SumTotal Systems White Papers http://www.sumtotalsystems.com/resources/whitepapers.html http://www.sumtotalsystems.com en <![CDATA[Roadmap to a High-Performance Culture: Talent Development at its Finest]]> Waiting for a high-performance workplace culture to magically appear? It’s not going to happen. You’ve got to work for what you want—and that means taking stock of your employees. What do they need to succeed as individuals? What motivates each person to do more for the company as a whole?

Leveraging a unified approach to talent development, this paper offers roadmaps for guiding your diverse employee base toward a culture of higher performance—one that delivers substantial rewards for your business.


>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[Gaining Perspective on Performance: Best Practices for an Effective 360-degree Feedback Program]]> >> Download now]]> <![CDATA[When Workforce Goals Meet Corporate Strategy: Six Tips for Getting the Greatest Value from Alignment]]> Like a skilled sports team working together to score points, a productive workforce knows its overall objectives—and each employee, as part of the team, plays a specific and important role in advancing toward the goal. The key is alignment. You must ensure that all players are properly aligned, performing the right tasks, and focused on how they fit into the team’s strategy at all times. Here you’ll find six tips for achieving and maintaining alignment between your employees and your business goals. Plus, you’ll learn how successful alignment, as part of a unified approach to talent development, can help you build your competitive edge by accelerating your time-to-market and increasing your business agility—so you can react faster to threats and seize opportunities in new markets.


>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[Navigating the Rough Road of Workforce Reduction:<br/>How HR Can Derive Value from a Difficult Process]]> Conducting a round of layoffs is no picnic. Unfortunately, in today’s economy, layoffs are a harsh and often unavoidable reality. How should your HR professionals approach the challenge?

As corporate and employee ambassadors, HR professionals must see beyond administrative chores to ensure that a financially-driven downsizing doesn’t leave your organization without vital talent. They must strike a balance between the need for sensitivity and the need for compliance. And they must always think strategically for the organization’s greater good. This paper offers some best practices to assist you in managing one of the hardest tasks facing HR departments today.


>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[“Works-anywhere” content: Why SCORM compliance matters]]> SCORM (the Shareable Content Object Reference Model) is a set of standards that helps ensure your learning content will “play” on any compliant LMS. Download this white paper for a high-level explanation of SCORM and the ways in which SCORM-compliant technology can help your organization optimize its investment in talent development solutions.


>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[Mobile Learning is Prepared for Takeoff]]> >> Download now]]> <![CDATA[Best practices for mobile learning content development]]>
As mobile connectivity continues its broad global reach, corporations are actively investigating how to deploy learning to mobile professionals. At SumTotal, we have released an update to our content authoring product ToolBook that enables the production of mobile learning for the Apple iPhone; with support for additional mobile devices to follow. While SumTotal obviously hopes the majority of corporations use ToolBook to create mobile learning, our intention is to provide helpful information to our industry, as a whole, on how to create effective learning for mobile devices.
>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[Adobe® considers ToolBook as the best alternative for Authorware®]]> Adobe announced it will not continue development of future Macromedia® Authorware® from Adobe releases, so the current Authorware users have been exploring alternative authoring options. This white paper considers some of the reasons current Authorware users as well as eLearning developers in general should consider combining SumTotal Systems’ ToolBook with Adobe® Captivate® software and Adobe Flash® Professional software for a complete content authoring solution.

Read the white paper to know how ToolBook handles various Authorware functionalities using features like book wizard, catalog, actions editor and more.


>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[Healthcare Talent Development: The Opportunities Hidden Behind Compliance Requirements]]> Unannounced Joint Commission surveys have made the need for continuous compliance a daily expectation. But talent management in a healthcare organization goes beyond evidence requirements and readiness for surprise inspections: It’s also about ensuring quality and safety for health care consumers through highly proficient, conscientious caregivers.

Read the white paper, “Talent Development in Healthcare,” to find out how talent development works simultaneously with compliance management to align and manage goals, perform clinical competency assessments, enable targeted skill and competency development, design and track vital continuing ed curricula and credits, and provide a direct flow into compensation planning. Detailed scenarios will give you a complete picture of how you can not only ensure readiness for an unannounced survey, but also move beyond compliance to complete, unified talent development.

You’ll ...
>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[Succession Planning: Six Costly Errors to Avoid]]> Download the white paper to find out how to avoid six of the most common, and costly, errors when embarking on a succession planning initiative.

You’ll learn:

  • How a lack of alignment between the succession plan and company goals can derail the initiative
  • How to budget your time to account for upfront planning activities
  • How having a strong follow-up after the kickoff is critical to your success

“Succession Planning: Six Costly Errors to Avoid” is written by SumTotal’s own HR pro, Richard Oyen. Richard has spent more than 20 years in Performance Management working with companies like Oracle and Walgreens.


>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[Compensation Management During the Economic Crunch: Five Tips to Make Your Processes More Efficient and Effective]]> Download the white paper to find out how to improve on your employee compensation practices, and the five critical steps to help maximize your efforts.

