February 12, 2021 marks the start of the Year of the OX. It is the second animal on the Chinese zodiac and denotes hard work, positivity and honesty. 

At Kaleidoskope, this is also the time when we take stock of things, reflecting on the past year and what’s to come. In the Year of the Metal Ox, it is, literally, about taking stock, livestock to be precise. 

Livestock is responsible for 14.5 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation. Over half of that comes specifically from cows which in the process of digesting their food, also pass gas and belch. This produces a large amount of methane – a potent greenhouse gas – which is then released into the environment. 

Ruminants such as cattle, buffalo, sheep and goats produce nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and methane which are the most emitted gases. One of the ways to fight global warming could be through one less belch at a time.  

Climate change presents a new challenge to the global environment. We are seeing more frequent and intense droughts, storms, heat waves, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and warming ocean which wreak havoc on livelihoods and communities. 

In Singapore, food waste is a significant environmental concern and forms one of the five largest waste streams. Over the last decade, food waste has grown by around 20 percent. According to a study by Singapore Environment Council, the value of food wasted is estimated to be $342 million a year, or the equivalent of 68.4 million plates of Nasi Lemak. 

It is not surprising then that despite our very small geographical size, we contribute around 0.11% of global emissions. 

So why should all these be of any concern to a local learning and development company? 

In 2021, Kaleidoskope is pleased to partner a group of individuals who are passionate about wanting to share their experience about the environment and related issues. They believe that we must take action to protect our planet, no matter how small that first step is. While it is not always possible to reverse the damage that has been done, it is not impossible to mitigate, lessen and ease the burden that we have been putting on our natural environment. 

Our team of experts will be working with our clients to explore environmental, social, and governance (ESG) employee engagement issues.  These have become increasingly central to an organization’s reputation and financial performance. Notably, it has become increasingly the subject of great interest and scrutiny by key stakeholders, investors, ratings agencies, clients, and government authorities.

Yet, there has been little or limited attention paid as to how a company’s ESG performance can impact one of its most important stakeholders: its employees. 

Employee engagement is critical to achieving ESG goals.  Many successful global brands have moved beyond informing employees about sustainability initiatives to inspire their participation and drive greater sustainability impact. 

As you look to plan your employee engagement programmes for 2021, you may want to consider their involvement in helping you to facilitate the achievement of your company’s ESG goals. 

Here’s why employee engagement matters:

• When it comes to employee satisfaction, top employers have average ESG scores that are 14% higher than the global average.
• Satisfied employees work harder, stay longer with their employer and seek to produce better results for the organisation.

These companies’ most attractive students and young professionals ESG score a whopping 25% higher than the global average. 

Today’s millennials are at a pivotal point and their growing influence is difficult to deny.  They really do want to work for environmentally sustainable companies.  ESG performance will become increasingly important in attracting and retaining talent in a world where millennials and Gen Z come to make up much of the total global workforce. 

So, if you want to future proof your human resource talent, it is critical that you prioritise ESG as a key part of your engagement strategy.

As you take stock of your employee engagement activities for 2021, do consider giving us a non-obligatory call and find out how we can partner you and your team in creating meaningful ESG activities.

References:
https://www.nccs.gov.sg/singapores-climate-action/singapore-emissions-profile/
https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2018/02/20/millennials-want-workplaces-social-purpose-company-measure/
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-livestock-emissions-idUSKBN1K91CU

Dopamine and Leadership Learning: How Engagement and Retention Drive Results

Dopamine is a chemical compound, a hormone, and a neurotransmitter. In normal circumstances, it is not associated with corporate and leadership training. Or a learning and development company in Singapore such as Kaleidoskope, for that matter.

Dopamine is somewhat of a versatile hormone that plays various important roles in our brain and our bodies. It functions as a neurotransmitter—sending signals to other nerve cells, and is responsible for the motivational component of reward-motivated behavior. 

It is the main chemical of pleasure—eliciting arousal, movement, and mood that makes people want to execute activities with haste, vigor, and motivation. No wonder there are drugs that were created to elevate dopamine levels in the brain—to produce euphoric levels of wellbeing, heightened arousal, and increased focus.

