Maximizing the impact of Learning and Development (L&D) functions when constrained by small teams or low budgets is a challenge many organizations face. However, despite limited resources, it’s possible to create an effective L&D program by leveraging strategic planning, thought leadership, and diverse learning methods.

Join this session to discuss:

• How to pinpoint areas where training is most needed and create plans to address these gaps systematically
• Establishing yourself as a thought leader and subject matter expert within your organization in order to position yourself as a trusted advisor in the L&D space
• Cultivating an engaging and diverse learning environment using various methods and delivery modes

Speakers/Facilitators:

Katie Baker, Associate of Learning and Development, Falcon

As L&D executives promote ongoing innovation, it is crucial to make sure that learning best practices are applied for both frontline staff and office workers. For frontline workers to have equitable learning opportunities, L&D executives need to offer information to "desk-less" staff. In order to accomplish this, mobile-accessible content and on-site training can be beneficial.

Join this session to discuss:

• Customizing learning materials for frontline employees
• Providing efficient and effective learning for busy staff
• Ensuring that frontline employees have opportunities for professional advancement

Speaker/Facilitator:

Clyde Hanes, Director of Corporate Training, ACCO Engineered Systems

The harmonization of HR strategy with business goals is instrumental in determining organizational success, facilitating peak performance, and fostering enduring growth.

Attend this session to discuss:

• Crafting HR strategies that intricately align with and bolster the overarching goals and vision of the organization
• Utilizing HR metrics and analytics to gauge the impact of HR initiatives on advancing business objectives effectively
• Implementing agile HR practices that can adapt to evolving business demands, nurturing innovation, agility, and resilience within the organization

Speaker/Facilitator:

Cici Ebersole, Chief Talent Officer, Ducks Unlimited

In some professions, the results of poor training are obvious and can cost lives - like in emergency services, medical professions and the military. Such professions tend to train often and successfully, and where the training outcomes are less obvious, it can be more challenging to explain the need for money and resources. Business leaders are reluctant to invest in endeavors that are not patently effective and add to the bottom line.

For learning and development teams to show their organization the need for training, they need to produce results that demonstrate increases in usefulness, productivity and profits. Without a strong correlation proving that increased training created additional improvements or other positive business effects, business leaders are likely to discontinue training courses and the time for training.

Some of the takeaways from this workshop are:

- Aligning your training to the most important goals and needs of your company

- Conducting a needs analysis to ensure training has a role to play in meeting the goal or need

- Reaching upfront agreement with the goal owner or sponsor on impact and other measures of success as well as on roles and responsibilities

- Carefully planning the program, including targets for all KPIs with a focus on high-value metrics

- Managing the program to deliver promised results by tracking and understanding key measures

- Sorting through the different models and levels of evaluation to manage the training and demonstrate results - Briefing your results with business acumen and without the use of L&D terminology

The 3 A’s of Running Learning as a Business: Alignment, Agility, and Acceleration Workshop is happening now! Facilitated by Tom Bigda-Peyton, Ed.D-Peyton, Chief Learning Officer at Catholic Health Services and Chris Casement, Strategic Advisor at California Department of Public Health

Learning is being called upon to meet new post-Pandemic challenges and Learning leaders have been asked to move from the shadows to the spotlight. In a time of economic belt-tightening and layoffs in the technology sector, along with a shortage of skilled workers in industries such as healthcare, the C-Suite is looking to Learning to solve critical challenges.

These include recruitment, reskilling, and retention, along with building the workforce of the future. Achieving these strategic goals requires L&D leaders to operate and partner in ways that go beyond traditional Learning practices. Learning must accelerate momentum toward a new operating paradigm while maintaining agility in the face of relentless change. This experiential session will highlight what early adopters do to accelerate this shift.

The session will include “live” case studies, sharing of promising practices, and peer advisement. Participants will walk away with “aha” moments, an enhanced personal network, and tools they can use with their teams the day they return from the conference. Working as a team, we will:

- Provide successful examples of how L&D leaders contract and re-contract with business leaders to optimize the Learning function

- Build a journey map of your team’s transformation and your personal trajectory

- Identify action and learning commitments you can use to guide your conference experience and get traction when you return to work 

The learning environment challenges of a hybrid and dispersed workforce are varied and nuanced. Employees have more work and less time, there is a focus on direct and immediate application and workers not only learn differently but are also often working in very different environments. Techniques for delivering micro learning into the flow of work when the flow or work doesn’t always look the same becomes increasingly critical to success. In this session, we’ll dive into:

• Evaluating what is and isn’t working when delivering micro learning in hybrid environments

• Developing and optimizing business and L&D resources

• Planning for adaptability and continuity

• Tying your strategic plan to an L&D scorecard to communicate value to the business

• Scenario planning and identifying inflection points that impact the strategic plan

Speakers/Facilitators:

• Dr. Deann Butler, Head of Organizational Learning and Development, Elanor Health

• Kate Novello, Vice President Underwiring Learning & Development, PURE Group Insurance Companies

As organizations shift to being increasingly agile, data-driven and digitally dexterous, a renewed focus on skills and capabilities has taken root in talent management. Taking a skills-based approach to people strategy is critical - not only to developing employees but also to talent acquisition and retention. Retaining employees means succeeding at internal mobility.

