Since all you need is a web-browser, webinars have become the easiest way to teach and train employees without leaving the comfort of your own desk.

In addition, holding a webinar may very well be the solution to all your time and money problems.

Say goodbye to sending all your employees to seminars and travelling to training conferences on the other side of the country – now your organization can get the message across to a large audience right from their computer.

But, in order to host your webinars successfully, you’ve got to have the right software and platform for your business. Of course, there are loads available on the market – so what one should you choose?

The right webinar hosting platform will depend on your budget, needs and goals. Let’s have a look at the most popular webinar hosting platforms to find the best one for your organization today!

If you’re looking into webinar platforms, there’s no doubt you’ll have come across Adobe Connect. This award-winning and highly customizable platform provides high-quality audio and video options to host the perfect webinar for your employees.

Whether it’s a weekly meeting or annual training, Adobe Connect provides tools to incorporate whiteboards, note taking and to share documents during a video webinar.

The Q&A feature is particularly useful for allowing the host to answer questions live. You can even add your own company logo!

What’s more, employees will never miss an event again. The easy to use Microsoft Outlook integration means that all employees can receive an invite for the webinar through their emails.

You can use Adobe Connect on any smartphone or tablet and businesses can enjoy custom plans to allow up to 100 employees to join a webinar at one time.

GoToMeeting by Citrix is a webinar hosting platform that’s well known for being simple and easy for everybody to use.

It can be used on any device to deliver HD video conferencing, with the ability to add webinars to Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar. Invites will be sent to employees with custom URL links to click on that will bring them straight to the webinar.

You can screen share to making learning easier, as well as allow the HDFaces feature to bring others into the learning sphere. Now everybody can take part!

There’s different plans available to suit your business needs, such as the starter plan that allows up to five participants in a webinar. The Pro Plan also allows you to record your webinars for employees that miss out, as well as up to 25 participants to join in learning.

For larger organizations, the Plus plan allows up to 100 participants at once. GoToMeeting even has 24/7 customer support to help you out if you run into problems.

BlueJeans is the one-size-fits-all solution to webinar hosting. This cloud-based video conferencing software provides your company with a source of HD video webinar that can be accessed anywhere, on any device.

The interface is neat and tidy and it’s simple to create a meeting link for employee training or regular meetings. In addition, only the host of the webinar has to be a BlueJeans member – everybody else can access content without having to download anything.

During a webinar, you can screen share for better learning, as well as use video clips and documents with up to 100 people. There’s even an Active Speaker feature that can hand over the window to somebody new, keeping everybody in the loop.

BlueJeans don’t advertise their plans openly, but there’s a 14-day free trial you can have fun with to see if you like the interface and features.


With Zoom, you can host small team meetings and large department training right in one place. The HD audio and video software allow you to interact with up to 100 employees and broadcast training viewing for up to 10,000 people – anything is possible with Zoom!

It’s easy to use and integrates well with Microsoft Outlook for webinar reminders and invites, as well as having the ability to share documents, videos and photographs to aid with learning.

You can even record your webinars for later and distribute the video to employees that couldn’t make it on the day. Zoom has a variety of free and paid plans to suit every size of organization.

When it comes to webinar hosting platforms, you’ve got to have heard of Cisco WebEx. As one of the biggest names around, this platform boasts HD video and audio, as well as a bunch of advanced interactive features to make learning more engaging for employees.

This includes creating polls, promoting multimedia sharing and using Q&A live on screen – webinars have never been so much fun! Cisco WebEx is suitable for use on all devices and it’s easy to switch from one to another, even during a live webinar.

There are many plans available for Cisco WebEx that will allow you to invite up to 3,000 attendees at your training webinar.

Now you’ve read about the top webinar hosting platforms on the market, which one do you think will suit your company? It’s always recommended to try out any free trials first to see if you like the software before buying.

Choosing the right hosting platform will allow you to create awesome webinars for your employees and promote professional development all year round.

For more insights on webinars and the latest L&D trends, be sure to subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of it all. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

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Are you searching for an innovative way to host employee training? Then you’ve got to try hosting your very own webinar. This online virtual meeting has become an essential business tool in recent years.

