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Charlene Li

ATD Links Archive - ATD Links

Open Leadership: Mindsets and Traits

Why active learning isn’t optional anymore.You’ve put in the hours. The slide decks are polished, the training sessions are scheduled—and yet, a week later, nearly all of your content is forgotten. It’s not your employees’ fault. It’s a well-known phenomenon. Passive learning doesn’t stick. Active learning is your remedy. Research shows it boosts retention, shortens time to proficiency, and increases training ROI. But there’s a catch: designing active learning experiences is very time-consuming. According to ATD and Chapman Alliance benchmarks, it can take 40–80 hours just to build the interactive components of a single hour of e-learning. Add in instructional design, content development, media production, testing, and project management, and the total climbs to 150–300 hours per hour of training.That kind of time investment doesn’t scale, forcing you to compromise learning outcomes in order to keep pace with the demands of the business. But by rethinking how you design, deliver, and scale training—without starting from scratch—it becomes much more manageable. Here are five practical strategies to help you get started.Figure: Impact of Active Learning Online1. Repurpose and modularize what you already haveMost L&D teams are sitting on a treasure trove of great content: recorded webinars, internal presentations, live online trainings, written articles. There’s nothing wrong with the content per se, it’s just delivered in a way that isn’t easily retained. So don’t start from scratch. Start by identifying what can be reused.Then, break content into short, standalone modules. Microlearning not only accelerates production and personalization, but it also fits better into the real flow of work.Try this:Audit your existing content library (videos, decks, job aids).Cut long videos into short clips organized by task or goal.Add light interaction: “pause and reflect” prompts, checklists, decision points, or scenario-based questions.2. Add just enough interaction, strategicallyYou don’t need a full gamified simulation to make training active. The best interactions are the ones that match the moment: a poll at a decision point, a prompt that asks for real-world application of a concept, or a quick quiz that checks understanding.Try this:Identify natural “decision moments” in your training content.Add interaction where a learner would benefit from reflection or practice.Keep it lightweight by focusing on meaningful over flashy.3. Let AI do the heavy liftingOne of the fastest wins for L&D teams is offloading the manual, time-consuming parts of course creation. AI-powered tools like Engageli Studio can instantly add interactivity to uploaded videos, streamlining the process of creating active training content. The platform auto-chunks video into lessons, inserts quizzes and activities, and gives insight into engagement and completion, all with just a few clicks.Try this:Identify high-use but low-interactivity content to pilot with AI tools.Use AI to generate the first draft, then fine-tune to match your learning goals.Focus your team’s time on design, feedback, and strategic alignment.4. Let your learners create the contentEmpower your employees to create bite-sized, peer-to-peer training. It’s authentic, scalable, and often more relevant than top-down content.Launch a simple challenge, like “Show Us How You Do It”, where employees share how they solve real problems they encounter in their role. Then, curate and lightly enhance the best clips into an internal learning library.Try this:Ask a few power users or top performers to create a 5-minute “how-to” recording.Use AI tools to add structure and interaction to those clips.Organize by workflow (for example, “Closing a Deal,” “Handling Difficult Customers,” and the like).5. Use data to iterate instead of guessLooking for a faster, more targeted way to improve your training content? Start with data. Instead of relying solely on anecdotal input, track key signals like drop-off points, quiz scores, and replay rates to improve content over time.Try this:Define 1–2 measurable outcomes per course (such as completion, application on the job, quiz scores).Use platform data to identify friction points or content gaps.Adjust content monthly (not annually) to keep learning fresh and relevant.Training That Has an ImpactIn corporate L&D, the goal is to help people do better work and build skills they can actually use. Active learning is one of the most effective ways to get there. And with smart strategies and the right AI tools in your corner, it can be scalable too.Even in high-pressure environments, small changes in how we design and deliver training can lead to real, measurable impact. Now’s the time to experiment, test new strategies, and find what works best for your learners.Explore the instructional design process from start to finish in ATD's Instructional Design Certificate. 

