Everyone has heard of motivation but not everyone knows exactly how to find it or what motivates different people. To really understand motivation and motivating, you need to start with the basics.

So what is motivation? Motivation can be described as the reason behind people’s actions, desires and even needs. It is key to find what motivates different people in the workplace and use these motivating factors to achieve an end goal which will be beneficial for both the employee and the organization.

Regardless of the industry or vertical if you will, managers across the board face a common issue in keeping employees motivated. Having motivated employees can be a key factor in whether or not an organization is successful, nothing can drain a culture quicker than a group of employees who are not motivated and have lost interest in the work they are doing. This is why today a push for leadership to maintain motivation levels high is a priority, a motivated employee is one of if not the most important assets an organization can possess.

So how has Skillsoft addressed the issue of motivation effectively?

They have put together a great mix of tips and ways to both find what motivates employees and keeping employees motivated. The content is well structured and easy to follow, great way for anyone in a leadership position to gather insights into the methodology behind motivating employees.

Motivation can be broken down into two main categories, extrinsic and intrinsic. Maslow is most well-known for mapping these out in the hierarchy of needs (Maslow’s pyramid), basic needs which motivate us are usually referred to as extrinsic and as you move up the pyramid the needs become more complex and are known as intrinsic motivations.

When one’s intrinsic motivators are known they can be used to great affect and employees can be greatly motivated under the right leadership.

Involving, validating, and developing employees

Simple ideas or concepts but they are easily overlooked or forgotten, bringing it back to the basics ensures a great workplace environment. Creating a feeling that all belong, making employees feel appreciated and ensuring personal development is a focus through goal achievement all ensure motivation is maintained at a high level amongst employees.

Leveraging motivation through workplace systems

Workplace systems are not just a way to monitor and critique employees, they can be powerful motivators if used in the correct manner. Linking systems to an individual’s motivators can ensure personal growth, up-skilling and outline a path for career progression.

No two employees will be the same in terms of motivating factors, although it may be a difficult task, leaders need to dig deep and understand each individual on a person level. By linking company objectives to personal motivators employees will feel they are achieving what is important to them while working towards a company objective.

Everyone understands that having employees motivated is crucial, When you introduce better practices to understand individuals the benefits for the organisation can be endless.

With ‘Motivating Your Employees’ you can have everyone feeling like personal goals are being met while achieving company goals as a whole.

One of the biggest questions once completing a training module or course is always how effective was this or did I actually learn something. Not to worry, a great way to measure this is provided. A simple exercise sums up the course and tests the knowledge that has been acquired to ensure that the content matter has been understood and attained.

With Employees motivated and morale high there is no limit to what can be achieved in any organization. So now with motivating your employees this can be achieved and the tools are at your disposal.

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Did you know that having a bad work-life balance is one of the number one reasons why people quit their jobs?

There’s no doubt that the working world is a more fast-paced environment these days. There’s simply a much bigger focus placed on “overnight” success and achieving milestones quickly and more frequently.

Whether that’s businesses coming out with new products or simply growing their customer reach, everyone wants things done now. 

Of course, this means that employees often face bigger workloads and naturally a lot of people don’t switch off and get enough ‘me time’ when they leave the office as a result.

There’s more to life than just working. Now, we know you want your employees to work hard, but hear us out on this one. When your employees don’t have a good work-life balance, it can be detrimental to your business. Then everyone suffers.

Having a work-life balance is crucial for maintaining good mental and physical health. Let’s face it, work gets stressful a lot of the time, which means that employees can feel under pressure and overworked during the week.

There’s big workloads and difficult interactions with customers that can weigh you down. This gets worse if employees don’t know how to cope with this level of stress and this constant pressure can increase the risk of suffering from stress-related diseases, as well as mental issues like depression.

Nobody wants to be the cause of employee unhappiness or for their jobs to have an effect on their health.

In addition, when you work this hard constantly with no time for rest and reward, you can reach a burnout. This is a fatigue that you can’t shake and mean performance at work dips.

Not only does this have a negative effect on the person suffering it, but it also has a negative impact on the work they’re doing. It can affect your motivation to get things done, your ability to do your job properly and also bring down your overall productivity.