Companies that want to retain institutional knowledge will dismantle antiquated career progression schemas that only focus on promotions and upward mobility and, instead, embrace what people actually want – to grow, try new things, find meaning and purpose, work flexibly and have great relationships at work.

This session will discuss:

• Mapping existing and needed skills and competencies across the organization

• Developing a skills based talent management strategy

• Aligning employee ambitions with business objectives

• Partnering with L&D to build a skills based organization

• Retaining talent by enabling mobility across the enterprise

Speakers/Facilitators: • Kari Borroel, Sr. Director Quality Learning, Documentation & Training Services, Alexion

• Connor Lewis, VP Talent Management & Development, Harborstone Credit Union

An exponentially increasing number of organizations are diving in and implementing augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) learning programs. And with recent developments in the metaverse industry, this will only continue to expand across organizations - both deeply and more broadly. But to date, not all are seeing the ROI, or the wild success stories others claimed to have had. Join this session to discuss:

• Evaluating the cost structures of AR/VR programs and manage them both for short- term and long-term success

• Identifying risks associated with security, privacy, health and compatibility and develop a playbook to mitigate against them

• Crafting an AR/VR learning strategy and roadmap for implementation to ensure success

• Developing program metrics, tracking ROI over time and reporting on key results

Speakers/Facilitators:

• Cynthia Speiran, VP, Training & Talent Development, HealthPlanOne

• Scott Manning,Director Training Systems& Administration, Clean Harbors

The way the L&D function is structured plays a critical role in how effective it is in supporting the organization’s performance. Optimizing your learning and development organizational structure will maximize production, efficiency and strategic alignment with the business. However, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Join this session to discuss:

• Evaluating your organization’s goals, context and existing organizational structure

•The components of an optimized L&D organizational structure

• Evaluating pros and cons of different organizational structures

• Key considerations for building an optimal L&D organizational structure

Speakers/Facilitators:

• Selen Turner, Global Talent and Organization Development Director, Cordis

• Dr. Marina Theodotou, Enterprise Organizational Change & Leadership Enterprise Initiatives, Defense Acquisition University

The new world of work, and specifically the new world of learning, requires a next generation facilitator who is agile, adaptable and has a nuanced understanding of the different platforms, formats and objectives required by employees and the business. Join this session to discuss how to take your learning facilitation to the next level in a world that is increasingly multi-platformed, location agnostic and asynchronous. This session will discuss:

• How the role and expectations of facilitators have shifted in a hybrid and remote work environment

• Establishing needs and deliverables in different environments and formats

• How facilitation techniques need to evolve for the new world of work

• Facilitation tips and techniques for asynchronous learning environments

• How and where facilitators can upskill themselves and the rest of their team

• New and emerging facilitation tools to consider for certain formats and objectives

• How to evaluate the success of facilitation in different platforms, formats and scenarios

Speakers/Facilitators:

• Catherine Curtis, Director, GlobalTechnical Learning Products, Microsoft

• Brandi Yates, Associate President of Learning & Development, Ultimate Medical Academy

As organizations and L&D itself become increasingly digital and data-driven ,L&D teams need to be using learning analytics to guide decision-making, demonstrate value to the business and focus resources and budgets on what matters most. The tangible value that learning data and analytics provides, and the appetite to gain actionable insights from data, is not in dispute. The challenge lies in having the ability, processes, structures and resources available to operationalize learning analytics and making it part of L&D’s DNA. Join this session to discuss:

• The reasons why most L&D organizations struggle with learning analytics

• Evaluating where L&D is on the data maturity journey and implications for crafting a roadmap

• Determining your goals with learning analytics

• Crafting an L&D data strategy

Speakers/Facilitators:

• Rebecca Scales, Head of Tech Learning & Development, Noom

• Taylor Paschal, Senior Knowledge Manager, Noom

Even though there has been a shift in recognition of the critical importance of L&D to organizational transformation and resilience, justifying budget, allocating resources and managing L&D teams remains one of the biggest challenges for leaders...and never more so than in times of economic turbulence.