What are the top webinar hosting platforms?

As way to allow each of the team to have more time to work on their ideas and produce more extensive results to pitch to our panel of judges, the 2017 was run over 2 weeks, with the first night designated for forming teams and starting work on their learning solution, and the second night - 7 days after forming teams, finalizing their presentation and presenting to the judges.

This also allowed teams to meet up throughout the week to refine their solutions.

Participants were split up into teams based on their learning background so all teams had diverse skill sets and background knowledge that could be used to tackle our challenge.

Teams were then presented with some drab and dry learning content on cyber security, with their task being to convert the material into an engaging and successful learning experience. This could come to life in many forms, such as a gamified learning structure, a blended learning environment, a self-paced elearning, or even something as simple as a job aid.

They were also given the criteria on which they would be assessed including:

· Engagement (how much does it draw in the learner?)
· Effectiveness (how likely will it solve the problem?)
· Scalability (high touch point with low operational cost)
· Success metrics (how success will be measured?)

Our panel of industry experts who would be judging the solutions included Jenny Blackburn, Director of Technology People & Leadership at Salesforce, Rich Taylor, head of Learning & Development at Palo Alto networks and, B.J. Schone, Sr. Manager of Sales Learning & Technology at Autodesk.

With eight teams of between four and six members tacking the challenge, we saw some amazing ideas coming to life over the two nights, and you can watch all the full video of all of our teams pitching below.

BALDT 2017 Learning Hackathon Pitch Night

All teams delivered amazing pitches to a great crowd of not only attendees, but our judges and a large group of additional attendees who had come down just to watch Pitch Night. After narrowing the field down to a top 3, and a length break for discussion between the judges, it was the team of Ryan Richardson, Kelly Reed and Davie Sy who came out as winners.

Congratulations Ryan, Kelly and Davie! They presented a great learning solution which clearly defined their all elements outlined in the judging criteria, including some creative ways to deliver and track training, as well as a very impressive rollout and tracking system that would lead to a successful roll out.

As the winners of the 2017 Learning Design Hackathon, Ryan, Kelly and Davie took home a $250 gift card thanks to Walmart.com, which they have very kindly donated to a local charity.

You can view all of the photos from the event here thanks to Gordon Mak

Thanks to everyone who came down and got involved in the night, as well as to Go1 for providing the food, and LinkedIn for hosting both nights!

If you want to be a part of future meetups like this, make sure you join the Bay Area Learning Design & Technology Meetup group.

The Bay Area Learning Design & Technology Team: Rajon, Scott, Angela, Stacy and Joselito

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

After running a successful hackathon event last year, this year the Bay Area Learning Design & Technology Meetup team expanded on their hackathon concept from the year by introducing a new format that would allow teams to have more time to prepare their project for presentation.

BALDT 2017 Learning Design Hackathon wrap up

We never stop learning – so why should your employees?

Every year, companies are spending millions of dollars on professional development training. Every organization can now see the value in investing in their employees and it’s become an important business strategy for the future. After all, learning is a lifelong process, right?

However, the delivery of professional development training itself is also changing. E-learning is taking over the office and businesses are opting for off-the-shelf training courses to deliver the goods.

Sure, customized content might seem like it has its advantages. But, off-the-shelf courses are just as good, if not a better option for small and medium-sized businesses – the best thing is it’s all ready to go!

We use pre-created content every day in the office – from Microsoft Office to Adobe Reader. So, why not off-the-shelf e-learning courses for professional development training?

Let’s find out about the main benefits of off-the-shelf training and why all businesses should use it for professional employee development.

Let’s face it, in the business world, keeping your spending costs down is always near the top of the priority list, especially for small and medium-sized organizations.

This is where off-the-shelf training programs come in – you can provide informative and engaging training content for your employees at half the price of customized training programs.

You don’t have to worry about hiring consultants, designers or experts to create a course – this is already done for you and available for one great price! off-the-shelf training courses actually help businesses to stretch their budget further and get value for their money.

Since employee development is ongoing and organizations should be encouraged to continue providing new sources of learning, off-the-shelf training courses provide ready-made options to add to your LMS anytime – even when you’re on a tight budget.