Your employees might spend long hours in the office even after it closes, but this doesn’t mean they’re getting more things done. This affects the whole team and it’s important you find a way for employees to feel in control.

Not having a good work-life balance can also make employees feel resentful towards you as an employer and unsatisfied with their workplace. This is what leads new and experienced employees to seek a new place to work. This is the last thing that you want!

But, there’s something you can do to prevent all of these things from happening and affecting your business. As an employer, you’ve got to encourage healthy habits and good work-life balance.

Sure, you can make little adjustments around the office, such as team meetings, regular breaks and making sure everyone leaves on time at the end of the day.

But, one of the best ways to encourage your employees to have a good work-life balance is to provide them with the resources they need to learn about how they can do this themselves.

You can do this simply with a good online e-learning course from Go1 Premium. Here you’ve got access to thousands of amazing courses that will allow employees to improve their skills and learn how they can have a better work-life balance.

Once they’re finished, there won’t be any groans on Monday morning when they’re back at their desks – instead there will be that proactive attitude that says they’re ready to get started

Having time to get outdoors, enjoy some rest and spend time with friends and family will let employees have some downtime that will mean they’re refreshed and clear-headed, ready to work hard and enjoy their job again. That’s what every employer wants, right?

Plus, there’s lots of skills you can learn in your daily life that your employees can bring back to the office. Downtime allows employees to gain life experience and knowledge from other people around them. This gives them another dimension to bring to the table at work.

So, it’s important to motivate and teach your employees to work hard, but also to play hard too. Let’s introduce you to our favorite work-life balance course from Go1 Premium that you need for your office.

This Go1 Premium course is suitable for your whole team and it’s going to help employees learn more about enjoying a healthy work-life balance and how it can be achieved.

In addition, the content educates your employees on how having this balance is important individually for their health and happiness, as well as for the productivity and progression of the whole team.

With the help of this course, employees can get back on a track to success and find ways of managing any stress they encounter through downtime. This is a way to make sure employees want to stay at your business for the long haul.

Of course, some people start off on the right path and are motivated to change their ways. It’s like new year resolutions – everyone starts off well, but by the end of January, they are burnt out.

So, from the beginning, you’ve got to get employees on board with the course and teach them, so that not only do they want to have a work-life balance, but so they maintain a work-life balance moving forward.

A good work-life balance is becoming increasingly more important in today’s business world. Through this Go1 Premium course, you can make sure that employees learn how they can enjoy a successful working life, without sacrificing the things that they love.

Did you know that millennials look for a strong team culture when they’re searching for a new career and place to work?

No one can deny that teamwork is an important element of success in every walk of life. Whether you’re playing sports or working at a large company, there’s always an advantage to collaborating with other people and supporting each other in any way you can.

A strong team culture is now more important than ever in the business world and a lot of businesses are underestimating just how much it matters.

Millennials that are entering the workforce are looking for more than just a big salary and good vacation time when it comes to a new job. Employees want to join a business that promotes teamwork where they can feel connected to company values, as well as their colleagues.

That’s where you come in. You control the direction of your business and this means you can decide what you want to offer your employees in terms of collaboration opportunities.

That means you want to make sure that your business promotes a strong team culture so that you can attract qualified and experienced talent to your company.

How can you do this? Well, it all really starts with the employees you already have. You’ve got to build your strong team culture from the inside out -that way you can grow.

Now, a lot of people think we’re talking about the physical environment of the workplace. There are theories that believe brightly painting office walls in bold colours can promote creativity and having games in the break room will boost the morale of your employees.

There’s nothing to say that these little things might help some employees. But, one thing’s for sure, it won’t benefit the majority. 

For a real team culture, it all starts with changing the outlook of your employees and the way they view the workplace in their minds and this means the best way you can promote a strong team culture in your business is through training. This way you can develop the right employee mindset and encourage a common outlook on teamwork.

In particular, we’ve got an amazing online e-learning course through Go1 that you’ve got to check out. We strongly feel this is the right starting point for creating a strong team culture.

This course from Go1 is exactly what you need to educate your employees all about the strong team culture you’re building in your business.

The content focuses on how team culture capitalizes on team member’s strengths so that everyone can come together and share knowledge and collaborate successfully.

