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Mary Cropp is the director of training and development at the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, a global organization that enables the development of the technology that keeps us all unthinkably connected. At Bluetooth, she focuses on strategy, organization development, and instructional design to delight and enable people to do their jobs better or more efficiently. Her portfolio of learners includes the Kirkland, Washington–based staff and the 36,000 member companies located around the world. Prior to her tenure at Bluetooth, Cropp has been on staff with nongovernmental organizations working to build capacity in the world, and with local nonprofits partnering with immigrant and underserved populations.

Mary Cropp

September 2020 - TD Magazine

Instructional designers must be mindful of the observable and indiscernible cultural factors that influence how learners may react to training.

What Lies Beneath

January 2019 - TD Magazine

How to Not Get Hired

Technology is key to improving employee experience. But relying on technology rather than using it as a tool can cripple your organization’s productivity and culture.Many HR leaders and managers fall prey to employee-engagement tools predicated on perfunctory perks, assuming they are sustainable solutions that drive employee engagement and performance—usually, they’re not.Can these tools contribute to a high-performing workplace or generate an (often temporary) uptick in engagement? Yes. There’s no denying that.Technology helps amplify and extend company culture, but it can’t replace it. Investing in the right employee-experience technology aids the process, but the culture your organization fosters must lead any initiatives to inspire meaningful change.Let’s explore how technology can improve employee experience in your organization:1. Invest in a Better Learning Management SystemWhen choosing a company to work for, nearly 87 percent of candidates rank learning and development opportunities in the workplace as critical.Research also shows that high-quality training increases employee engagement because it influences “psychological variables” such as:MotivationCommitmentOrganizational trustLike an open-source LMS, investing in learning and development resources transcends typical tick-the-box compliance and regulatory training. Learning technology enables organizations to close skills gaps, create an adept, adaptable workforce, improve employee development plans, and strengthen the skills of employees—which can generate a 14-29 percent increase in profit.2. Encourage Knowledge Sharing and CollaborationA learning experience platform (LXP) is a powerful way to improve employee experience because it nurtures collaboration, mentorship, and development that supports employees at every stage of their careers.From new employees to experienced senior management, an LXP can connect people with similar learning needs—whether by role, location, seniority level, or skill set.Not only will this help your people share knowledge, collaborate on projects, and communicate with colleagues, it also provides opportunities for employees to be mentored by senior experts.Experts can curate training resources from multiple channels to create personalized development paths, answer questions from mentees, and track mentee engagement.3. Use People-Centric Performance Management TechnologyEnhancing employees’ skills and nurturing a collaborative culture will drastically improve your organization’s employee experience, but effective performance management is missing in the talent experience chain.Supported by a people-centric management culture, a performance management system completes the talent experience chain—addressing the most pertinent elements of employee experience and unlocking sustained employee engagement and alignment within your organization.When choosing a performance management system to improve employee experience, we recommend flexible technology (like Totara Perform) that supports both a traditional and agile approach and allows you to gradually improve processes with features such as:Continuous 360-degree feedbackSupport for frequent check-insUp-to-date competency frameworks and skills auditsClear objectives and goal-setting at all levels of the organizationIntroducing the Totara Talent Experience Platform: The All-in-One Technology for Employee ExperienceWe built the Totara Talent Experience Platform to unite all the employee experience technology you need in one solution.Together, these intuitive systems (that integrate with your current HCM and L&D tech) empower a talent experience platform that improves every aspect of the employee-employer experience to unlock peak performance and boost agility in your organization.