Build Better Training, Faster: 5 Active Learning Strategies That Work

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.

Transforming Talent Acquisition With AI

In a world where the half-life of skills is rapidly shrinking, the mantra “learn or become obsolete” has never been more relevant. The World Economic Forum predicts that six in 10 workers will require training before 2027. This isn’t just a statistic—it’s a signal for a learning revolution.Gone are the days when education ended with a diploma. Today, lifelong learning isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a survival skill required to adapt to new challenges and opportunities. But here’s the million-dollar question: How do we keep learners engaged in this constant cycle of upskilling and reskilling?As learning professionals, we’re not just disseminating information—we’re architects of career resilience and personal growth. Our challenge? To create learning experiences so compelling that they become an integral part of our participants’ lives, not just another box to tick.This isn’t about force-feeding information. It’s about igniting curiosity, fostering adaptability, and building a mindset that views change not as a threat but as an exhilarating opportunity for growth. It’s about transforming the concept of learning from a periodic event into a continuous, enriching journey.So, how do we rise to this challenge? Let’s explore five strategies that can revolutionize your approach to continuous learning, boost engagement, and ensure your learners are not just surviving, but thriving in the age of constant upskilling. These strategies will help you create more engaging, personalized, and compelling learning experiences.Personalize Learning PathsEvery learner has unique skills, interests, and goals. By creating personalized learning paths, you can ensure that each participant receives training that’s relevant and valuable to them. Here’s how:Conduct skills assessments to identify gaps and strengthsHave one-on-one discussions with learners about their aspirationsUse AI-powered learning platforms to recommend courses based on individual profilesBy tailoring the learning journey, you’ll see increased engagement and more meaningful outcomes for each learner.Embrace MicrolearningIn our busy lives, finding time for extensive training sessions can be challenging. Microlearning solves this by breaking down content into bite-sized, easily digestible chunks. Try these approaches:Create short video tutorials (3–5 minutes) on specific skills or topics.Develop mobile-friendly learning modules that are accessible on the go.Implement daily or weekly learning challenges that take just a few minutes to complete.These bite-sized learning experiences can lead to big results, making continuous learning a seamless part of daily routines.Foster a Culture of Knowledge SharingEncourage participants to learn from each other by creating opportunities for knowledge exchange. This not only promotes learning but also strengthens community bonds. Consider these ideas:Organize regular "lunch and learn" sessions where learners can present their expertise.Set up a mentorship program pairing experienced practitioners with newcomers.Create an accessible knowledge base or wiki where participants can contribute and access information.By fostering this collaborative environment, you’ll create a self-sustaining ecosystem of continuous learning.Gamify the Learning ExperienceMake learning fun and engaging by incorporating gamification elements into your programs. This can significantly boost participation and retention. Here’s how:Implement a points system for completed courses or modules.Create leaderboards to spark friendly competition.Offer badges or certificates for mastering specific skills.These gamified elements can transform the learning experience from a chore to an interactive, exciting challenge.Link Learning to Personal and Professional GrowthShow participants how their learning efforts contribute to their personal and professional development. This creates a clear incentive for engagement in continuous learning. Try these strategies:Align learning objectives with real-world applications and career paths.Create clear roadmaps showing how specific skills lead to new opportunities.Recognize and celebrate learners who apply their new skills in meaningful ways.Connecting the dots between learning and tangible outcomes can fuel motivation and drive long-term engagement.Boost Learning Outcomes and Program SuccessImplementing these five strategies can enhance your learning programs and create a culture of continuous growth. Remember, the key is to make learning accessible, relevant, and rewarding. Start small, gather feedback, and continuously refine your approach. Your learners—and your program’s success—will reflect the positive impact of these efforts!

5 Strategies for Engagement in the Age of Constant Upskilling

Lisette Chreene is vice president of talent development for Securitas North America. She has more than 20 years of training and leadership experience.