This e-learning course is around 30 minutes, which makes it perfect for employee training. Plus, you can use exclusive tracking software to see who has completed their training and how they’re progressing with the content.

In addition, there are thousands of other courses through Go1 you can use to build on your strong team culture. This is a great way to maintain the values and culture you are creating for the long haul.

Through a strong team culture, everyone can work together to reach a common goal. This will have a massive impact on productivity where not only is the workload being shared with multiple employees, but it also allows everyone to bring different skills to the table to achieve the best outcome.

When everyone pitches in and there’s good communication in a team, employees will feel like they have the confidence to share ideas, as well as ask questions. This all means that tasks can be completed more efficiently and more effectively, as everyone can brainstorm and support each other.

This then leads to new ideas and innovation in your company. Every boss wants new goals and accomplishments, right?

Of course, where there is a strong team culture, employees can feel accepted and connected with their colleagues. Good working relationships are crucial to good business and somewhere that encourages people working together creates a better environment for everyone.

What’s more, this will mean that employees are more engaged and happier with their career. Your company can enjoy having better employee retention and millennials that are applying to your company can see what benefits you can bring to their life.

Nobody wants to be in an office where its’ dog eats dog and they feel like everyone is in competition again each other – it’s all about building each other up!

So, it’s never too late to start creating a strong team culture in the office. One of the easiest and fastest ways to begin is by choosing online e-learning courses through Go1.

You can leave your employees to learn all about the advantages of a strong team culture and what they can become a part of in your business.

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.

Believe it or not, most people have an incredible memory, they just don't know how to use it. Other than repeating something multiple times, most of us have never been taught memory techniques that really tap into the power of the human brain.

By completing Skillsoft’s course on Improving your Memory Skills, you'll learn basic memory principles and learn how to use them to memorize and recall almost anything, including speeches, passwords, faces, and lists.

As someone who is terrible at remembering a person’s name right after I have met them, I thought this would be an ideal course to gain some tips on how I might better remember a potential customers name that I want to work with, I believe it will definitely help.

This course is ideal for anyone and everyone looking to improve their memory and recall and covers some key objectives on improving your memory skills. Taking just over 20 minutes, this course can really save you a lot of time trying to remember some simple things in life.

Repetition - Easy really, repeat something over and over again or just the next day, the following week and then month.

Exaggeration – I liked this one, by exaggerating the story either by making it bigger, smaller or even funny -  it really does help to remember it.

Imagery – If you associate an image you want to remember, it forces you to focus.

Focus – basically no multi-tasking. By concentrating on what you are doing or wanting to remember you will have a better chance to memorizing it.

Basically, a brain shortcut to help you remember something.  Quite an old technique, but one that’s still around as it obviously works.

Identify the steps of the memory palace technique

Memorizing lists by using places that you are very familiar with.  Improving your memory skills will show some great examples of using rooms around your house to help you remember things on your “to do” list.

Some very simple but fantastic tips to avoid those awkward situations when you forget a person’s name.  After watching this part of the course, I think I will forever remember ‘Bendy Wendy’.

Recognize tips for memorizing text that you’ll later need to recite from memory

From saying it out loud, reading it backwards or making mistakes, the key thing is repetition.  But repetition is time and something we all lack.  This section of the course really helps improve how you remember text you will need to recite later.

Create strong passwords that are easy to remember

After watching this, I don’t think I will need to write down my passwords anymore and I may even be able to produce stronger passwords also.

In conclusion, if you're looking for methods and techniques to improve your memory, as someone with a self-proclaimed terrible memory, I can highly recommend Skillsoft’s Improving Your Memory Skills course as a great course to help any person improve their memory skills.

The Go1 team are pleased to announce the release of the below updates to the Go1 Platform which have been developed over the period from January to March 2018.  Moving forward, to keep you up to date with our improvements we will be producing monthly release notes which will be available within the first 10 days of each month.

Please remember if you have an suggestions for improvements or new features, please do not hesitate in contacting our team so we can help out.