However, what few people know is that dopamine is also a “teaching signal”—much like a sports coach who says to his players, “Great job!” or “You can do better!” to encourage them to pursue a reward in the future.  Scientists and researchers alike have described dopamine fluctuations almost as a “continuous cheer to motivate, with brief moments of criticism.”

But in more recent research, it’s been discovered that dopamine creates more than just excitement about learning:  it actually controls learning retention. In one study, the group of mice injected with dopamine learnt a task with flying colors, but the control group (dopamine-deficient) showed a different result. 

To summarise what the wealth of research and studies say, scientists have drawn two (2) key conclusions:

1. when dopamine is NOT present during the learning process, a person’s learning will suffer due to the lack of motivation.  This is engagement during a workshop, or a webinar.
   
2. because dopamine is linked to memory, it triggers the brain to remember the action/ materials.  This is retention.

Therefore,

Dopamine = Engagement + Retention

All this information really suggests is that engagement isn’t merely a “nice-to-have” when it comes to learning. It is an absolute necessity to optimise your return of investment in all your learning initiatives.

So, the big question is: how can we find ways to release dopamine on your online learning (short of “doping” on illegal substances)? The answer is: learning through fun, engagement, and enjoyment.

Learning = Fun + Engagement + Enjoyment

To this end, Kaleidoskope is pleased to partner with Knolskape,  the leader in gamified learning solutions as together we explore a wide variety of topics and help learners learn while playing games through business simulation. Our virtual and online business simulations imitate a real-world process or system over time incorporated in a 45-90-minute game time.

The courses are structured in ways that let learners make mistakes, explore their own motivations, reflect, gain and share knowledge, all the time while having loads of fun. And most critically, releasing and unpacking tons of dopamine, which we have all learnt by now is crucial to engagement and retention of knowledge!

Now more than ever, it is important that our employees have the opportunity to learn new skills; pick up new knowledge in an environment that allows them to let their hair down a little; and have some fun and simply engage with and enjoy the virtual company of fellow colleagues.

For starters, we have the Happiness@Work simulation—a game that is based on Professor Raj Raghunathan’s BAMBA© Model of Happiness, bridging the gap between theory and application.

It’s a 45-minute virtual game that, when completed, equips, develops, and creates leaders who can lead happy, productive, and successful teams. It teaches leaders practical tools to foster a culture of a happy and healthy workforce.

And if you are looking to enhance your employees’ Leadership Skills, teach Agility, Change Management, or foster a Coaching culture, or simply work on Building Trust, do consider injecting  your learning initiatives with a shot of dopamine!

Want to know how a high-performance learning journey can benefit your team or company, especially as we navigate the business and organisational landscape of the new normal? Feel free to call +65 6549-7535 or message us on WhatsApp, or simply fill up the form below.

Sources:
KNOLSKAPE’s Agile simulation
KNOLSKAPE’s Happiness@Work simulation
KNOLSKAPE’s Leading Teams Effectively
KNOLSKAPE’s Trust Simulation
KNOLSKAPE’s Coaching Simulation
eLearning Industry
Neuroscience News
University of Michigan

The pandemic has changed the way people and organisations work together—inevitably and perhaps more permanently than we expect. And right from the initial stages of the Covid-19 outbreak in Singapore, we at Kaleidoskope have been supporting our clients’ corporate training and leadership training needs with our high-performance virtual learning journeys. 

Now more than ever, the world has come to rely heavily on technology, especially in overcoming the restrictions of working from home or the staggered schedules of physically reporting to the office. 

Therefore, we at Kaleidoskope have adapted our learning content and approach to cater to a virtual environment, to the different personalities of adult learners, and the disparities in learning styles. We’ve designed each of our 90-minute interactive sessions as a growth-enabling resource for when in-person teaching is improbable.

Naturally, one cannot expect the same results by simply duplicating what is taught in a face-to-face workshop to a virtual environment and expect the same results. And so, together with our clients and partners on this journey, we have all learnt to adjust, evolve, and adapt to this new normal.

Here’s how your participants can benefit from our approach to virtual learning and how you can continue to sustain your learning initiatives.

