges’ model has stood the test of time and has provided individuals and organizations across sectors with a framework and tools for successfully embracing change.

Who Should Attend

HR and OD professionals with a background in change management

Benefits & Outcomes

Lead individuals through strategic change initiatives Develop coaching skills needed to help employees deal with constant change and loss Become part of an established network of Certified Bridges Trainers

Total CPEs: 24

Price: $2,595.00

Type: Train the Trainer Length: 3 day(s)

For more information on how to register, call Gail at 301-299-0607 or email her at gmcgaha@spisolutions.com

Strategic Partners, Inc.

www.spisolutions.com

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Highlights from the OD Roundtable: Managing Organizational Change

SPI Team — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:07:08 +0000

As promised, here are the highlights from the First Annual Signature Development Organizational Development Roundtable discussion on Managing Organizational Change. Below you will find the major questions clients asked during the discussion as well as some of the best practices CHENEGA, U.S. Department of Energy and other client organizations are implementing to manage organizational change.

Challenges:

Creating Culture

How do you define culture?
What is being lost or gained in the process of culture change?
In the Federal Government there are so many different cultures, how do you create a unified culture in this type of environment?

Collaboration

How can you motivate a team to work together to promote behavior change?
How do you become one while still maintaining some differences?

Talent Management

How can you demonstrate that you are able to align goals, be effective and maximize talent?
How can we build tunnels to increase?

Best Practices:

Developing Leaders: if the leader is on board and supportive it creates positive momentum for change
Acknowledging and celebrating previous success stories while encouraging the change of direction
Establishing core values as a common thread
Employee opinion survey – understand how your employees are coping with change and what they feel still needs to change

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The Well-Connected Employee: Networking Competencies that Foster Engagement, Social Acumen, and Business Results

SPI Team — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:21:25 +0000

February 7, 2012

2:00 p.m.

Throughout your career, you’ve probably experienced first-hand the value of business networking. And you’ve probably noticed that you don’t network only to advance your career. You also use networking as a tool for getting the job done.

By providing structured and intentional guidance to employees at all levels of your organization on how to build effective internal and external networks, you can help them do their jobs more effectively. In this webcast, consultant, author, and networking expert Lynne Waymon will showcase the role HR can play in teaching employees how to develop social acumen and impact the social capital of your organization. She’ll talk about how networking can help them uncork bureaucratic bottlenecks, work cross-functionally, and collaborate more effectively with internal and external partners.

In the July 2011 issue of the Harvard Business Review, Cross and Thomas report that, “Executives who rank in the top 20% of their companies have diverse but select networks made up of high-quality relationships with people who come from several different spheres and from up and down the corporate hierarchy.”

To help your employees and leaders hone the skill of networking to impact organizational outcomes Lynne will discuss:

What’s the role of face-to-face networking, high-touch networking in our plugged in, high-tech, work remote world?
The 8 Networking Competencies every employee needs to master.
Research showing how and why unconnected employees drag down the business – and what to do about it.
3 ways to ensure that your Employee Resource Groups teach and promote cross-functional and collaborative skills.
5 strategies for building networking skill development into your mentoring, leadership, and orientation programs.

Call Gail at 301-299-0607 or email her at gmcgaha@spisolutions.com to reserve your spot!

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