In this no holds barred session, you will discuss:

• How L&D budgets have evolved over the past few years and are preparing for what’s to come

• Strategies and tactics for maintaining, building and increasing your budget during turbulent times

• Keeping L&D teams motivated and engaged during challenging times

• Organizing the L&D team to accelerate during recovery

• Key metrics for aligning the L&D budget to the business

Speakers/Facilitators:

• Elizabeth Peters, Director, Training & Development,GoHealth

• Erin Freshwater, Director, Learning & Talent Development, HormelFoods

Technology is not only transforming businesses and entire ecosystems, but also transforming learning itself. Forward-looking L&D leaders are seizing this opportunity to reimagine how programs are created, delivered and optimized through the enablement of AI. Evaluating how AI can improve your L&D initiatives and support your strategy is no longer being ahead of the curve, it is staying on the curve. Join this session to learn:

• Where AI in L&D has seen success and where it hasn’t

• Key lessons learned to date from AI implementations in L&D

• Understanding the limitations and risks

• Proactively addressing ethical considerations before implementation

Speakers/Facilitators:

• Jay Fortuna, Vice President Learning & Organizational Development, GoHealth

• Mike Martin, Global Head of Learning & Development, Apriori

More than ever, L&D organizations are under pressure to ensure (and prove) the learning function is in alignment with business goals and is delivering ROI. This is even more the case in times of economic turbulence when business metrics related to productivity, efficiency and profitability often take center stage.

Join this important discussion which will address:

- Determining the metrics that matter the most in your organization strategically and during different business cycles

- How to tie L&D to improvements in productivity, efficiency and profitability

- Aligning key business metrics to your L&D budget

Presentation by Armando Lourenzo, Chief Learning Officer, Ernst & Young Brazil

• Establish your corporate university as a “corporate commons” for leaders and crossfunctional teams to work together
• Integrate Corporate university with Knowledge Management and Development by experience
• Cater to global teams through blended learning, incorporating elements of in-person, virtual instructor- led training [VILT], MOOCs, Ecosystem, Virtual Reality (3D), Intelligence Artificial and Micro learning

Presentation by Dr. Trish Holliday, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, Assistant Commissioner & State CLO, Tennessee State Government Department of Human Resources

It’s not just about attracting the right talent; it’s about knowing how to keep them. Our distinguished keynote will share a transferrable toolkit including templates to help you

prepare for the future!

• Create a culture people want to be a part of and prepare to become future leaders
• Who’s the “forgotten population” and why is it important to focus on them?
• Position learning as a cultural driver to capture employees’ hearts and heads

Presentation by Casper Moerck, Head of Learning Technology, Global Learning Campus, Americas, Siemens

In a world where learning technology is exploding – new apps, new solutions - the landscape is evolving faster than ever. The CLOs of today and tomorrow are not just managing people but an entire ecosystem of technology. What is the current state of learning technology and what will the future look like in 2025?

• Pinpointing the skills needed to prepare for a learning paradigm shift
• Understanding and managing a learning ecosystem
• Managing a plethora of applications and systems

Presentation by Mike Pino, Ph.D., Global Learning Partner, Cognizant Digital Business

Digital transformation requires collective knowledge work. The emerging neuroscience behind effective collective intelligence has been applied to diversity measures and inclusive leadership approaches. Though these efforts help reduce feeling like an outsider – whether based on language, culture, race, or personality type – these efforts have been slow to yield results , often resulting in regrettable attrition.

Some organizations have discovered a new way forward: connecting individually-focused L&D efforts to these D&I efforts. Developing interpersonal, “power” skills, helps employees overcome the feeling of invisibility, finding ways to stand out and be noticed. The organizational benefits are likewise improved when individual employees overcome the feeling of invisibility so that they contribute and be a valuable resource in an organization and with teams. We’ll cover the what and the how in this session, making it easier to learn what’s working.

Presentation by Maria F. Fernandez, Director of Training, Development and Implementation, Parkland Hospital

• An overview of the drivers in radical transformation, specifically demographic changes and technological disruption
• A specific look into Millennials, who are changing how organizations hire, manage, and retain talent
• Conduct needs analyses to identify what workers really want, especially in catering to flexibility, continuous learning, and recruiting older talent

Presentation by Kevin M. Yates, Manager, Learning Systems, McDonald's

• Use facts, evidence and data as proof for the impact of training, learning and professional development
• Activate the strategy for using data as factbased evidence for forecasting performance outcomes and business results.
• Collect data and facts that support the story you want to tell about learning's effectiveness.