What’s more, technical support, maintenance and updates are usually included without any extra cost – great!

When you want to start new employee development courses in your company, you don’t want to wait another few weeks to begin training.

When you choose customized training, you’ve got to choose the courses, create the content, contribute to the design process and wait the course to be tested and verified. This all takes time that businesses simply don’t have to waste.

But, with off-the-shelf courses, you can have training right when you need it. The content is available immediately after purchasing – all you have to do is download and add it to your LMS. Accessing quality training content has never been easier or faster!

Off-the-shelf training courses means you can have videos, materials and exercises right at your fingertips. All you have to do is add new courses to continue employee development – there’s no need to start from scratch, design and test new courses. It’s already out there.

What’s more, you can say goodbye to attending expensive and time-consuming training events. Now you don’t have to schedule time out of the office and you can have the courses come to you.

You can pick and choose the modules that you want to incorporate into employee training and they can be accessed anywhere, anytime.

The great thing about off-the-shelf training programs is that there’s a never-ending list of courses that are available.

From programs that help employees pass exams, such as the Pennsylvania Property and Casualty Course, to more general guidance on How to Understand Customer Needs – there’s something for every organization and to gear towards individual business goals.

In addition, every course is different and provides a wealth of ways to train employees.

This can include informational content in the form of videos and quizzes, as well as games and reading – you can choose whatever course is going to contribute to your vision of employee development and help them build valuable skills for the future.

Yet, it’s not just small and medium-sized businesses that can benefit from off-the-shelf courses - they are also great for large organizations that have several different departments.

Instead of prioritizing certain teams, you can provide training options for everybody and give everyone the same opportunity to learn and develop their skills with ready to go courses.

Let’s not forget that off-the-shelf eLearning courses are great ways for employees to learn and develop their skills. Why create your own content when there’s plenty of quality sources out already that you can choose?

The content in off-the-shelf training courses is created by experts in the field and with many programs, you’ll find a wealth a videos, exercises and quizzes to suit everybody’s style of learning and keep employees engaged with training.

After all, company logos and branding may look nice, but professional development training should always be about providing quality content and providing employees with useful information.

What’s more, since off-the-shelf programs can be used by everybody, they are tried and tested, guaranteeing customer satisfaction – you’ll never be disappointed!

There you have it – the benefits of off-the-shelf professional development training!

The most important parts to take away from this article is that off-the-shelf training courses provide tried and tested quality content for your business, with a range of different topics and course areas to choose from.

In addition, you can access this content almost instantly after downloading. No delays, messing about or waiting around – you can start your professional development training today!

And who can forget, you can also save money in the process. Does it get much better than off-the-shelf training?

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.


Professional development training and why it matters - Go1

Why all businesses should have off-the-shelf professional development training

Every episode of The eLearning Assist is run be a different member of the Go1 team so that you can tap into the knowledge within the team, covering all aspects of eLearning from creating content, learning principles, improving processes, selling courses, compliance, and expanding your training program.

In Episode 2 of The eLearning Assist, we had Eduardo Gomes on hand to take a closer look at how to structure a good training program. This included everything from setting up a learning portal, how to select content - and which content types are right for your learners - laying out a program form enrolment to completion, and more.

In our live demo for this episode, Eduardo took everything we talked about in the first part of the webinar and showed you how to apply these concepts to structure a good training program within your own Go1 Portal - so that you can start to improve the way that you deliver training.

The eLearning Assist takes place every month and covers trending industry information, a demonstration of a Go1 Platform feature, and a Q&A session where we will cover any questions you might have around anything to do with online learning, content, training, or the Go1 Platform.

The sessions are free for anyone to attend, and are a great chance to learn some new skills that you can apply in your organisation.

You can view the full webinar video below to learn more: 

The eLearning Assist: Episode 2 - Structuring a good training program

You can also download a copy of the slides in this demo here


The eLearning Assist is also available as a podcast - just search for 'Go1' in iTunes or listen below 

The eLearning Assist: Episode 002 - Structuring a good training program by GO1 Speaker Series

If you have any questions about any of the items covered in this episode please let us know as we'd love to help you out! Also, if there are any topics that you would like to see us cover in our next episode, let us know so we can make sure we include a demo to walk you through everything.

