Last year's ATD had sooooo many LMS providers shoved in my face yet all of my L&D team told me that learners couldn't give two stitches about the videos and modules. I don't blame them, it's boring. But once they're on the job they're clueless and need eve more training to get the job done correctly.

Which industries that are at a significant L&D deficit need in-person training more as opposed to using all the fancy eLearning software we have at our disposal.

Hello everyone!

I have a question about Learning objectives specifically for ILT.

Should my learning objectives (following Bloom’s taxonomy) be visible to the audience? I have seen it done this way in the past, but I have also seen some nay-sayers stating it should be kept in the presenter notes only.

My second question is, if the learning objectives live in the presenter notes, should I have a watered down version of them as a visual on a slide? And if so, does anyone have an example of what this could look like? I appreciate any and all perspectives and/or information on this.

Hello everyone! I'm now undergoing training to become a certified trainer. One of my next assignments is to organize an ice-breaker session for the group.

This would not be such a big deal, if I wasn't absolute sh*t at it, even in my daily life.

So, even though I don't have access to the Moodle part that gives out all the rules and whatnot, I already started thinking about what I'm going to do. An idea popped up in my head, it's a bit wild, chaotic, and probably god awful, so I'd like the insight of more experienced trainers about it.

I plan to make them suffer. A little bit.

My plan is, at the start, make them choose one of their hobbies, but not to tell anyone what it is. Afterwards, prohibiting speech. Then, having them choose a volunteer, that will be given oven mittens and a bag. During this, I would be playing relaxing music to lull them into a false sense of security.

Afterwards, I would show a timer (one that does loud BEEPs, like a bomb clock), and reveal that inside the bag, that only the representative of the group can handle, and only with the mittens, is every letter in the alphabet. The objective would be to figure out the name and interest of every participant (15ish) without talking, before the clock went of. Depending on time, I might add the last name as well in the middle of the session. If they were to fail, I would set off a confetti cannon, and they would have to clean the mess (I would actually clean it, in fact). Also, every word spoken would remove a second from the clock. I would be very ruthless about it too, to add to the pressure.

My reasoning behind this lunacy is:

• An ice-breaker, at least to me, would have you know at least the name of everyone. Hence the objective would be to figure it out, as well as an interest.
• I believe that the frantic gesticulation and the panicked "hmm! HMM!" that the no talking rule and the clock's BEEPs would generate, would lead to funny interactions between them, strengthening the group's cohesion.
• Due to the time limit, they would have to organize themselves, encouraging and improving their teamwork.
• I like chaos.

Do bear in mind that, during all of this, the way I executed, conducted, and the results of this ice-breaker will be evaluated by another student. So this may all have to change depending on what is requested by our teacher. But since I suck at ice-breaking, and the timeline is very tight (for next wednesday), i really want to start throwing stuff to the wall and see what sticks.

So, how terrible of an idea would this be? Thanks for the help!

Hello - I worked for 17 years in L&D at Google and I'm sure you can imagine there was a different department for every facet of L&D. I did not do e-learning at all. Now that I'm looking for a new job in L&D outside of Google, every single job requires some e-learning software and I'm not sure how to go about learning them (doesn't seem like MA degrees teach the software). How did you all learn these and what do you suggest for me? Every job requires one of many of these even if I'm not applying to be an instructional designer: Captivate, Rise, Storyline, Camtasia, Adobe Publisher, Vyond, Canva, Degreed, AI video generators, etc. Any ideas for learning these? I did Storyline on LinkedIn, but it didn't make me a super user. Thanks for your help. Stephanie

Hi everyone, I am a former teacher working at a startup. I was hired to train their sales team and now 5 months in, I am being asked to train their new underwriters. I had no experience in sales, but have picked that up over the last 5 months and our industry specific knowledge. Where I am struggling is creating a weekly curriculum that engages the sales reps. We have a 1 hour meeting every week and a 30-60 minute virtual meeting as well. Some of the learning is just simply product updates and changes, but I struggling to creatively think of ways to get them engaged in the learning.