You’ll learn:

  • Why it’s important to align compensation with performance
  • How to eliminate opportunities for error
  • How mixing in alternative incentives can stretch your budget dollar

>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[Deriving Real Value from Performance Management: Five Rules to Remember]]> As the annual performance appraisal process fast approaches, the thought of the work that lies ahead can be one of fear, apprehension, dread, or all of the above. Employees — particularly managers — continually procrastinate the task, and you may find this out the hard way when you realize at performance appraisal time just how few performance discussions took place during the year. It’s never too late, though, to look for ways to make improvements now — and smooth your way toward next year’s cycle.


>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[Ten Best Practices for Successful Competency Management]]> Download the white paper to find out how to leverage competency models for strategic Talent Development.

You’ll learn:

  • How to prioritize and focus your competency management project.
  • How to make the leap from core competencies to proficiency level assessments.
  • How your competency model drives performance management, career development, and succession planning.

“Ten Best Practices for Successful Competency Management” is written by SumTotal’s own HR pro, Richard Oyen. Richard has spent more than 20 years in Performance Management working with companies like Oracle and Walgreens.


>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[Harnessing the Power of Informal Learning Technology]]> Web 2.0 technologies are making it easier than ever for businesses to unlock tacit knowledge and make it globally available among their employee populations. Social networking, wikis, blogs, mobile technology, and online communities present knowledge-sharing and just-in-time learning opportunities that, in many businesses, still remain untapped. While this is frustrating for early-adopter employees in late-adopting companies, Web 2.0 learning has proven to be a gold mine for companies who leverage it well.

What you will learn:

  • How Web 2.0 has shifted gears toward social learning
  • How informal learning drives business benefits
  • Real-world examples of informal learning solutions

>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[10 Things HR Can Do to Help Align an Organization’s Goals]]> Learn 10 things HR can do to ensure alignment.

How aligned is your organization? Companies that manage goal alignment well boast significant productivity and profitability improvements. And while performance management technology can help provide the tools you need, it can’t do all of the work for you. SumTotal HR expert Richard Oyen takes you through ten steps that can save you time and expense and help you drive better organizational alignment.

You’ll learn:

  • The ten most important things to consider before you embark on organizational alignment
  • The role HR should play in the process
  • How to avoid common pitfalls, such as planning a multi-tiered rollout to help goals work their way down an organization

>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[Authorware users. Learn why ToolBook is a tool you should consider]]> Adobe announced it will not continue development of future Macromedia® Authorware® from Adobe releases, so the current Authorware users have been exploring alternative authoring options. This white paper considers some of the reasons current Authorware users as well as eLearning developers in general should consider combining SumTotal Systems’ ToolBook with Adobe® Captivate® software and Adobe Flash® Professional software for a complete content authoring solution

Read the white paper to know how ToolBook handles various Authorware functionalities using features like book wizard, catalog, actions editor and more.


>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[Transforming and Evolving Your Performance Management Process]]> This white paper discusses the forces of change affecting the performance management component of a talent management strategy, the impact these changes will have on organizations, and recommendations to help organizations prepare for these changes.


>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[5 Reasons Performance Management Matters to Learning Professionals]]> Employee performance management offers much more than just taking the pain out of a paper process. Organizations that take a unified talent development approach use performance management as a development springboard, ultimately retaining talent, developing leaders, and reducing turnover costs.

Learn how the convergence of learning and performance management can help your organization get the most out of its workforce.


>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[The Top 5 Trends in Learning Technology]]> Users have wielded their unique power to significantly impact today's top five learning technology trends. This new white paper explores those trends, looking at factors such as Web 2.0, mobile learning, and changes in the mix of blended learning. In addition, we discuss next steps to help your organization strategically select new technology in order to unlock its full potential.


>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[10 things a Performance Management System Can Do for You]]>
Discover how an Employee Performance Management (EPM) system can help you align organizational goals with employee objectives, provide access to performance information, make better employee-related decisions, improve retention, and much more. Also, learn how to beat the “Annual because it\'s manual” mantra for better employee development. If you\'re not currently deploying a best-of-breed EPM system, find out why organizations of all sizes are suddenly rushing to automate their EPM processes.
>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[Calculating the ROI of an Employee Performance Management System]]> >> Download now]]> <![CDATA[10 Steps in Presenting an Effective Business Case for a Learning Management System]]> >> Download now]]> <![CDATA[Calculating the ROI of your Learning Management System: How ResultsOnDemand can change your organization’s equation]]> 1. The best way to assess how an LMS can positively affect your business by focusing on improving one process.
2. How to calculate an LMS’s real cost of ownership.

This can be assessed in either a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution or a traditional software purchase model.
>> Download now]]> <![CDATA[Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) in learning and talent management software - The Pros and Cons]]> >> Download now]]> <![CDATA[Selecting the right Employee Performance Management (EPM) system]]> >> Download now]]> <![CDATA[10 Steps to Justifying a Learning Management System for Your Partner and Supplier Training]]> >> Download now]]> <![CDATA[The Value of a Learning Management Compliance Solution]]> >> Download now]]> <![CDATA[The 10 Key Steps in Developing an Enterprise-Wide ComplianceTraining Strategy]]> >> Download now]]>