3 Ways to Use Technology to Improve Employee Experience

May 2017 - TD Magazine

Learning to Share

Teamwork allows us to engage in important work, and teams hold immense power. Those on teams share perspectives, brainstorm ideas, and produce results beyond what’s possible alone. With organizations relying increasingly on teams to deliver impact, teamwork skills are needed more than ever.Part of the ATD Soft Skills Series, Teamwork in Talent Development is for talent development professionals who serve as team leaders or team members and wish to improve their collaboration abilities, build successful teams, and maximize their team performance for solving business problems, meeting learning needs, promoting culture change, and more.Author Thane Bellomo is an organizational development innovator, author, and speaker who has spent more than 20 years working with Fortune 500 organizations and leaders in manufacturing, healthcare, government, and the energy industry. We recently spoke with him to get some insights on key takeaways from the book.1. Why write another teamwork book?I often get called on to help organizations with teams. In such cases, leaders are struggling to create high performing teams and don’t quite know how to do it. There are a million teaming models and formulas out there that outline the attributes of high-performing teams, yet I still see leaders and organizations wrestling with this problem. My observations are that many leaders don’t often think about the upfront work of team creation. What circumstances are most likely to drive the development of team performance? What are the attributes of team support that help high-performing teams develop? I haven’t seen many resources that address the upfront work needed to create the circumstances most likely to develop high-performing teams.An analogy for this is trying to grow crops in unfertile soil. You can read all the books about how to plant, when to plant, and how much to water. But if your soil is poor, then none of that matters. What I address in this book is how to ensure that you are working with fertile soil. When we create the correct conditions, the likelihood that we will end up with high-performing teams is much greater. This book addresses a gap in teaming literature, which will help leaders.I also wrote this book to outline the far-reaching impact that creating high-performing teams can have on your organization. People often think that teams are just groups of people that complete a task or packet of work. That is such a limited view of how powerful teams can be in your organization when done well. In terms of the development of trust and community, high-performing teams have enormous downstream benefits. Leaders don’t often approach teaming with this in mind. This book will help leaders not only recognize that value but work to create it.2. What is the one thing that you hope people take away after reading this book?I want leaders to understand that well-formed and well-led teams solving important problems lead to the development of trust and community within the team. Teams accomplish a lot of work, which is a good thing. But when people struggle together to accomplish important things, they develop high levels of trust and relationships that end up resembling what we might call a community. Communities care about one another; they want each other to succeed; and they create circumstances where people will provide high levels of discretionary effort to ensure the success of not only the project itself, but of each other.The relationships forged in these instances live on long after the team is disbanded. Team members continue to collaborate, maintain communication, and help each other succeed. The result is often high levels of cross-functional and cross-departmental information sharing and innovation. This dynamic can be a big differentiator in your organization’s ability to compete in the market.3. What is the biggest gap you see in how leaders lead teams?The biggest gap in how leaders lead teams is in the initial framing and formation of the team. Leaders often throw a group of people together and tell them to go do something. This approach undercuts some of the most powerful factors that determine team performance. First, teams should be thought of as problem-solvers, not task-doers. This is an important distinction that is often overlooked. When we task teams to solve a problem, we have the opportunity for coming up with better solutions. This dynamic allows us to leverage the innovative capacity of the group to engage with the problem and develop solutions.Second, high-performing teams are more likely to form when they are engaged in important work. Leaders often assume that just because they want a packet of work completed, the assignment is important. However, if the team doesn’t feel the assignment is important, then they will not naturally provide discretionary effort to solve the problem or execute the work. Important work lends itself to discretionary effort, engagement, and collaboration.We know this because the inverse is true. When teams engage in unimportant work, we tend to see the hallmarks of low-performing teams—lack of discretionary effort, disengagement, variable effort, and destructive conflict. Helping the team understand the importance of the work you are asking them to engage with is key. If you can’t convince them that it is important, then that might be a clue that it really isn’t.4. What team behaviors are most impactful for creating high-performing teams?The most important attributes and behaviors critical to team performance are their level of curiosity and their ability to challenge. It is a tautology that humanity advances through disagreement. Only through wrestling with differing ideas and perspectives do we triangulate onto the most effective answers. Too many teams have cultures that stifle disagreement and frown upon vigorously challenging one another and leadership. I advise leaders to build team cultures where the expectation is that everyone approaches disagreement with curiosity. “Tell me more” should probably be the most used phrase on any team, particularly during disagreements. This opens the door for people to engage in dialogue and perspective sharing.Curiosity also permits vigorous challenges. The team norm should be an expectation of disagreeing that leads to solutions. Leaders can set a good example by asking their teams, “Tell me why I am wrong,” or maybe even better, “Tell me why this is a bad idea.”5. What are the outcomes that you hope leaders and organizations will get by using this book to guide their team leadership?I hope that leaders will recognize the “if you want teamwork, then give the teamwork.” I hope that leaders will internalize that trust is an outcome of people effectively struggling together to accomplish great things. I also hope that leaders will spend a lot more time up front thinking carefully about the importance of the work they are tasking the team with; framing the importance of that work; tasking the team with solving a problem; and honoring the importance of the work by providing the team autonomy, funding, and effective sponsorship. When all components are in place, leaders are much more likely to create a high-performing team and reap its benefits.How can organizations best drive the development of high-performing teams?Organizations can take the lessons from the book to build an effective team approach into their culture. They can define the way in which they “do teams.” Process the idea that teams solve important problems; honor important work by giving teams autonomy, funding, and sponsorship; and encourage curiosity and challenges. It is all well and good when leaders know these things, but unless they build the approach into how teams work, then it is just another aspiration that people might talk about but which they actually never do. This dynamic only ends up breeding organizational mistrust.It also ends up sabotaging efforts to create high-performing teams in the future. People end up not believing you when you say the work is important, they end up not trusting that they will be given support, and they quickly lose interest. What likelihood do we then have of a high-performing team where a sense of trust and community are built? Make the principles outlined in the book a part of how you do business, and you will do better at creating high-performing teams, solving your most difficult challenges, and creating communities within your organization that drive innovation and cross-functional collaboration.About the AuthorThane Bellomo is an executive coach and team and organization development practitioner. He has more than 20 years of experience working with Fortune 50 leaders to maximize their potential and optimize their results. Thane is an accomplished author, speaker, and coach and spends his time studying how leaders and teams most effectively form and function.About ATD and ATD PressThe Association for Talent Development (ATD) is the world’s largest association dedicated to those who develop talent in organizations. ATD’s members come from more than 120 countries and work in public and private organizations in every industry sector. ATD Press publications are written by industry thought leaders and offer anyone who works with adult learners the best practices, academic theory, and guidance necessary to move the profession forward. For more information, visit td.org/books.Teamwork in Talent DevelopmentISBN: 9781952157660 | 152 Pages | Paperbackhttps://www.td.org/product/book--teamwork-in-talent-development/112113To order books from ATD Press, call 800.628.2783.To schedule an interview with Thane Bellomo, please contact Kay Hechler, ATD Press senior marketing manager, at khechler@td.org or 703.683.8178.