Now they are asking me to train underwriters and that seems incredibly daunting. The underwriting process is very complex with so much nuance. There are endless amounts of if/then scenarios. I'm feeling overwhelmed trying to grasp it while still trying to master our sales process, competition, and product. The only thing that I can think of for training the underwriters is to simply walk them through 3 or 4 applications that I can familiarize myself with. They just gave me access to Articulate, but I have zero experience with it and am not sure how best to utilize it for this training.

Any advice is welcome. I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed. I was very confident in my teaching career and feel like an imposter and lack that same confidence for now.

Hi everyone,

I recently delivered a training session that felt a bit flat, with limited questions and no immediate feedback. While most attendees stayed for the full session, two dropped off early.

I’m curious about the signs and metrics you use to determine if a session is going well. Are there specific things you look out for to know participants are finding it useful? How do you gauge success if feedback is minimal?

I’d love to hear any tips or experiences you have on signs of an engaging and effective session—especially any subtle indicators that show participants are gaining value.

Thanks in advance for sharing your insights!

I was talking to my friends who recently joined their company and realised the following things in the context of corporate training:
a) Companies don't actually care about their employee's learnings and is mostly a formality

b) For employees, it is sorta formality for them as well just to sit throught it, pass tests if any (most of them don't end up doing it if they don't have tests check in).

I want to understand to what extent this is true depending on the company's demographics (company size, industry, etc.) and I'm interested to learn more about the companies who actually care about the learnings of the employees at the job and invest in the resources?

Hey, I’m doing some benchmarking with salaries in learning and development and have found that it’s so broad in our industry! I love working in Learning and Development and want to make this my permanent career path but I’m also super motivated and want to make as much money as I can in the industry. If you’re in L&D, what do you do? Did you specialize in anything? How much money do you make and do you like what you do? I’ll start.. I’m 33, NYC, Assistant Director of Learning and Development, it’s pretty general but I focus on a lot on management training and I make $135k a year (no bonus). I’ve been in L&D for about 6 years, previous to that I worked in a HR role.

Hi! My company has thrown my entire team for a loop recently. In the year and a half since I accepted my promotion to trainer, my job description has changed as often as my supervisor (on supervisor #4 ) due to restructuring. I came in as a trainer with the job description lining up with a glorified SME and a little pay bump. Company said no more- you're now going to be a corporate trainer and we're going to put you in a new team where your new responsibilities will be on-boarding and multi-team support. I feel I've kept my head above water well enough, but they have now brought in new external trainers to join our still very discombobulated team. I am doing my best to cover the basics and keep positive on how rough of a transition we are all barely coming out of, but how does one mentor someone on something they are still trying to figure out for themselves? In addition to this, what I've been mentoring on currently is in a vicious change cycle as we revamp. I feel lost and discouraged with just a "you've got this!" from my supervisor.
Any advice is appreciated, even if it's how to explain to my supervisor how absolutely ridiculous this is.

Hi everyone!

I've transitioned into a new role at my company, where I am responsible for conducting all onboarding and training for our employees, as well as managing implementation of all new technology. We are a small, construction company with no training program or resources currently in place. I conducted my first onboarding today (4 people), and I left feeling a little deflated.

To provide some context, I would categorize myself as a SME on the majority of our processes and systems rather than a "trainer". I have a great technical knowledge of our procedures, and I love administering structure via technology, process documentation, etc. I built our intranet and talent management system myself (upon my own onboarding, I realized there was no centralized resource "hub"), and I love learning and implementing new tech/solutions (I worked for a large GC prior to this, and was a part of their "innovation" team).

With that said, I understand technical aptitude does not inherently translate into being a good trainer. When working 1-on-1, I feel that I am better able to walk through a process, but I still feel that I am lacking from an engaging "trainer" perspective. Additionally, our employees are more field oriented (construction company), and struggle a lot with basic operation of technology.

Does anyone have experience training in a construction environment and do you have any advice on becoming a better trainer? I am looking into a "Train-the-Trainer" course, but I would love to hear about first hand experience. I want to succeed in this role and ultimately become a better support for my team.

Hi All, I am looking to understand how are companies training their frontline and bluecollar workers who are spread across geographies. Specifically in industries like manufacturing, logistics and retail. There are compliance requirements, safety aspects, plus onboarding and productivity improvement.

Would love to know if someone is using any technology to solve this and reaching their huge frontline workforce.