For more insights, be sure to subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

Learning how to structure a good training program can be challenging, especially if you've never done it before. To help you understand more about structuring training programs, in The eLearning Assist Episode 2 we took a deeper look at how you can start creating effective and engaging training programs.

The eLearning Assist: episode 2 catchup - structuring a good training program

In recent months, there’s been a lot of media focus and discussion around the pervasiveness of sexual harassment in the tech industry.

You’re no doubt already familiar with some of these stories – such as the female entrepreneur propositioned by a Silicon Valley venture capitalist; the chief executive who faced numerous sexist comments from a male investor; and the former Uber engineer who went public about the pattern of sexual harassment she experienced at the company.

Since then, many women have come forward with their own accounts of sexual harassment in the workplace, as the chain of events has encouraged more female employees to talk publicly about their experiences working within the technology startup industry. And as we're seeing, this is not just an issue for Silicon Valley – the Australian start-up scene is facing similar problems to the United States in this area.

These stories have revealed a lot about the extent of sexism within these male-dominated environments, where there has long been an imbalance of gender. Unfortunately, in 2017, women are still significantly outnumbered when it comes to working in STEM-related studies and careers, making up only one in four IT graduates and fewer than one in 10 engineering graduates.

So what can we do to make sure that we continue open and honest dialogue around this topic? How can we work together to prevent the sexual harassment of women in the workplace?

Addressing gender equality in the workplace

While many tech companies and startups are doing their best to address this issue, more work is needed to dismantle the unconscious bias that often exists towards women in these industries.

A tech company employee (who is currently in the process of a sexual harassment claim against one of her former employers) believes "there's an unconscious bias in the industry that creates discrimination due to the ratio of men to women, it's nothing new – I guess it's more prevalent due to how tech industry has evolved."

"It's important to remember that we are not born with this bias, it's not an [inherent] gender trait, but something we are taught as we grow up,” she says.

Unfortunately, in group environments such as the workplace, sexual harassment can have a knock-on effect on other staff who see it happening around them. When people see others tolerating, or even encouraging, this kind of behaviour, it serves to reinforce and normalise negative male/female stereotypes.

Many male-dominated environments, including the workplace, display that kind of ‘locker room’ culture, where unacceptable actions or comments are passed off as ‘harmless jokes.’ And if you don’t go along with the jokes, you’re no longer 'one of the boys.'

For women working in these environments, there’s often a fear of the backlash that could result from speaking out about sexual harassment – a backlash that could seriously damage their career, reputation and everyday work life. They become caught in between the two fears.

This is why it’s so important to speak up when you see or hear something unacceptable, even if you’re not in a management position. Calling out sexual harassment in the workplace is everyone’s responsibility, so if you see someone being harassed, please have the courage to report it.

Regardless of the industry you work in, or the job you do, all employees have a legal right to work free from sexual harassment. This means both during working hours and at any form of work-related training activities or functions. And extends to social media and text messaging.

For employers and managers, it’s your responsibility to create and implement a clear and effective policy on sexual harassment, and communicate it to all staff within your organisation. Be sure that your policy is compliant with all local, state and federal laws. Define clear consequences for unacceptable behaviour and monitor staff to make sure employees are complying with this policy.

What constitutes sexual harassment at work?

One of the biggest problems with addressing sexual harassment in the workplace is that it can be hard for people to define. It can take the form of many different behaviours and actions, with some of them less obvious or aggressive than others.

Whilst many people may think of sexual harassment purely in terms of unwanted sexual advances or inappropriate touching, it can also encompass far more subtle forms of behaviour. This often makes people unsure of just where the line falls, and whether someone has crossed that line or not. And unfortunately, women often choose not to report incidents of harassment for fear of ‘overreacting’ – or being told they are overreacting.

The Australian Human Rights Commission defines sexual harassment as “any unwanted or unwelcome sexual behaviour, which makes a person feel offended, humiliated or intimidated.” There are many ways that an individual can be made to feel uncomfortable or intimidated, without physical contact occurring. And they are all potentially damaging.

