SABPP-Newsletter-July-2014

HR VOICE . JULY 2014View from DrKaren Deller(Chartall Business College)on 2014 ASTD Summit inWashington DC - USAI was fortunate enough to attend the recent ASTD conferenceand exposition in Washington at the beginning of May. It’s areally grand affair with over 9 000 delegates from over 80countries attending over 10 different ‘streams’ including onesfor higher education, government, careers, e-learning andleadership training. Apparently there were over 300 workshopsessions delivered over the three day event so it is no wonderthey bill this conference as the “premier event for trainingand development professionals”. During the conferencethe executive of the ASTD also announced that they werechanging their name from the American Society for Training &Development to the Association for Talent Development (ATD).show no rise since 2009”. Seems learners exiting schools inthe USA are battling with reading, writing and maths skills,and this is apparently after decades of input to rectify thesituation. The article stated: “in math, only 26% of seniorsscored high enough to be considered proficient or better”.The writer went on to call for a ‘redesign’ of high schools.• A few speakers spoke of the need for companies to clearlydefine the competencies required for each job so thattraining could be more targeted to the exact skills that wereneeded. (Maybe they need an NQF!)For me this name change also reflected a subtle shift in theway the international community is viewing the trainingand development specialist – it is becoming more about thedevelopment of the whole person (not just job competencies)and there was a huge emphasis on the work/home balance forbetter productivity and adaptability.Key trends that I observed:• E-leaning and gamification featured on a big scale, withmany speakers emphasising the influx of generation Yinto the workplace and the impact that this would have ontraditional training and classroom methodology;• Need for companies and employees to be more adaptablebecause the business environment is changing so rapidlyin an unpredictable fashion. To counter this speakers wereplacing a greater emphasis on employee wellness andongoing training;• A return to just-in-time training, that is short (apparently90 minutes is optimal for the shorter Gen Y attentionspan), focused and repetitive (especially where retention iscritical);• An emphasis on methodologies to increase retention oftraining (they refer to the “retention curve”);• A need for literacy and numeracy training, with manyspeakers lamenting the poor use of grammar and spellingin general. (As an aside, while I was in Washington, therewas a long article in the Washington Post with the headline“12th grade results in US exam stagnant: average scoresINDUSTRY NEWS . PAGE 19