Go1 Assessors and Course Creators now have a more complete ability to manage and track learner progress. Key features of this improvement capability include:

ability for course creators to define target completion date rules or benchmarks for a course, module, or a specific learning item within a course

ability for due dates on new learner enrollments to be automatically generated based on the completion date rules for the course / module / learning item

ability for assessors to manually update expected completion dates for learner enrollments

ability for the system to automatically calculate the percentage (%) complete and learner status against due dates

creation of a new My Teaching Overview that provides summary information about user activity, including quick links that allow the assessor or course creator to click through to detailed reports

improvements to the enrollments report to show enrollments grouped by course and to show status, progress and days ahead or behind of the enrollments in relation to their due dates

improvements to the assessment report to display it on its own tab and to show date submitted and date marked

changes to reports to allow the use of due date, progress ; date submitted and date marked in custom reports

ability for learners to see more information about how they are progressing against the suggested completion benchmarks for a given course, module or learning item

The videos below provide an overview of this functionality.

As we know from your feedback, many of you embraced the new awards capability when we released it in January. Based on your feedback we have made a number of enhancements to these features, to improve its flexibility and to better meet your business needs. These enhancements include the ability:

to include another award inside an award (in addition to a course or a stand alone learning resource)

for award creators to specify whether they are happy for their users to submit external learning records (including attachments) against an award

for award creators to specify whether external learning records need to be "moderated" or reviewed before they are attributed against an award

for award creators to specify assessors for an award

for awards assessors to be able to validate and "pass" an external learning record

to track all points accumulated under an award - past the point of completion

for award assessors and award creators to log external learning records on behalf of a user

to view awards reports at a summary and detail level (which includes all child awards, courses, stand alone learning resources or external learning records)

The videos below provide an overview of this functionality. Further improvements to awards are planned, please provide feedback or suggestions via product@go1.com

Content providers who sell content via Go1 now have the option to have an Content Provider Administer dashboard, which includes information and statistics relating to their content sales, to be enabled for their portal:

ability to view a statistics on total income, new users, enrollments and new courses for a given period: today, this week, this month, this year

ability to view a bar chart of enrollments for a given period: day, week, month, quarter, year

ability to view a payments report of all purchases completed on the portal

ability to create and manage coupons for use when purchasing a course or standalone learning resource that was created on your portal

The videos below provide an overview of this functionality. Please contact product@go1.com if you wish to have these optional features enabled for your portal.

Anyone creating reports in Go1 now has the ability to use some advanced reporting methods to present summary report data:

ability to create a pivot table display from select reports

ability to specify values for inclusion within the pivot table report display

ability to list a unique value to display within the pivot table report, resulting in a matrix report display

In Q1 Go1 has welcomed two new content partners - Catalyst and Skillboosters - all of which are available in Go1's Premium Subscription offering. Go1 is also incredibly proud to announce we have partnered with world-leading eLearning company Skillsoft, providing over 320 of Skillsoft's courses in our Premium offering.

Catalyst is an Australian training and learning company who provides online, face-to-face and blended learning options through Go1. Go1 is proud to offer Catalyst's specialised First Aid training, which goes beyond basic First Aid and teaches students skills in treating patients who suffer Burns, Trauma Injuries, Allergies, Diabetes or Strokes. Go1 is also pleased to offer Catalyst's compliance training which is a must for every Australian business.

Skillboosters is a UK-based microlearning company specialising in fast-paced, high-impact and engaging video content. Go1 is particularly proud to announce this partnership to our UK customers, who will be pleased to know that Skillboosters can address their businesses compliance requirements through their short-form microlearning content. Skillboosters also has several foreign language courses - available in Spanish, French, and even Finnish, for businesses with multi-lingual employees.

Finally, Go1 is excited to announce our partnership with global leader in training and learning, Skillsoft. Through this partnership, Go1 is now offering over 1000 Skillsoft courses via the Go1 marketplace, and 320 of Skillsoft's most popular courses in our Premium subscription. Skillsoft has a diverse course offering, ranging from PRINCE2 training through to basic soft skills and Microsoft Office Suite training. Businesses can take advantage of this diverse offering to construct effective, engaging and tailored learning pathways for their employees, training them in everything from the soft skills necessary to flourish in a modern workplace, through to specialised project management methodologies such as PRINCE2, ITIL and Six Sigma.