We've been tackling the eternal challenge of scaling soft skills practice, particularly for our customer-facing teams. After years of facilitator-led role-play (and the inevitable scheduling headaches), we've been testing AI-driven practice scenarios.

Some interesting findings so far:

What's Working:

• Learners can practice difficult conversations on their own schedule
• No more coordinating role-play partners across time zones
• Consistent experience for all learners (vs. dependent on who's playing the customer/manager role)
• Analytics on communication patterns help identify coaching opportunities

Current Use Cases:

• Customer escalation scenarios
• Manager-employee feedback sessions
• Sales objection handling

Pain Points We're Addressing:

• SME availability for role-play
• Scale (especially for global teams)
• Consistency in feedback

Would love to hear from other corporate trainers/IDs:

• How are you handling soft skills practice at scale?
• What's your biggest challenge with traditional role-play?
• Has anyone else explored AI solutions?

Does anyone know of a resource that has instructions on how to conduct employee training using guided mental imagery/rehearsal scenarios?

This would be where the facilitator goes: "Imagine you are in this scenario and..." I'm looking for script options for something using this technique, the level of detail provided, and the questions to ask the group, etc. Preferably on the topic of decision making.

I've tried to find this online with no luck. Are there any good books that have this information?

The idea: An e-learning platform where companies can embed training onto their internal portal, kinda like a large widget.

Would this be a big advantage over other software?

Simple question, and I don't mean to get too in the weeds, but I've always been curious about how different places handle their training. I've been in some CU's where training is only one week. Other places where its an intense three week thing. I'm building out a learning training path for new hires, and I'm always uncertain about time (full day of training? Half-day?) and its length (again, one week? Two weeks? More?). What's your guys' favorite method of training? Thanks!

Hello! While I know there are many training providers and companies out in the L&D world, is there a list of training providers that are specific to a particular vertical or industry that I can refer to?

Most of the training providers that I've seen offer very general course training on a variety of topics with several trainers on their TC roster.

I want to move away from general certificate course providers online and focus on TCs that offer primarily instructor-led training that can be done on-site or at least live via video. I'm currently working in managing in-person learning for machinists and new manufacturing techs.

Total newbie here. Looking to understand the career a bit more. It seems like you guys are well paid for the job, so what’s the “bag of shit” you need to eat for the pay?

Hi everyone,

I’m working with a couple of instructors who offer GenAI courses designed for professionals in M&A, Private Equity, and Investment Banking. While we’re planning to sell these live online courses directly to individuals (B2C) through our website, we’re also considering a B2B approach and could really use your insights.

The courses are priced at $750 per seat, and we’re confident they can significantly boost employee productivity. Here are some of the questions we’re grappling with:

1. Who are the key decision-makers in firms like these when it comes to purchasing courses—L&D professionals, partners, or someone else?
2. Big firms like PwC and Deloitte have their own academies. How do they usually procure external courses?
3. Is the buying process in these firms typically online or more traditional?
4. Do employees value such offerings, and are firms open to investing in them?
5. For smaller advisory firms, we were thinking of pitching 5–7 seats per cohort of 50 participants to keep it budget-friendly. Does this seem like a practical approach?

Any advice or shared experiences would be hugely appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

If training courses could be made available right in your browser while you’re on specific pages, would you find that helpful or more of a distraction?

Does anyone know of a low-cost training platform similar to Pryor Learning that offers a wide variety of training materials? I’m specifically looking for resources on topics like customer service, cybersecurity, accounting and finance, Excel, and workplace compliance. Ideally, the platform should include training videos and other formats, and it would be great if it could integrate into my CRM or be available as a white-label solution. Any recommendations?

I'm currently working as a L&D specialist. I like it but I am not sure what kind of career path it offers. I was wondering if anyone could tell me about this as a career. Where did it take you? What are you doing now?

How do you guys see AI getting used in the future of cooperate learning and learning and development?

I am looking for someone to help me build an online training programme. I've come into contact with someone called Carl Purnell, does anyone know him? Is he credible? Can anyone suggest someone I can talk to, to gain some advice and guidance? Thank you.

Imagine accomplishing 6 months worth of corporate training within weeks.

That's what we are aiming to accomplish at my company, Syrenn.

Try it out here and even sign up for free to create your own and let us know what you think in the comments.

Thanks in advance.