TOC 2017 Recap: Talent Development – How Sweet It Is!
Written by: Michelle Clark
The Training Officers Consortium (TOC) 2017 Annual Institute was held in Hershey, PA from April 30 – May 3, 2017, and Management Concepts was honored to be a silver sponsor. More than 150 attendees, a few of our own in-house experts, and our President, Steve Maier, showed up for the inspired learning and knowledge-sharing the institute is known for. The theme this year was “Talent Development – How Sweet It Is!”
The institute provided the attendees with a range of speakers and sessions on such topics as:
- Learning Measurement & Analytics
- Leadership Development
- Career Development
- Learning Technologies
- Training Design
- Training Development
Over the course of three days we conducted two sessions of our own. The first by Joy Oliver, Director of Assessment Services at Management Concepts, presented, “Using Lagging Indicators to Measure Training Impact at the Individual & Organizational Levels,” where she discussed best practices to measure the value and impact of training on individual, team, and organizational performance.
Our second presentation was led by Debbie Eshelman, Managing Director of the Human Capital and Talent Management Practice at Management Concepts. He presentation, “How to be Resilient During Chaotic Times” shared how to rebound from setbacks and adversity when facing difficult times.
The conversations in the rooms were engaging and riveting – exactly why attending the institute is necessary for great dialogue and sharing of best practices!
Some of the key ideas discussed at TOC were:
- Leading Change: Change your mindset to achieve lasting change within an organization.
- Mentoring: Launch a mentoring initiative to help facilitate career and leadership development. And it promotes retention of institutional knowledge.
- Webinars: Something that can’t be overstated, especially if your org still isn’t implementing webinars: this format delivers content that is engaging, informative, and efficient for any generation of mobile learners.
The conference ended with a keynote presentation by Ira Koretsky, CEO of the Chief Storyteller. Through a lively and insightful program, he challenged the audience to think about how we develop and deliver our personal stories. My four key takeaways from his presentation are:
- The best networkers are relationship builders
- Use personal experience stories to engage hearts and minds
- Make sure your audiences quickly grasp the message in your graphics
- Be dynamic and hold your audience’s attention from beginning to end
The TOC community provided Management Concepts with a tremendous amount of information to take back to our teams and discuss the training and performance management concerns government employees are dealing with today and in the future.
Thank you to TOC for another great institute. See you next year!
