Skills Matrix: mapping complex skills for better learning fit

As the complexity of our world increases, the skillsets required for today’s professionals become more and more complex. In technical domains, the complexity is compounded by the skills (such as installation, maintenance, repair) that must be applied to a range of products. New hires often have pre-existing experience and continue to build their skills on-the-job. At the same time, there is less and less time available for traditional classroom learning.
As learning professionals, it is our task to accurately identify the skill gaps so as to provide relevant learning solutions and support self-directed learning. For this reason, Thermo Fisher Scientific is in the process of implementing a skills matrix or “Passport” for field service engineers. In this workshop, we will present our “lessons learnt” as well as the decisions and considerations that were taken during the analysis and design process to come to the current matrix. You will also be able to share new creative ideas with other participants.

Why you should attend this workshop:
If you work for an organization with a strong push towards self-directed learning, this workshop may give you some good ideas on how to reach that goal. A skills matrix can be the starting point for moving towards new ways of learning and for better matching learning solutions to the learners’ actual skill gaps.

About the presenters:
Rolf van den Heuvel has over 20 years of experience in analysis, design, and development of learning solutions. He has been working for Thermo Fisher Scientific (previously, FEI company) for the past 10 years.
Wendela Vuurberg has over 20 years of experience in analysis, design, and development of learning solutions. Before joining Thermo Fisher Scientific in December 2017, she has worked for Philips.

Developing a Performance Support implementation: lessons learned

There’s no question that performance support is good for our end-users, but how do we implement it in “real life”? What are the requirements and pre-conditions for implementing EPSS? What are the obstacles to consider ? What are the advantages and drawbacks of EPSS when compared to non-technical solutions? And something that is crucial yet almost never mentioned: how do SMEs and end-users see EPSS? We look at those questions using a concrete case of a larger project at Thermo Fisher Scientific, where EPSS was to be deployed to an internal service organization of 1200 employees.

Who should attend this workshop:
L&D colleagues who are interested in real-world experiences of implementing performance support: best practices, important factors to consider, potential challenges and lessons practical recommendations.

About the presenters:
Gert-Jan Hüfken has over 20 years of experience in a range of L&D domains, working as a learning consultant. Most recently, he has been working an independent consultant in various projects at Thermo Fisher Scientific.
Anastasia Semerok has nearly 20 years of experience in end-user and performance support, training and instructional design. She is an independent consultant for learning and training strategy, with a strong focus of helping learners achieve tangible results.
Jeroen Wieringa is a senior manager of service transformation at Thermo Fisher Scientific. In his role as project manager and SME, he has worked with L&D specialists on implementing performance support solutions.
Eelco Wissink is an experienced consultant in the domains of IT and process design. He has worked on IT implementation and improvement projects at companies such as Getronics, Essent, Philips, focusing on the IT part as well as the human part.

Rabobank GROW!

By using GROW! instead of performance management, Rabobank is transforming from a more fearing system to a seeking system (to use an analogy: a “burning platform” versus a “springboard”). By using a growth mindset, we are shifting the landscape by leading change and transforming towards a pro-active, bottom-up, development-minded, rewarding, experimenting, and organic organization. Negative emotions – such as fear, anger, disgust – are a necessary survival mechanism for fleeing, fighting, and avoiding danger. These negative emotions have a narrowing effect; if they are activated for long spans of time, they will eventually result in burnout. In contrast, positive emotions – such as joy, gratitude, pride, love – broaden and build. Positive emotions enable more input, innovation, learning; they open us to new experiences, help us build better relationships with others, and increase our resilience. During this workshop, you will learn from our practice how a growth mindset can shift a culture.

Why you should attend this workshop:
This workshop will appeal to you if you believe that your organization should pursue its highest goals, build ideas, and grow market share, and if you believe that positive emotions can lead to creativity, energy, and inspiration.

About the presenters:
Annelie Lander is responsible for the global population of Rabobank, where she set up a worldwide re-boarding game, various talent journeys, a Skills academy, and a Food and Agri academy. She specialized in the Future of Work – a topic on which she gives lectures.
Jean-Paul Paumen is responsible for the IT & Operations and the Digital population at Rabobank, where he set up a general skills academy, developed a learning platform to support the implementation of GROW!, and was responsible for the implementation of the personal development budget. He is also a Lecturer at the Hogeschool Amsterdam where he teaches about the HR profession.

