This past May, I had the privilege of attending Association for Talent Development 2015 International Conference & Exposition in Orlando, Florida. The conference brought over 10,000 training professionals from around the globe to share best practices and insights. It was quite an eye opening experience. I got my first taste of the Talent Development world outside of Levy.

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We are either excited about Why Biases Persist presentation or the fact that we had the chance to explore Harry Potters Diagon Alley in Orlando’s Universal Studio!…

I went into this conference knowing I had little knowledge of the industry. I decided I’d diversify my sessions to touch a bit of every sector. I attended everything from Change Management to Unleashing Your Personal Power to The Neuroscience of Why Bias Persist. I was blown away! I compiled a list of some of my key takeaways to share.

Key Takeaways:

  • For best results, keep online training videos at 2-3 minute in length, when chunking focusing on 1 item.
  • While giving instructor-led training, audience should be involved every 8 minutes to hold their attention, every 4 minutes for online training.
  • If a person knows the answer, they should be able to draw an answer within 12 seconds. More time means they are guessing.
  • People should be practicing their skills under realistic conditions.
  • We don’t spend enough time practicing our skills- Half of training time should be spent practicing the desired skill.
  • By 2020, it’s predicted that 90% of Enterprise-level training will be online and only 10% will be Instructor-led.
  • Diversity in teams increases retention (by 24%) and increases sales.
  • Diverse teams perform better, but it doesn’t feel that way.
  • Awareness and education of unconscious bias does not create change in behavior.
  • Take the bias out of the process, not out of the person.
  • We have biases toward things that are closer to us. To decrease this bias imagine someone else is making the decision.
  • We have biases in favor of people who look similar to us. To decrease this tendency, focus on commonalities and remove distinguishing elements – nameless resumes, conduct phone interviews.
  • Retention has a lot to do with how connected employees feel. Provide opportunities for employees to build relationships within the organization, ask the employee what they need, and tell them what the business needs, recognition for good work.
  • Create distance between undesired behaviors and bring desired behaviors to the forefront. For example if you want to encourage consumption of water put water at eye level and sugar drinks on the bottom shelf. To increase organ donation ask people to opt-out of organ donation rather than opt-in to organ donation.

Overall this experience was a fantastic opportunity for me to understand the scope of the industry. I simply couldn’t have gotten this knowledge on my own time. I am incredibly grateful to my host company and my boss for making it possible for me to attend this year and I look forward to attending it again in the future.