So regardless of whether someone is staring inappropriately, making sexually suggestive comments, telling or emailing inappropriate “jokes” or subjecting you to unwelcome physical contact – all of these examples are considered sexual harassment and are behaviours that are completely unacceptable in the workplace.

Make all staff aware of sexual harassment policies

Employers in the tech industry (and all industries) must provide regular compulsory training on the topic of sexual harassment in the workplace, to help staff properly recognise and address this issue.

Managers, supervisors and team leaders should participate in training specifically relevant for their positions, as they can play a significant role in preventing workplace harassment. Your leaders must be up-to-date with all sexual harassment laws in your state and know how to deal with any incidences in the proper way.

Training can help make it clear to staff that sexual harassment is neither welcome nor tolerated in your organisation. It can also help to make sure that individuals are aware of their rights and are empowered with a clear idea of what constitutes sexual harassment, so they can feel confident in addressing and reporting it.

Empowering women to speak out against harassment

The word ‘empower’ is important here. Because none of this information is really new. And sadly, the stories that have been told by the women mentioned earlier are not new stories. It’s part of a narrative that has existed for centuries.

But with the recent media attention around this issue, we have an opportunity and reminder to make sure we continue talking about the sexual harassment that occurs in male-dominated industries. And an opportunity to feel empowered to effect change in this area.

By speaking out against sexual harassment, and calling out inappropriate behaviour in the workplace, you can challenge and change the dynamics in your own sphere of influence. You’ll also be encouraging other women, and men, to do the same.

As Amber Tamblyn said in a recent article in the New York Times:

"We are learning that the more we open our mouths, the more we become a choir. And the more we are a choir, the more the tune is forced to change."

If you'd like to learn more about how you can educate your workplace about the prevention and addressing of sexual harassment, check out Go1's range of courses available including this one.

Many women have come forward with their own accounts of sexual harassment in the workplace, as the chain of events has encouraged more female employees to talk publicly about their experiences working within the technology startup industry.

Speaking out against sexual harassment in the workplace

There’s no doubt about it, customer service is still one of the most important factors when it comes to deciding to do business with a company. It’s no good having the most up-to-date tech gear, or fancy office suites – if your business doesn’t deliver on customer service you’ll find it hard to stay ahead of the competition.

What’s more, with the ever-increasing impact of social media, providing excellent customer service has never been so important. Customers now have the potential to provide instant feedback on any company across social media and review sites. So if you work in a customer service role, you’ll want to be sure your skills are up to scratch.

Online learning is a great way to improve your customer service skills.

To get you started, we’ve put together five of the best eLearning courses for customer service. Through these short, interactive online courses, you'll learn how to listen to customers, form positive connections, build customer loyalty, improve your telephone technique, and handle complaints.

These courses aren’t just beneficial for people working in a customer-facing role. Improving your customer service skills will greatly help your career, whatever position you’re in – because we all deal with customers daily, whether they’re external or internal to the business.

This first online course is a great introduction to the world of customer service, providing plenty of interesting statistics and facts about today’s consumers.

For example, 89% of people say they’ve stopped doing business with companies because of poor customer service – that’s a huge percentage! This course is designed to give you the skills you need to provide great customer service, so you don’t become one of those companies.

The short online course covers seven specific skills that you can use to drastically improve your interactions with customers on a daily basis. You’ll learn how to:

The course content has a strong focus on improving your listening skills, as without this fundamental skill you won’t be able to respond to your customers’ needs.

You’ll also learn about paying attention to your body language and gestures, as well as the words and language you use in the work environment. All of these things have a significant impact on how customers perceive you and the company you work for.

Building on the fundamentals of the previous course, this eLearning content looks at the importance of creating a connection with your customers. Because the fact is, your sales approach matters just as much as the product you’re selling.

This course will really get you delivering exceptional customer service, helping to develop the skills you need to engage and connect with your customers. You’ll explore listening skills, as well as questioning skills, to learn how to show an interest in your customer as opposed to your product.

As this course explains, it’s the “connection between you and the customer that provides an elevated customer experience.” People can buy their products or select services from any number of sources, especially now that most of us shop around online. It’s the connection we feel with certain service reps that keeps us coming back to their store or company.