Does evɘrybody feɘl welcome in your team?

Welcome to our workshop on diversity and inclusion!
Studies have shown that diversity and inclusion in teams contribute positively to business success. Diverse and inclusive teams are smarter, perform better and make sound decisions. Inclusion is leveraging the strength of diversity. It is the culture of creating a safe environment where each individual can bring their authentic selves, to work, feels valued and respected for who they are such that they risks and innovate. What does this mean in the learning context and what role can we play? In this workshop we invite you to reflect on your own work and the learning environments, on the role of our own unconscious biases which exert a powerful influence on how we perceive others and make judgments, and ultimately on what you can do to promote inclusion.

Why should you attend this workshop?
Inclusion and diversity is not just about compliance or corporate responsibility. It is about your vision of a better world that governs the choices you make every day. Inclusion starts with I. Who will you inspire tomorrow?

About the presenters:
Dulce Pumareja is aside from being a learning infrastructure specialist also a co-founder and active board member of Pink ASML, the platform for LGBTI inclusion in the workplace. She is the lead in organizing national coming-out day event at ASML and other activities to increase awareness on LGBTI topics and community engagement.
Giulia Piccolo is a technical trainer in ASML, passionate about people and board member of the platform Women@ASML, which promotes the recruitment, advancement and retention of talents beyond the gender bias.
Koenja van Dijk is a software test engineer in ASML and a founding member of Pink ASML. She firmly believes that organizations are made by the people and that therefore the people always (should) come first.

Supporting teachers in educational innovations at the TU/e

TU/e uses innovative teaching methods for educating the engineers of the future. In the process of becoming a digital university this means that online education is promoted while maintaining excellence on educational quality standards. Blended learning and online education offer many opportunities: they make it possible for students to study more independently and give teachers new tools to enable deeper learning.
During this workshop we take the participants along in a number of recent innovative course (re)designs, discussing the educational aspects and the application of digital tools. We also describe how we applied our 6-steps methodology for blended learning – an approach designed and developed at TU/e.

Why you should attend this workshop:
Participate in this workshop if you are curious about innovative teaching methods used at TU/e for educating ambitious and talented engineers.

About the presenters:
Wilma Groenendaal and Suzanne Jacobs are educational advisors at the TU/e ESA Teacher Support and Quality Assurance cluster. They have several years of experience optimizing study programs and advising teachers and program directors in course (re)designs. One of their responsibilities is to act as project managers for educational policy projects on topics such as learning analytics and blended learning.

Using mindfulness to increase the impact of your learning program

Many learners experience distraction, information overload and pressure in both their professional and personal lives. They take a distracted, overwhelmed, and stressed mind while engaging in learning activities. Many learners leave training programs with the best intentions, but in the busyness and distractions of the everyday life, they are not able to give sufficient attention to implement what they have learned. As a result, learning programs often do not achieve the intended impact.
As learning professionals, we design our courses to try to win the battle for our learners’ attention. To be really effective, a paradigm shift is needed to deal with the root cause and to train the learners’ attention skills so they are able to sustain attention with calmness, focus and clarity. In this way, being mindful is a prerequisite for learning to be effective. When learners are trained in mindfulness, they are more calm, focused, and alert.

Why you should attend this workshop:
Mindfulness is our ability to voluntarily sustain a flow of attention with calmness, focus, and clarity. You should attend this workshop if you are curious about mindfulness and the important role that mindfulness can play in enhancing learning impact.

About the presenter:
Etienne Duijf has 10 years of experience in training, learning, and organizational development. Etienne lived in Nepal for 4 years, where he started to practice meditation. He has been practicing mindfulness for over 10 years and is a certified teacher in Cultivating Emotional Balance, a program initiated by the Dalai Lama and developed with renowned meditation experts, psychologists and brain scientists.

Are you ready for the 21st century skills?

There is quite some buzz around the future of jobs and 21st century skills. What are these skills and what impact do they have on the world of Learning & Development? We will look at the background, evidence, and challenges: the myths and the facts. During this workshop, you will discover the impact of 21st century skills on training design, on the delivery methods, on the tools, and on the potential business results.

Why you should attend this workshop:
You should join this workshop if you would like to create a better alignment between your work and your learners’ needs, and to prepare yourself for the skills of the future.

