ALIGN is BizLibrary’s annual training conference that brings together learning professionals and practitioners across industries to discuss best practices, trends within training, share personal stories, and connect with like-minded people. This year we decided to bring ALIGN to our clients in two events and ALIGN 2021 Spring started the year off with a bang!
This year we welcomed more than 330 individuals to our first ALIGN event of 2021. It was full of great presentations from clients and BizLibrary staff alike, and through them all, a few industry themes emerged.
Some sessions covered what is sure to be on our minds a little longer – the pandemic. Kari and Korey from WEOKIE Federal Credit Union talked about managing through tough times. Each of the members of the client panel spoke to their own adaptability and struggles throughout the last year and how they used their partnership with BizLibrary to continue to develop their employees with online learning. Caroline Burke spoke about resilience, a skill we are all likely to be developing throughout this time.
Another theme that emerged, the job market being riper than ever and the skill gaps it is creating. Both our Chief Customer Officer Shannon Kluczny and BizLibrary’s CEO Dean Pichee spoke about the staggering number of job openings right now and how to go about filling those – reskilling and upskilling your employees along with hiring internally were just two ideas mentioned by Dean during his closing statement.
But throughout it all, the theme of employee engagement rang through. From the badging presentation with Demi and Randi from Together Credit Union to the feedback presentation with Mary Cobb from SSOE Group to the keynote address on culture, employee engagement was everywhere.
Our VP of Product Erin Pinkowski spoke about the enhancements we’ve made and what you can expect from us in the future to help provide our clients with the tools they need to continue to close skill gaps by reskilling and upskilling and building better places to work.
Our keynote presentation by Cherrie Davis connected all of the themes. As a learning and development professional with years of experience herself, Cherrie has been in the trenches and gave our attendees some excellent words of encouragement and wisdom to continue growing people even through tough circumstances. She told us how to build strong relationships and understand just how important L&D is to the success of an organization. She encouraged the attendees to listen to their gut feelings and never stop being the “leaders that organizations rely on to cultivate that learning culture.”
While we learned a lot, we had some fun, too! ALIGN 2021 Spring had several interactive breaks that encouraged attendees to either move their bodies physically or stretch their brains mentally during our movement and journal breaks. And of course, ALIGN wouldn’t be complete without a few games!
We’d like to announce the winner of our Training Trivia event… Matthew Deno of Metalsa! Thank you to everyone that played trivia and the ALIGN scavenger hunt.
Wished you could have seen more sessions than you did? Well, we’ve got good news for you! We’ve opened up the majority of the sessions for on-demand viewing starting Monday, May 24 through Friday, May 28. You can dive back into each session and really get the most out of them.
Again, we thank you for attending! Just a few last-second reminders:
- Don’t forget to download the resources and certificates from the sessions!
- We loooove feedback, so please fill out the overall conference survey.