On that note, it’s important to talk about customer loyalty.

Many businesses tend to spend a lot of time, money and energy attracting new clients, running plenty of special promotions and deals for new customers. But did you know that it costs five times as much to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one?

This is just one of the many ‘real world’ things you’ll learn throughout this short eLearning course. The course brings customer loyalty back into focus, highlighting the benefits of retaining your existing customer base in a world where customer loyalty is on the decline – people don’t stick to one product or service provider like they used to.

However, as the course instructor tells us: “Great customer service can turn average customers into loyal fans of your business.” What’s more, if you can increase your customer retention rates by just 5%, you can increase profits by a whopping 95%!

This course may especially appeal to managers who are keen to train up their employees in better service techniques, as it really shows the importance of building a loyal customer base.

Also part of the Customer Service collection, this course focuses on something that you might not think is all that important.

But as you’ll see, your telephone manner when dealing with customers can quickly shape their entire perception of your company. In fact, it takes just six seconds for a caller to make an impression of your business – six seconds!

For many of us, text messaging has pretty much replaced talking on the phone, but if you’re in a customer service role you need to be skilled in the art of the phone call. If you don’t have the right telephone etiquette, you’ll find yourself losing customers, fast. But on the other hand, if you know how to communicate well with your callers, you could soon build up your loyal customer base.

This eLearning course takes you through the seven steps of telephone customer service:

Step 6 – Try to Resolve Issues Immediately

Following these steps will have you impressing customers with your communication and service skills, while also giving you more confidence on the phone.

Last, but not least – we all know customer service can have its tricky moments. And a key component of providing great service is knowing how to handle negative feedback and complaints.

This course can help you with this, by providing you with tools and techniques you can draw on in difficult situations. The absolute best way to manage customer complaints is to have a system in place that helps you to control the situation and lead it towards a positive outcome. And fortunately, 95% of customers will give your company a second chance if you handle their complaint successfully.

Throughout the course materials, you’ll learn how to use the LAST technique – an acronym you can draw on to remember the steps you can take to handle and control a customer complaint: Listen – Apologise – Solution – Thank you.

These four steps are easy to remember and will work for many workplace situations and scenarios. We’ll let you enrol in the course and discover all the tips and tricks of the LAST technique for yourself!

For more insights, be sure to subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs. 

Top 5 online courses for customer service

If you’re a manager, or small business owner, termination of employment is something you’ll most likely have to do. It’s part and parcel of the job. But whatever you want to call it – dismissing, firing, or ‘letting someone go’ – terminating someone’s employment is never an easy or pleasant task.

There are also considerable legal requirements and procedures that you need to be aware of when terminating someone’s employment. So if you’re a manager or employer, it’s important to take the time to understand the rules and regulations for your state (as well as federal laws), to protect yourself and your business.

The more you know about employment termination beforehand, the less painful the process will be – for both you and the person you’re dismissing. Today we’re going to talk more about this topic, to help you feel more prepared and confident in your ability to deal with the situation head on.

First up, let’s talk about why a worker’s employment may be terminated.

Termination of employment can be for various reasons, but the most important thing to know is that you must always have suitable reasons for taking this decision.

Valid reasons can be something quite straightforward, like a driver losing their driving licence – in this case, the person is simply no longer able to perform their job. Dismissal is also fair if you made it clear at the start of employment that the job was only for a temporary period of time, such as in the case of a maternity leave contract.

Things get more complicated when the termination is due to an employee’s capability or conduct. Even the best managers, dedicated to the professional development of their staff, will have instances where an employee’s performance can’t be improved upon any further. And that may mean it’s best to remove the employee from their role with your company.

When someone continually ignores feedback, makes mistakes, or constantly falls short of contractual requirements, you are in a position to terminate their employment. If you’re letting someone go because of poor work performance, ask yourself if you’ve done everything you can to help improve their work and correct the issue/s. If you can safely say that you have, be sure that you’ve documented these efforts and all performance-related discussions with the team member.

When you do decide to dismiss someone, you need to make sure that it’s done in a fair, reasonable, sensitive and legal way.