Teamwork in Talent Development: Q&A With Thane Bellomo

Social learning is a fundamental shift in how people work leveraging how we have always worked, now with new, more humanizing tools, accelerating individual and collective reach, giving us the resources to create the organization, and the world, we want to live in.While your effort to implement social learning should not be ALL about the tools, it’s still important to consider the tools that you will use. Too often we try to jump in with a tool first. Resist that temptation. But when it is time to choose a tool, it is a very important decision—one not to be taken lightly.Although social is not about the tool, the tool is a heavy component and careful scrutiny of its capabilities and workings should not be discounted. For example, some of the features most often overlooked by a novice when choosing a tool are the number of clicks it takes to get information, the flow in which that happens, and the ways users are notified of new or changed content.Many attributes have a hidden importance and, until you understand the social element, you very well may not uncover those needed features. So what to do?Make sure the person who evaluates potential tools has experience in this. There are enough people out there, finding someone should not be a prob­lem anymore. Listen to them and weigh their advice. And then know this: No tool or set of tools will give you everything you need and want.Companies are constantly looking to cut corners. When we choose cheap approaches to social tools, we might look for the cheapest, or even free, soft­ware. Maybe we don’t put the technical resources behind it to make sure it runs well, or we fail to hire someone who knows how to help a company adopt it, hoping the “build it and they will come” strategy might work. If you decide to jump into social learning, do it right. Hire good people. Buy the right soft­ware. Put it on the right hardware. Give the team the time and resources they require. You don’t have to be extravagant, but put in the commitment that will lead to success.There is a tendency to go with the cheaper solution. Yet often that solution does not have what is needed. Although being social is not about the technology, the wrong technology will cripple any initiative.There are gives and takes, many of which won’t be discovered until you have purchased and implemented the tool in production. Just go with it and enjoy the journey! The tool should make your job easier. No tool is perfect, and you will never get 100 percent of what you think you need. At the same time, don’t settle for just getting by. Make sure the tool works for you—not you for the tool.Here are some questions to consider:Will the tool we have chosen be able to give us 90 percent of what we need?As we look to contain costs, are we sacrificing needed functionality for cost savings?After this is launched, are we giving enough resources to build this initiative or only maintain?In what ways might we be trying to cut corners and can we justify those? Editor’s Note: This post is excerpted from The New Social Learning, 2nd Edition (ATD Press, 2015). In this newly revised and updated edition of The New Social Learning, Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner dispel organizational myths and fears about social media. By sharing the success stories of socially engaged companies and people, the much-anticipated second edition persuasively makes the case for using social media to encourage knowledge transfer and real-time learning in a connected and engaging way.