The quality of Skillsoft's content is undisputed, and we are already beginning to see incredible uptake of Skillsoft's courses from Go1 customers.


Go1 users now have the ability to ability to use <CURRENT USER> in save reports

Improvements to the treatment of images in banners, including auto cropping

Improvements made to event booking to consider event capacity

Update made to improve the Y axis labels on bar chart reports

Changes to the users report to exclude inactive users by default

There is now the ability to share a Saved Report by making it available through a URL. This then allows you to use the report data in third party application such as Excel

Implemented a new role - Content Admin - which provides the user with access to a subset of administration functions whilst removing the ability to access portal administration functions such as user management ; portal configuration settings etc

Resolved an issue where a user did not receive an email notification on the assessor uploading a marked assignment.

Fixed an issue stopping users from selecting answers in multiple choice questions.

Fixed an issue stopping users from moving onto the next question upon filling in their "fill in the blank" question type.

Resolved an issue restricting admins from assigning credits to their users.

Resolved an issue that restricted users from accessing their assigned course.

Fixed an issue restricting managers access to their learners on the reports page.

Resolved an issue stopping admins ability to assign new roles to their learners.

Resolved an issue where users would receive results over 100% in their quiz.

An issue was resolved where an Award was not updating upon a user's completion of the courses within.

Fixed an issue restricting admins ability to access attendees within an Event.

Resolved an issue where a user's status on their course was incorrect.

Fixed an issue where select users received a "Failed to load learning item" error message when accessing a course through the marketplace.

Fixed an issue that blocked admins and managers from accessing the My Teaching tab.

Resolved an issue that stopped modular dependencies from appearing on relevant courses.

Resolved an issue that blocked select users from delete enrolments of their learners.

Fixed an issue where users could not change the language of their portal.

An issue was resolved where the number of 'seats' on a scheduled event was incorrect for select courses.

Resolved an issue where an Award was displaying incorrect content.

Sign up for a free trial today and try it out for yourself!

In today’s fast-paced business environments, creativity is critical for success. It’s important for teams to know how to brainstorm and build on creative ideas, to stay innovative and ahead of the competition.

Even though creativity is something that can’t really be taught, it can be facilitated and fostered.

In any role, or industry, employees need to know how to generate, incubate and verify the workability of ideas before implementation. This is a really important process – because after all, failed ideas waste money, time and resources.

Why not take a look at this short online course, specifically designed to help you improve your creative process?

Verifying and Building on Creative Ideas – an online course

The Verifying and Building on Creative Ideas course covers a variety of techniques used to verify and build on creative ideas.

The course gives a really clear explanation of the five-stage creative process model:

You’ll be presented with case study scenarios of employees going through the process, all the way from research to implementation. Throughout the course, you’ll see how important the steps of generation and incubation are to the creative process.

You’ll learn when to use research and when to use simulations to check the workability of an idea. Because while the early stages of brainstorming are generally free from rationale and critique, all creative ideas need to be put into practice, to make sure they'll actually work.

This eLearning course will provide you with helpful tips for checking whether your creative ideas are realistic from an organisational viewpoint. This is about verifying your ideas and testing out the idea for workability, through feedback from others or by key people and using simulations.

While either method may work, one method is usually preferred, depending on the situation. Course participants will be given a handy online table, with specific criteria you can use to help you decide which method is most appropriate to your situation.

Giving you confidence to generate and build on creative ideas

Upon completion of this online course, employees will feel far more confident in using the five-stage creative process model.

Recognise each stage of the creative process

Understand the purpose and activities of the verifying stage

Identify criteria for adopting both canvassing and simulation methods

Come up with criteria-based questions to evaluate the effectiveness of a creative idea, before implementation.

Putting in the time to understand creative process will help individual staff members, teams, and your organisation as a whole, through greater innovation and creativity.

As the course narrator says, “if you want to boost your creativity and come up with innovative strategies, following the creative process model might be the answer!”


Get the Verifying and Building on Creative Ideas course with Go1 Premium

Helping your team to generate and build on creative ideas

Did you know that only 13 percent of customers think a salesperson truly understands their needs?