Lisette Chreene

September 2020 - TD Magazine

A rapid increase in district managers at Securitas necessitated a program revamp, which is showing early promise.

An Onboarding Makeover to Match a Hiring Boom

Part 1 of this blog series asserted that the healthcare literacy challenge is akin to the language and communications challenges faced by every industry. Indeed, every market, company, and every project has its own lingo.Although the healthcare industry attempts to educate its patients and caregivers, it is teaching exactly opposite to how people actually learn language. Perhaps it is time to adjust the learning process to improve healthcare literacy. Current Approach Cannot Be Sustained According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), 90 percent of Americans need help understanding healthcare instructions. Dumbing down the language is not the best solution because the lingo and the language actually have meaning. A better approach is to smarten up the patients.  Research in linguistics, language acquisition, and neuroscience has uncovered the means by which adults learn new English terms and words.  That’s good; the path is known. (You can check out a summary in Part 1 of this series or review a detailed summary in another ATD blog series, “The Language of the Workplace.” In fact, adding words to patients’ vocabularies makes it easier to add even a few more words, thus building up a literacy capability.  Maybe words like “modality,” “asymptomatic,” and “lesion” simply need to be treated as new vocabulary words. The specific words that any one individual needs to learn will be hard to gauge. Language is a moving target, ranging from basic healthcare to disease-specific terminology to health and wellness. The good news: People are learning new terms all the time. Each new product introduction, television program, job, or neighborhood, and so on requires a new vocabulary. It stands to reason that, as a population, we can learn the language of healthcare—what we need and when we need it. If the language is continually stripped of its nuance and complexity, by presenting everything at the 6th grade level, then we are doomed to remain challenged by the vocabulary. Yet, the very definition of literacy is about the ability to comprehend complex vocabulary and concepts, and that includes medical terms or probability and risk.  The English language is rich in words and meanings. The greatest challenge to the healthcare community is that there is no way of knowing, in advance, which words and concepts are already in the vocabulary of its patients and caregivers. Let’s describe the complexity of the challenge with some data points:  There are 2400 words in the “kernel lexicon,” or those words needed for readers to understand 75 percent of what they read. Second language speakers are considered “fluent” with a vocabulary of 3000 words. The size of the vocabulary of a native English speaker depends on age, education, and experience, but it ranges from 10,000 to 25,000 words. For reference, the Oxford English Dictionary has 250,000 entries, including 50,000 obsolete words. There are 1 million words in the English language. People Want to Learn Is it possible for someone with a large vocabulary to not know the meaning of COBRA or NSAID?  Absolutely. Just as members of the medical community might not be comfortable talking about five-year ARMS or semi-definite positives. Patients and caregivers want to learn. According to Pew Research, 59 percent of U.S. adults looked up medical information on the Internet in 2013. Healthcare providers can help with this learning and educational challenge. Enter language learning tools. The way out of healthcare illiteracy isn’t to give in to it and talk to people in simplistic terms. Instead, let’s provide support and tools that enable patients and caregivers to grow their vocabularies and understanding. For example, while glossaries are considered “old school,” there are 21st century options. Healthcare provider can become the curator of language, identifying terms, abbreviations, and acronyms that will be valuable and useful to a specific patient and caregiver population. Imagine giving the newly diagnosed patient a complete collection of terms, with usage and meaning, that covers the entire topic of their care, including hospital locations and labs, medical terms, testing and monitoring lingo , as well as frequently used acronyms, phone numbers, and more. This information could be made available for reference on their smartphone—while they’re talking to family and friends, reading on the web, or looking at directions.  Bottom line: Rather than hoping patients took good notes, caregivers could take advantage of modern technology to support the language learning needs of healthcare consumers.