Don't Choose Just Any Social Learning Tool

Change in government rarely comes easily. New laws, administrations, and policies arrive quickly, with the expectation that thousands of people will adapt just as fast. Leaders are left with a familiar question: How do you actually get people to understand and embrace the change?This challenge extends to many other industries. Organizations undergoing significant change often face the same hurdles. Visual storytelling—especially in the form of short, engaging videos—is proven to be a powerful tool for driving rapid and meaningful behavioral change.Take the case of the American College of Education, which created high-quality e-learning content to help staff and students better understand their new digital initiatives. By developing scenario-based videos embedded into training modules, they moved beyond lengthy documents, making complex information accessible and memorable for their audience. This approach led to improved engagement and practical application of new skills.Similarly, Advocate Health designed engaging onboarding videos at scale to introduce new staff to organizational culture and procedures. Using storytelling, they fostered understanding, helping new employees quickly adapt and internalize their roles.From Slides to StoryThese organizations realized dropping information into slides or lengthy documents wasn’t enough. Instead, the teams worked with content creators to transform key messages into short, scenario-based videos, woven into a course and reinforced with leadership perspectives.The shift here is subtle but important. Rather than “here are the ten things you must memorize,” it became, “here’s how this change looks and feels in real life.” In government training, that same shift, away from bullet points toward storytelling, can make the difference between compliance and buy-in.What SticksThe results? Employees start using new language, adopt new practices, and internalize new behaviors long after initial training.This isn’t surprising. Cognitive scientists have long shown that people remember material better when it’s paired with visuals, a theory known as the picture superiority effect. Stories, too, are more likely to change attitudes and behaviors because they draw people in emotionally, are concrete, and promote self-understanding. In government, where employees may be spread across regions or working under pressure, this kind of “stickiness” is essential.A cybersecurity policy only works if employees change their daily habits. A new health initiative only matters if staff know how to explain it to the public. If training doesn’t stick, the effort can be wasted. The goal isn’t just completion. It’s lasting impact.Scaling SolutionsAn added advantage of this approach is scalability. Once a compelling, story-driven course is developed for one department or initiative, it can be easily adapted and reused across different parts of the organization, maximizing impact while minimizing costs.Government trainers can take advantage of this. Once a story-driven course is created for one office, it can be reused, adapted, and shared. When budgets are limited, being able to build once and deploy many times is no small thing.TakeawaysThere are a few clear lessons here:Start with story, not just slides. Keep content short and modular. Measure behavior, not just attendance. Reuse good content wherever you can.Change is inevitable, but how it is communicated makes all the difference. Clear, compelling storytelling helps employees grasp the “why,” see themselves in the story, and live the change.

New Mission, New Narrative: Leading Change Through Storytelling

Mid-sized companies are in a unique spot: big enough to need structure and scale, but often short on resources. You might support hundreds or thousands of employees across roles, regions, and business units—but your L&D team? Probably still small, juggling endless requests on a tight budget.Still, training doesn’t have to stall when things get busy. With the right strategy and tools, mid-market L&D leaders can drive real impact—without extra headcount or dollars.Here are five common challenges—and how to tackle them:1. The Bandwidth BottleneckL&D is rarely overstaffed. Requests pour in, but the team stays lean—sometimes even a team of one.Smart leaders don’t build everything alone. They tap internal champions to help with content and delivery, then centralize materials like Zoom recordings and job aids into a simple LMS.You don’t need 300 courses. You need the right courses that are organized, accessible, and easy to update.2. Budget PressuresAs your company grows, expectations rise—but your budget may not.Good news: you already have what you need. Record subject-matter experts walking through tasks or answering FAQs. Use short videos, screen shares, or walkthroughs that can be reused.Blended learning helps, too. Combine asynchronous content with live sessions to stretch your budget. Prioritize content that works across teams—from onboarding to ongoing development—for maximum ROI.3. Proving ROIIn a mid-sized company, every investment has to earn its place. That means training can’t be a black box.Go beyond completion rates. Are new hires getting productive faster? Are sales reps closing more deals? Are support tickets dropping?Soft metrics matter, too—like promotion rates and manager satisfaction. Visual dashboards and charts can turn your wins into stories that leadership can see and support.4. Outgrowing Legacy ToolsSpreadsheets and shared drives may have worked at 200 employees—but not at 1,000. A modern LMS changes that. It simplifies delivery, automates busywork (like reminders and tracking), and ensures consistency—especially in high-impact roles like managers or frontline staff. Scaling training doesn’t require complexity. It just requires smarter systems.5. Keeping Top Talent EngagedOne of the costliest challenges? Losing high-potential employees who don’t see a path forward.A clear training and development strategy helps retain them. When people see growth opportunities, they’re more likely to stay—and contribute more. You don’t need bureaucracy to build career paths. With the right culture and tools, you can offer meaningful development without overpromising promotions. That agility is your advantage.Where to Start: Make Onboarding Your LaunchpadIf you improve one thing this quarter, make it onboarding. It’s high visibility and high impact, influencing everything from productivity to retention.Use a simple 30-60-90 framework:Days 1–30: Orientation, culture, early wins Days 31–60: Role clarity, key tools, and systems Days 61–90: Independence, goal setting, and growth planning A good LMS can automate much of this and give you clear data on effectiveness and time-to-productivity.Looking Ahead: Train for AgilityMid-market L&D wins don’t come from formality—they come from flexibility. That means mapping skills (not just roles), running short upskilling sprints, and embedding learning into the flow of work.You don’t need to mimic enterprise strategies. You need to stay focused, fast, and aligned with your business goals. When training becomes a growth engine—not just a support function—you turn every challenge into an opportunity.

