Blog archive: 2021

As we enter the festive season, it’s a time for us to reflect on the tumultuous changes we’ve all endured over the past 12 months and to also look forward to the year ahead.

First of all, happy Thanksgiving everyone! Whether you are from the US or not, and celebrating Thanksgiving with a turkey or tofu, we can all benefit from taking a moment for gratitude.

What’s the difference between an LMS (learning management system) and an LRS (learning record store)?

As learning professionals, we often get caught up in training delivery from our own perspective. We worry about our metrics, whether or not we can prove ROI for stakeholders and assessment results.

What’s the first thing you think about when writing an employee performance review?

Chances are, you dread delivering the pending performance review or have questions like:

Which initiatives to improve employee engagement are the most effective?

Every talent manager, HR leader and C-suite executive would jump at the chance to improve employee engagement with minimal effort.

Effective performance management in government agencies (or the public sector in general) can be challenging due to the size, complexity and multi-layered nature of government organizations.

What’s the difference between employee engagement and employee experience?

Imagine you’re a Product Marketing Manager being bombarded with requests from sales, marketing, product, executive and help teams:

Looking for the best e-learning companies in the USA? 

OKRs, or Objectives and Key Results, is a goal-setting system used by organizations like Google, Spotify and Twitter, to set measurable goals within the performance management process.

Gamification in the workplace can be a double-edged sword.

Corporate e-learning exploded last year from being an (almost) optional training tool, to the complete “toolbox” that every corporate training program relied on.

After the biggest Totara release ever in October 2020, when we launched Totara’s Talent Experience Platform, we've moved from a yearly release cycle to a six-monthly cycle.

Choosing the wrong technology to improve employee experience can cripple your organization's productivity. 

The traditional approach to setting employee performance goals is for the manager to establish several goals at the start of the year with scant input from the employee.

Who’s helped you in your career?

An instructor, manager or colleague probably spotted your potential at some point and pushed you towards training that propelled you to the next level.

Your opinion of an employee’s work is valuable, but it can only go so far. In reality, many managers don’t work directly with their staff, and may not have an accurate impression of their performance.

When Douglas Conant took over as CEO of Campbell’s Soup in 2001, it was the worst-performing major food brand of its time.

Documentation is not something that seems particularly exciting, it’s probably not something you think about much.

Federal government agencies are in the fortunate position of having a lot of very skilled, very experienced talent. However, the pandemic has cast a spotlight on skills gaps in government agencies, and the US federal government is no different. 

While our Totara Academy team are busy creating our new platform for learning professionals, we wanted to find out more about what they're up to. This time, Senior Visual Designer Matt Stokes explains how he creates animations for e-learning.

The last year has created a unique set of challenges for US government agencies.

An adaptable learning experience platform (LXP) like Totara Engage can be customized to support employees at every stage of their career.

Whether you call them employee performance check-ins, sit-downs or one on one meetings, frequent conversations with staff have a powerful effect on employee experience management and productivity.

The complexity, time, cost and resources required to upgrade your software will depend on a variety of factors including whether your site has been customized - either via plugins, with changes to the core system or by an integration with another system

In 2012, Adobe triggered a dramatic increase in its productivity after abolishing its annual performance review format. 

We're thrilled to announce the release of version 14 of Totara’s Talent Experience Platform!

How can customer success and experience managers use training to improve customer experience (CX)? 

The Totara Community has gone from strength to strength.

How keeping on a regular upgrade cycle will maximize system security and give you access to the most valuable features

Employees are most engaged when they’re happy and passionate about their jobs. But how do you know when an employee is happy and passionate?