About the presenter:
Jan Willem Vernhout is a complex problem solver, trainer, and managing partner at CoThink with 25 years of experience. His way of working is engaging, practical, and goal-oriented.

The 5 Moments of Need methodology to design & develop successful workflow learning solutions covering the full 70-20-10 spectrum

Bob Mosher, former director Learning Strategy & Evangelism at Microsoft, developed the “5 Moments of Need” methodology, which is implemented by large international organizations, including Bank of America, the US Department of Defense, Colgate, Bayer and Boeing, to develop powerful workflow learning & performance support solutions. This methodology is the only agile learning design & development methodology focused on developing workflow learning solutions that make the “70” in the 70-20-10 model a success! With the 5 Moments of Need methodology, organizations succeed in designing and developing successful learning ecosystems that support the complete learning journey of their employees.

About the presenter:
Bob Mosher is a seen as the leading global authority with regards to the topics workflow learning & performance support and is a great and inspiring speaker.

Serious Gaming at DAF

Over the past few years, DAF Academy has developed various sales games. DAF strongly believes that Serious Gaming is not just something for the future. The future is NOW. At DAF, our approach to learning games drives knowledge retention and continuous learning. Currently, we have three different sales games that we have developed for our sales personnel, covering three different topics and different platforms: DAF Excellerate, DAF Connect game, DAF Knowledge Rally. In this interactive presentation, Janneke Snoeijen will walk through these games and decisions together with you.

Why you should attend this workshop:
This workshop is of interest for every organization that would like to extend the learners’ experience to be more fun and attractive.

About the presenter:
Janneke Snoeijen has been working as a Training Methodology Specialist at DAF trucks since 2012. Her work focuses on learning innovations and student engagement, primarily at dealer and country level.

Expanding the role of L&D in project work

Even though L&D professionals have been making crucial contributions as learning developers for quite some years, many SMEs and project members are still unclear about our role and our value. Sometimes, we are seen as “trainers”, sometimes as “technical experts” who put together e-learning modules. And the most common problem faced by L&D professionals: dealing with clients who come to us with their own idea of “solutions”, instead of with problems that we can analyze and solve. It’s a like a patient going to a doctor, asking for a specific medicine after “googling” their own symptoms. How can we deal with these challenges? How do we balance keeping our clients’ wishes with our professional responsibilities? In this workshop, we present this dilemma from the point of view of a client and an L&D expert, based on concrete past experience of collaboration on a project at Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Who should attend this workshop:
This workshop is particularly relevant for L&D professionals who struggle with misconceptions of their role and their added value in the context of project work, and who are interested in better representing the interest of end-users in projects.

About the presenters:
Gert-Jan Hüfken has over 20 years of experience in a range of L&D domains, working as a learning consultant. Most recently, he has been working an independent consultant in various projects at Thermo Fisher Scientific.
Anastasia Semerok has nearly 20 years of experience in end-user and performance support, training and instructional design. She is an independent consultant for learning and training strategy, with a strong focus of helping learners achieve tangible results.
Jeroen Wieringa is a senior manager of service transformation at Thermo Fisher Scientific. In his role as project manager and SME, he has worked with L&D specialists on implementing performance support solutions.
Eelco Wissink is an experienced consultant in the domains of IT and process design. He has worked on IT implementation and improvement projects at companies such as Getronics, Essent, Philips, focusing on the IT part as well as the human part.

Communities of practice: knowledge carrousel

Communities of Practice are well known for their value to let professionals learn from each other by sharing information, experience, and best practices. In this workshop, we look at the role that L&D can play in facilitating communities of practice.
During this workshop, we will adopt the principle of a learning carrousel: first we will introduce several cases from different organizations and then you will have to the opportunity to discuss with the case owners, working in small break-out groups. You will get the opportunity to reflect on the cases that relate to your work and to share your insights with other participants.

Why you should attend this workshop:
This session is of interest to those who are looking to set up and grow their communities of practice, learning from practical experiences within other organizations. You are invited to bring in your own experiences to the discussion.

About the presenter:
GertJan Rozing is a learning consultant in Canon Europe, and previously for Oce Technologies. In his work, he focuses on setting up communities of practice for the Professional Services organization across different locations at Canon Europe.