How Training Leaders Can Solve Their 5 Biggest Challenges—Without Adding Headcount or Blowing the Budget

As the demand for new skills rises, organizations are increasingly focused on upskilling their workforce while also trying to attract new talent. However, finding qualified candidates remains challenging. To fill critical roles, companies must adopt more advanced recruiting methods, practices, and technologies.Leading organizations are using AI and automated recruiting solutions to adopt a skills-based hiring approach, gaining a competitive edge. The challenge lies in balancing advanced technology with a human-centered approach to meet the needs of both individuals and the organization.Recruiting Tech Trifecta: AI, Automation, and Generative AIWhile generative AI is the latest breakthrough in recruiting technology, AI and automation have been enhancing talent acquisition for years. Early adopters realized the power of advanced sourcing technology to intelligently position jobs where the most qualified candidates are likely to see them. Instead of simply posting a job and waiting for applicants, companies now proactively engage both active and passive candidates through intelligent search and personalized outreach, utilizing data from their digital footprints.According to the 2024 Talent Trends Report by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), “screening, interviewing, and assessing candidates using AI functionality gives recruiters the ability to sort and prioritize candidates more efficiently than humans have time for and may help to minimize biases in the selection process.” Deltaclass Technology Solutions states that AI allows recruiters and managers to use a more data-driven, objective approach for their screening and selection decisions.The explosion of generative AI is providing even more AI benefits for recruiters, HR, and hiring managers. Generative AI is being used to create job postings, employment brand assets, interview guides, and communication assets such as job offer letters. It is also taking virtual assistants and chat bots to the next level to simplify communications with and improve accessibility to information for candidates throughout their hiring experience.Skills Are the Data Fueling AI AlgorithmsThese advanced AI tools go beyond creating efficiencies; they also provide the intelligent functionality to identify candidates’ skills and capabilities with greater accuracy. The focus on skills proficiency and skills-based hiring is essential during this time where we continue to have a mismatch of people to jobs in the labor market.High-profile companies, such as Delta Airlines, have adopted “skills-first” hiring practices and eliminated college degree requirements for many of their jobs. Delta stated that skills-first recruiting—externally and internally—allows them to consider a broader pool of candidates, while also minimizing or eliminating biases for those who may not have a degree but have the practical experience and/or demonstrated proficiency in the skill that qualifies them for that job.According to the Conference Board, skills-based hiring is not just about dropping education degree requirements or acceptance of alternative credentials. Taking a skills-based approach means thinking differently about the work itself and what critical skills are required for that work. Of those skills, which ones can be developed in a short period of time, and which ones should you hire for?Companies are increasingly open to hiring candidates with transferable skills. AI and skills data help recruiters identify potential in candidates who can be upskilled post-hire. One high-profile example occurred during the COVID-19 lockdown when Swedish flight attendants were retrained to assist in hospitals by leveraging and re-purposing their skills related to safety, customer care, and handling stressful situations.Keep People at the Center of Your Recruiting AI-driven recruiting tools are meant to enhance and expand recruiters’ own skills, not replace them. Successful recruiting and hiring relies on the ability to build relationships, communicate clearly and effectively, navigate complex interpersonal situations, solve unique problems, and demonstrate ingenuity and persistence in finding the right person for the right role.While adopting AI solutions and incorporating them into your hiring process has many benefits, it’s equally important to be aware of potential risks and challenges such as data privacy concerns, data biases, and inaccuracies in results. Having frequent open dialogue about ethical implications is important to uncover and address concerns.Success in hiring hinges on recognizing that people are at the core of every decision. By balancing AI with a human-centered approach, you can attract top talent, make equitable decisions, and build a workforce aligned for long-term success.

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