How to Achieve Healthcare Literacy, Part 2

Workplace intrusions—when one co-worker stops by another’s desk for social or work reasons, interrupting their task—are often seen as distracting, momentum-killing, and taking time away from work. But if done correctly, some intrusions are beneficial and even energizing.“We read in the news and books about how bad workplace intrusions are, with co-workers portrayed as ‘time thieves’,” says Mike Baer, an associate professor of management and entrepreneurship at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. “But as authors and researchers, we started to look at our experience. We could think of many situations in which intrusions led to interesting research projects and energized us throughout the rest of the day. So, we questioned whether it was true that intrusions are always bad.”Baer co-authored a research paper, “To What Do I Owe This Visit? The Drawbacks and Benefits of In-Role and Non-Role Intrusions,” with ASU Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship David Welsh, to investigate the dynamics of various types of workplace intrusions. Their results suggest that intrusions may lead to beneficial employee outcomes in addition to the adverse outcomes previously demonstrated in the literature. Specifically, what Baer and Welsh call “in-role” intrusions—when a co-worker comes by to ask about a project or to hand off a task—reengage employees and sometimes lead to enhanced collaboration, while non-role intrusions, like asking about weekend plans, require greater mental energy to switch between and are more important to limit.As organizations navigate the transition to hybrid or fully remote work environments, understanding how in-role intrusions can positively influence engagement and productivity is more important than ever. Here are some tips for mindfully leveraging workplace intrusions:Be aware that trying to avoid all intrusions may cause you to miss out on meaningful benefits. The pandemic has given rise to remote work and situations that are designed to reduce intrusions in many ways, but Baer cautions organizations against policies that cause employees to miss out on the benefits that come from in-person interactions like collaboration and increased engagement.Think of work-related intrusions as challenges that motivate you to work harder rather than as an unnecessary distraction. Challenge stressors—things like time pressure or workload—require people to expand their capabilities to overcome challenges. In-role intrusions can act as challenge stressors and motivate employees to push harder and be more engaged in their work throughout the day.Harness the opportunity that intrusions provide to share information and bounce ideas off your co-workers. The benefits of engagement, collaboration, and helping behaviors are often hidden. Baer’s research found that stopping by a coworker’s desk with an in-role intrusion can become an opportunity for positive collaboration between employees.If you’re a leader, consider implementing work arrangements that facilitate the work-related intrusions that can energize employees and foster collaboration. Seating employees near one another or implementing hybrid work schedules to encourage employees to work in the same spaces can encourage impromptu encounters and feedback that act as challenges to reenergize and focus employees while providing opportunities for natural collaboration.If you’re intruding on others, save your non-work topics for breaks rather than dropping by your co-workers’ desks unannounced. “I would counsel employees to be aware of when and for what reason they are intruding on their co-workers throughout the day,” says Baer. While discussing things like family or extracurricular activities helps build and maintain relationships, they typically have a negative effect on employees’ immediate job performance and should instead be held during a break. 

5 Tips for Reframing Workplace Interruptions

Autumn Matus is a results-oriented learning designer with a proven track record of leveraging her diverse background to develop innovative learning solutions that solve challenges and drive measurable business outcomes.She brings a unique combination of skills in market research, business intelligence, employee communications, and instructional design. Autumn excels at analyzing learner behavior, collaborating with business partners, and creating engaging content that fosters knowledge retention and impacts performance.Currently, as an instructional designer at Indeed, Autumn leads all aspects of program creation, from concept to implementation. She is a champion of innovation and enjoys mentoring others to accelerate their growth within the L&D field. She and her team recently launched Introduction to Indeed, a blended learning experience to welcome new Indeedians through exposure to Indeed’s business strategy, structure, and history culminating in an engaging themed escape room challenge.Passionate about lifelong learning and staying ahead of the curve, Autumn actively explores new trends and technologies to infuse creativity into learning experiences. Her motto, "Master what you know and discover what you don't," reflects her commitment to continuous improvement as a tenured learning and development professional.Connect with Autumn on LinkedIn.

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