In Australia, employers need to follow certain procedures under law before terminating any employee’s service. If it’s found that you dismissed an employee unfairly, you could be ordered to reinstate them or re-engage them. You might also have to pay compensation.

As the Australian Government’s Fair Work website outlines, unfair dismissal is “when an employee is dismissed from their job in a harsh, unjust or unreasonable manner.”

Regardless of how the worker’s employment ends, it’s important that you follow the rules about dismissal, notice and final pay to the letter. You should also have uniform policies in place around employment termination, to establish clear guidelines across the organisation.

Alyssa Gregory, small business expert, has some great advice around preparing yourself for the termination discussion:

“Before you fire anyone, you should have your ducks in a row. Understand how the event will be carried out from start to finish. You should be able to answer questions like: How and when will you collect property like keys or electronics from the employee? What will you say when the employee asks about the last paycheck?”

Gregory also recommends that managers be prepared for employees to ask why they’re being dismissed. She advises that you prepare for this question and have documented examples of poor performance, if that’s the reason for dismissal. “If you try to wing this portion of the conversation, you could inadvertently say something that could get you into hot water later,” says Gregory.

Learn More About Termination of Employment

If you feel like you could use some more helpful advice in this area, we recommend you take this short online course.

It might help you look at the situation more objectively, while giving you plenty of pointers and tips for terminating employment in the right way.

Termination of employment isn’t just a daunting prospect for employees. It can also be a very uncomfortable situation for the person whose responsibility it is to dismiss staff members.

What you need to know about termination of employment

From purchasing and assigning content, to managing groups and enrollment reports, and assigning due dates. Plus we’ve got a stack of new tools that will help you to save time and streamline the way that you deliver learning material.

Simplified Course Purchase and Assigning Process

Being able to purchase and assign content to your users has now been simplified. You can now enter your credit card details to purchase credits which can be assigned to users to be redeemed for courses, or users can request that their manager purchase a course for them.

In this update we have improvements to the Administrator dashboard to include a new tab for Group. Under this section you can quickly see and manage all of the groups in your portal, including editing details, adding and deleting groups, and filtering options for those with large numbers of groups in their portal.

“Parent” and "Assessor" fields available on enrollment reports

When reporting on on enrollment courses, you can now see the Parent and Assessor fields. This allows Administrator to view learning items within a report along with the Parent course, or course in which the learning items is located to provide a more in depth reporting ability on content.

- Improvements to reporting user interface
- Reporting is now available on Awards
- Updates to improve bulk user importing
- The My Teaching tab has a new filter to show all pending assessments
- Improvements to Discussion for @ mention, attachments, and file dropzones
- Portal admin can view & delete users assigned learnings
- Improved interface for group pages

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Improve the way you access learning content with our mid-September update

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Have you ever heard the phrase – by failing to prepare, you’re preparing to fail? Well, this isn’t just true when it comes to life. It’s also crucial when it comes to business. You could have the best idea in the world, but if you don’t have a game plan, it’s not going to work out.

After all, a football team doesn’t go into a big game without tactics and an offensive strategy – so why would you attempt to promote your business idea without a plan?

Having a project strategy makes you think out and plan the steps you need to transform your business vision and idea into a reality. Of course, in the business world, you need backing and investment, which is where having a detailed business case comes into play.

A business case is the bread and butter of any successful business venture. Senior managers are always concerned with the stability of their organization and its future success – any new proposal that creates change needs to be examined carefully.

The people at the top always need convincing and you’ve got to show your idea’s potential. Your business case is going to be the powerful selling tool that will put you in the driving seat and show your project is exactly what they need.

Today’s competitive business market calls for good strategy and a persuasive business case to get the ball rolling.

That’s why it’s important to offer employees the chance to learn how they can implement their bright ideas into successful business ventures through project strategy and a business case.

This Project Strategy and Business Case course is all about how you can get your idea off the ground and running and make it stand out from the crowd. 

Project Strategy and Business Case Trailer

The interactive e-learning materials explain how important strategy is and advises how you can plan and implement a business case to secure resources, backing and investment.

Today’s competitive business market calls for good strategy and a persuasive business case to get the ball rolling. Here's how.