Employee Learning Week

 Listen to the Chapter's new Employee Learning Week promotional Public Service Announcement. Thanks to Scott Melanson and Debi Green for their work in producing it. (PS. This is the "long" version.)

Today's New York Times features on the front page, above the fold, an article on "Factories Ready to Hire, But Employers Find Skill Shortage." It looks like our Nation's Newspaper of Record has finally discovered the skills gap, something ASTD, including this Chapter, have been talking about for quite some time now. While you can read the whole article by clicking the link above, here is a key passage:

Eleni Papadakis, executive director of Washington State's workforce Training and Education Board (and a member of ASTDps's Employee Learning Week Advisory Board) reports a startling statistic on her blog.

Addressing the need of "those adult workers who have not gone beyond high school and are unable to find and hold a family-wage job," Papadakis observes as follows:

"Action is the antidote to despair." -- Joan Baez

You can register now for two new learning programs in December to help you "walk the talk," in honor of our profession's upcoming Employee Learning Week (ELW) celebration, the ELW slogan of "Linking Learning to Organizational Results."

Employee Learning Week is ASTD's awareness campaign to build public understanding of, and support for, workplace learning as a vital business development strategy.  On-going employee learning is essential in all American organizations -- large or small, for-profit, non-profit or government -- to help the United States maintain its economic competitiveness in a rapidly changing and increasing global marketplace.