TAP HERE to embark on Kaleidoskope’s High-performance Virtual Learning Journeys

1. PARTICIPATION ON YOUR TERMS

Online learning affords a certain degree of anonymity, creating an environment that enables many of our participants to feel more confident in discussions.  In a virtual environment, some visual cues, or social or emotional signals are not enabled.  Participants who may be typically reluctant to join in on face-to-face discussions are often more vocal, and open to speak up during virtual sessions.

The introverts in teams, or personalities who may be more intimidated by the spotlight, will find virtual learning more engaging because there is now an environment to participate without too much peer pressure.  They now have less pressure, more time to reflect, process their thoughts and present their ideas or inputs.

In a virtuous cycle, they start to be more confident and in so (based on our observations), often leading discussions, presentations and extracting optimal benefit from these virtual learning experiences.

Overall, the online learning platforms let people express themselves more openly and with more confidence.  The “equalising effect” of the pseudo-anonymity creates an environment where there is a healthier exchange of learnings, reflections, and experiences among the participants.

FIND OUT what previous participants say, and the results of their training with us

2. VARIETY IN THE LEARNING PROCESS

As most face-to-face workshops go, participants are grouped to discuss among themselves and then present their findings as a team.

In our virtual sessions, learning activities are structured using a variety of platform functionalities to engage and sustain our participants’ interest. We’ve integrated chats, so you can ask questions and share your thoughts instantly.  

Breakout rooms let us split interactions into separate sessions and assign participants to each group for discussions or presentations. Polls and quizzes allow us to create fun and interactive learning bites. 

3. COST EFFECTIVE, FLEXIBLE, AND CONVENIENT

Remote operations have become a necessity with the current situation of health-related mobility restrictions and safety measures. Nevertheless, just because you can’t get to a particular location or congregate in large numbers doesn’t mean your learning journey should be derailed.

Unlike regular workshops, Kaleidoskope’s virtual training is accessible anywhere there’s a stable internet connection. All you need to join is a laptop, a tablet, or even a smartphone, based on your company’s technical and privacy requirements.

Our timings are flexible, our workshops cater to our participants’ schedules and our participants can complete their assignments or learning objectives at their own pace.

Moreover, with the pandemic’s financial impact rippling across industries, we’ve re-packaged and re-priced our online learning solutions to reflect our commitment to our clients’ learning and development initiatives.

The virtual environment also means that the expenses of booking physical venues, or providing travel or food allowances are largely eliminated. 

KNOW HOW our approach to leadership training improves your performance

4. ACCESS TO TRAINERS, RESOURCE PERSONS, OR FACILITATORS

To organize a face-to-face workshop, international speakers, trainers or coaches require a hefty investment in travel fees and accommodation, on top of professional fees.  Then time allotted is often constrained to a day or two. 

In the past few months, we have had opportunities to host international speakers, trainers and coaches on our platform, adding another exciting layer and dimension to our clients’ learning journeys.

MEET OUR TRAINERS who helped shape and innovate today’s corporate landscape

5. PREVENTS SCREEN FATIGUE AND ‘ZONING OUT’

Let’s face it.  Zoom (or Webex, or Teams, or Skype) fatigue is real.  

And it is easy for most people to zone out or get distracted when they’re sitting through hours of talk during a training workshop.  The same goes for watching pre-recorded lectures and presentations. After a while, screen fatigue sets in, your focus flags, and your interest wanes.

These are going to be obstacles to the learning process.

Our virtual learning sessions are structured around  easy-to-digest learning bites, so participants can grasp it quickly, plenty of discussions and reflections so they can keep continually engaged.

There are  frequent coffee breaks, check-ins, intermissions and intervals, allowing our participants to relax, recuperate and collect their thoughts and catch that breather (or two).

Now that you know what you can gain from our virtual training initiatives, we’re inviting you to REGISTER NOW for the following courses that fit seamlessly into your organisation’s learning phase and your team members’ levels of capability.

• Time and Priority Management
• Negotiation Skills
• Managing Up
• Being Mindful
• Influencing Skills
• Giving Constructive Feedback
• Effective Meetings
• Coaching Skills
• Being Assertive

If you need more information on how Kaleidoskope’s online leadership training can enhance your organisational and individual performance, please CONTACT US, and we’ll be happy to answer your questions. #supportlocal

At Kaleidoskope, the learning never stops.