While a lot of companies believe they’ve got decent sales call process, in reality, customers clearly disagree. Here at Go1, we think we know why this is – most sales people talk too much.

Of course, selling techniques take a lot of persuading and convincing customers that they can benefit from a product or service, but there’s one problem that we see a lot: sales staff are simply not listening to their potential new customers.

This would definitely explain why customers think that nobody understands their needs and obviously this translates into lower sales for your business.

It’s true that sales calls aren’t necessarily easy. In fact, lots of employees are super nervous when they first start out  and don’t know what they’re doing. You really do have to develop the skills and a good technique for a quality sales conversation.

So, how can you help your employees learn how to make successful sales calls? Well, the best way is through providing sales call training.

This is definitely an investment that will see a return for your business since quality sales conversation turns into more business, which leads to bigger profits and more customers. All of this equals success!

A lot of businesses think that the era of sales calls is over. But, this couldn’t be further from the truth. While the rise of technology has meant that sales techniques have changed, there’s still a lot of success that comes with making sales calls to new and existing customers.

In fact, we found out that only 24 percent of people actually open sales emails. On the other hand, sales calls are more personal and interactive – and get better metrics overall. They allow you to really engage with a customer and it offers that human element that shows your business is real.

This is important to customers – they want to be offered more than just a quick sale. They want a positive experience and to build trust with you.

Of course, we all know that sales calls are only effective and productive for your business if they are done successfully. That’s why it’s important to provide your employees with the training they need to feel confident and know how to interact with customers over the phone.

At the end of the day, you don’t want to be too corporate. You need to keep customers engaged and interested in what you’re offering them.

You’ve got to stand out from the crowd and not be like all the other sales calls they receive. You want to build rapport by listening to them and offer them something of value based on what they talk to you about.

This is where our Go1 Premium e-learning course comes in. This is the best way to get your employees up to speed and increase your customer satisfaction and business profits through training.

The Sales Call Flow course is exclusively offered to Go1 Premium customers and its engaging material will make sure that your employees are well versed on how to handle sales calls and secure business for your company.

Your employees will learn all about the eight steps they need to ace their sales calls and the course explains how quality conversation is what the sales call flow is based on.

From learning about how to greet and open a sales call to how to end the conversation and secure the sale, your employees will know how to connect with your customers and secure profits for your business.

This e-learning course is just what you need to get started on sales call training and the content takes around 15 to 20 minutes to complete. In addition, there is a short assessment at the end that lets you test your employee’s knowledge and see how much they’ve learned from the course.

It’s important to remember that practice makes perfect. By providing your employees with training on how they can conduct their sales calls, you can make sure that the needs of your customers are being met.

It’s all about a quality conversation, which involves talking and listening.

With Go1 Premium, you can meet all of your training and compliance needs right in one place. You can gain access to thousands of courses, including the Sales Call Flow course and make sure that your employees can grow and learn with your company.

In addition, we offer an advanced reporting and tracking system, which lets you keep an eye on everyone’s progress. You can see how employees are performing on their training and make sure everyone is up to a standard you are happy with. With a 24 hour support team, help is always on hand when you need it.

Now is the time to focus on your sales call training and make sure that your business offers excellent customer services and generates new leads all year round. Don’t start tomorrow – start today!


Get the Sales Call Flow course with Go1 Premium

How to improve your sales call flow with quality conversations

Do you promote a culture of innovation in your workplace?

A lot of people think that “true” innovation is only something that STEM folks focus on these days or what employees in technology sectors can achieve in business. But, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

In fact, every business should be encouraging innovation in their workplace and making sure that their employees are supported and can channel their passion into creativity and innovative brainstorming.

So, what’s the secret to innovation in today’s marketplace? Why does it move so many mountains in modern business? Well, innovation goes hand in hand with progress and it helps keep your business moving forward, whether this is with fresh and exciting products or new and improved services for your customers.

Creativity and innovative ideas allow you to keep up with the growing demands of customers, since there’s always a need to change and meet their needs and wants.

By encouraging innovation, your business will have an advantage over other companies in the industry and make sure you’re better than your competitors.

Plus, with better processes, your team can become more productive and when employees can share their ideas freely, you’ll see a lot more passion and commitment from them as well.