Some of the trends that we picked up at the ASTD conference at the Exhibition and during the sessions were: • Doing more with less. The economic recession has hit companies in the USA hard and as a result it seems as if they are doing more things in-house. They would, as example, rather train their own trainers with a specific programme, than let external consultants present it all the time. • Apps for everything. There are many downloadable training applications for Smart phones. The Ken Blanchard Company has for example the following free App that you could download on your PC by following these instructions: 1) Open browser and go to https://play.google.com/store/apps 2) Click Search Store 3) Type “How2Lead” and click Enter/return key 4) Install content • Bite size training. There is a trend to shorten the face-to-face component of training. The face-to-face sessions would be limited to a maximum of 90 minutes. Words to describe these sessions are Power Hours, Work-outs, Real-Plays. Even training videos are short – no longer than 12 minutes. • There is a move towards more “portable,” anywhere and on-the-spot training (downloadable on cellphones; ipads; etc.). IBM some years ago used the term “embedded training” where training becomes such a part of the employee’s workday, that they do not even realise that they are busy learning. The mobility of learning interventions supports this notion very well. • Social media is used extensively to engage learners after the training via Twitter, the different Apps, FaceBook, etc. • There is a strong focus on ethics, life balance and sustainability in the training approach and content. • The exploration of the impact of the different generations on learning and training is continuing. • The emphasis is on making informal learning a bit more formal. • The verticality of training was advocated. This means that instead of exposing learners to a variety of learning issues in a given year, organisations focus on one or two important aspects and focus all learning interventions on embedding just those aspects. • There is a movement to redefine coaching as the focus should be on what the person is doing to facilitate learning on an individual basis and not an unproductive debate on whether it is coaching and mentoring. Words like catalyst and producer to replace the word coach are considered. • There is a move towards “We-learning” where the idea is that the context must match intentions. • Women in the workplace are a big issue in the USA as there are more females than men in the workplace since 2010. • There is a major focus on leadership development, specifically in terms of Quiet leadership and servant leadership. Leadership development also focuses on the management of remote/virtual teams and creating a direct link between learning experience and application. The “leader as learner” concept is still high on the agenda. There is also a preference for strengths-based leadership development. • The use of neuro-science in training and development is also gaining ground. The big news at SIOP was that people like Charles Lance, Brian Hoffman and Duncan Jackson openly admitted that the following statement by Sackett and Dreher (1982, p 409) might have directed Assessment Centre researchers and practitioners in the wrong direction: “results provide virtually no support for the view that the assessment centre technique generates dimensional scores that can be interpreted as representing complex constructs .” Sackett and Dreher (1982) based their view on the following findings: § Relatively strong correlations among different dimensions within exercises § Relatively weak correlations among same dimensions across exercises. New perspectives did, however, come to light and these were highlighted during the Symposium titled Dimension, Task, and Mixed-Model Assessment Centers: A Consideration of Three Perspectives by Duncan JR Jackson (the University of Seoul and ASSESTA Co Ltd) and Brian J Hoffman (the University of Georgia). The following insights were shared: Out of the research database, it is now possible to summarise three major perspectives on measurement by Assessment Centres (AC’s): ▪ The dimension-based perspective: ACs measure constructs (dimensions) that can be meaningfully summarised across several exercises. ▪ The task-based perspective: ACs measure role behaviours contextualised within each of several exercises. ▪ The mixed-model perspective: Elements of both dimensions and exercise-specific role behaviours are represented in ACs.